I have always wanted to write about you but I don't know where to start. After too many movies, too many walks and too many talks, it's all become a jumbled mashed up of memories and YOU.
We have been strutting this dance for quite some time now. Almost three years if you're going to disregard the cliff hanger months in between.
Our first date wasn't something out of a Mills and Boon classic. I still remember that we met somewhere in Quezon Avenue and we got a cab to Greenhills. The conversation inside the cab was decent enough. I think the movie was "300" if I remember it correctly... During the film, we were trying to dub some very funny lines over what the characters were saying and it's just so amazing how our brains kinda clicked even though we technically knew each other for 20 minutes back then...that's when I felt that I have met another kindred. The night ended perfectly with you giving me a rough draft of Spidey drawn on a Starbucks napkin paper.
It was followed by another movie date and another and another... Then I think it was some time last year when we both discovered that we both could sing decently that we started to hit the karaoke nests and start catarwauling hits from Aerosmith to Zappa.
I told you once before that I like you. And you told me that you like me too but you don't like complications and that you aren't the right guy for me. I conceeded because perhaps like my daughter's dad we are better off as friends.
So I started dating other guys and you sometimes tell me about your conquests. But whenever you'd notice that I am getting too close to a particular someone you ask me weird stuff... maybe it's just my imagination but I can't help but sense a little jealousy perhaps?
You were my only friend who was there for me when Ken and I broke up. I was a mess... I was broke... My mom threw me out of the house... I was running a fever and my throat was itchy. It was your birthday then and it was two days after New Year's and all establishments were either closed or a can of sardines but you patiently scanned the Metro with me for an available karaoke den or bowling alley or basically ANYTHING just to take my mind off my failed engagement. You patiently heard my complaints and my sighs of what-have-yous...
It wasn't all perfect, we do sometimes have our scrapes. Actually I have lots of issues when it comes to you. But all is forgiven because it has been established from that start that it would NEVER be US. So whenever I would get tired of waiting and just walked out on you after you braved the Ayala - Quezon Avenue MRT commute and the Commonwealth traffic during rush just to reach SM Fairview before the last full show only to receive a text message that I'm safely tuck in my bed, I would never hear a single word of ranting from you because it's not us... And whenever you'd skip one of our Sunday night things because you're too tired from a tourney ,or whatever it is you gamers do, I feel as if I have to right to make "tampo" because of the same aforesaid rule.
I have never met your friends nor you have met any of mine... It was never arranged to be that way.
You would tell me about your folks and your brothers and I would tell you about my mom and my daughter but we both cringe at the idea of meeting each other's blood relations.
I think it's not that we're ashamed about each other or something horrible like that. But our "relationship" has an unspoken mantra that these things would just make things more complicated that the usual.
Last night was another date of similar patterns. Good food,fun movie and good conversation. It was just marred by the fact that because of my natural knack for stupidity I somewhat misplaced my phone and some lucky bloke happened to have found it. But this certain smudge in the pattern made me looked at "US" at a different perspective.
You asked me if I'd allow you to buy me a new one because it's my birthday and all you were with me when my phone got lost.
I said a blunt no.
And remember what else I said to you last night?
"I am here because I like you and not because of anything else that I can gain when I am with you."
And you smiled and you hugged me. And I joked that you are just hugging me so that you'd rid yourself of guilt.
That's how I am... I joke about how I feel for you. Because I am afraid that we weren't meant to BE and it's best for us to stay as eternal movie buddies.
I pretend as though I am insensitive. But, really, I am not.
I notice the little things and they bother me.
You wouldn't believe how little the things that set me off.
But I suffer quietly, in secret, for fear of being accused of being too sensitive or scrutinizing.
For fear that I might lose our friendship in the process.
Because I have a confession to make conversations with you keeps me sane. And frankly, I really don't know how I can survive without them.
No comments:
Post a Comment