While I am not one to travel for less than five days, I found myself saying yes to an unusual invitation from a former classmate.
We used to sit in the same class on my last semester in college. In that class, I was almost always late because I had to run from the gym (I had table tennis for PE) to my home college. My normal attire then was my UP PE shirt and the volleyball jersey shorts given to me by a highschool friend, and rubber shoes. Since I was usually the last one to enter the classroom, I had the special seat reserved for me, that seat which students would not dare take because it is the one nearest to the professor's table. Good thing I had no qualms about it and have never been intimidated even by terror professors. In fact, most of my classmates admired me for my ability to approach even the most feared of professors and to ask uncomfortable questions. So anyway, those times, that former classmate and I never spoke to each other. Just plain hi or hello. He was always seated between his two friends, one was friendly towards me, the other was a noisy guy in class. I remember being amused with those three because they seldom did homework and yet they endeared themselves to our professors by means of class participation and jokes.
We used to sit in the same class on my last semester in college. In that class, I was almost always late because I had to run from the gym (I had table tennis for PE) to my home college. My normal attire then was my UP PE shirt and the volleyball jersey shorts given to me by a highschool friend, and rubber shoes. Since I was usually the last one to enter the classroom, I had the special seat reserved for me, that seat which students would not dare take because it is the one nearest to the professor's table. Good thing I had no qualms about it and have never been intimidated even by terror professors. In fact, most of my classmates admired me for my ability to approach even the most feared of professors and to ask uncomfortable questions. So anyway, those times, that former classmate and I never spoke to each other. Just plain hi or hello. He was always seated between his two friends, one was friendly towards me, the other was a noisy guy in class. I remember being amused with those three because they seldom did homework and yet they endeared themselves to our professors by means of class participation and jokes.
This former classmate and I became Facebook friends but we never had any meaningful interactions save for a few likes of posts or photos, and at one time, he invited me to his house to celebrate his birthday but I wasn't able to attend. In fact, I had no plans of attending because I was afraid of being out of place since I am not like people my age who drink and party a lot. Also because back when we were classmates, I had a little crush on him and I stay away from my crushes because I saw crushes as threats to my peace.
So it came as a big surprise when a week after his birthday, he chatted me up on Facebook and asked if I was in Manila. Friends ask this same question whenever they want to meet and so they check first if I'm even in the metro. I don't know what spirit possessed me at that time or maybe it was out of reflex, I replied "yeah, wanna meet up?" And we agreed to have dinner near my workplace. I was able to keep myself calm upon seeing him. He used to be my crush and whenever I saw him in class I couldn't help but think that he must be a very nice person and a shy one at that. When I first saw him that time at the mall, I was surprised to find his size more than doubled. But he looked way more approachable now compared to the slimmer him. He used to resemble the Korean version of Domyouji (played by Lee Min Ho) and I happen to like guys with curly/ wavy hair, makes them look so hot and sexy. Later on, I thought to myself, maybe if he was still the same size when I first met him, I wouldn't have agreed to go out because he would seem like a threat to my peace, and that is the last thing I wanted after having just moved on successfully.
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| His pick: YAYOI. Awesome Japanese food. It's easy to see that I am a consumer of Japanese culture and cuisine. |
It was a simple catch up. I was a bit nervous because I really knew nothing about him except that he travels way more often compared to me. So I had to make sure to stick to safe topics and he also made me feel at ease. He talked about his family and I was surprised at how he seems to be comfortable talking about his childhood trauma to me, a mere classmate who hasn't seen him in almost a decade. I could very well relate since my family is pretty toxic, also. But at least I had my yaya who was my source of comfort in this cold dark world. I told him about my potted plants and how I would love to own a piece of land just so I can have my own vegetable garden.
My sister and I had agreed to go home together and when she got tired of shopping, which is unusual BTW, she texted me asking when are we going to finish. So we had to part ways and I even forgot his name when I introduced him to my sister. (It was super embarrassing but nothing can compare to what happened late last year when I went out with a guy whose family is friends with my brother's fiancée. We had lots to talk about because we both travel a lot and after getting dinner and some ice cream, we exchanged numbers only to find out we both forgot each other's names! How awkward and stupid was that! I still laugh when ever I tell that story to my friends.) So J mumbled his complete name which is rather long and I find it cute and I really didn't comprehend half of it but I suddenly remembered his nickname! My sister asked me again his full name when we were headed to the van terminal and I just said, I forgot. Shucks.
So anyway, I didn't want to give it much thought except I am happy that someone from my past without much connection to me reached out and went out with me. It felt like my reconnection project after finishing my post-graduate diploma studies. Weeks after, I invited him to watch movies at a film festival but he declined due to an emergency. We lost contact for a while and out of nowhere he messaged me and asked me to travel with him just because he found me one very cool person. (Spending New Year's Eve with him up until daybreak of 2020, I remembered to ask him what he meant by "cool" then and he said that I was fun to be with. The same comment I get from my male friends who just want to hang out but never did try to pursue me romantically.) So in October of 2019, we went to Albay together with my roommate in Penang, a girl whom I eventually regretted bringing with us because she was overly dependent on us and cared only about herself. We stayed in his house the night before our early morning flight and he cooked fish curry for us. He used pampano and it was really good, except I would have preferred a spicy version. That was the first time I saw how cool J was. And he became an even cooler person in my eyes because he never complained even when we stayed in a non-AC room, even when in Rapu-Rapu Island we never did any of the touristy stuff and had simple meals in the local carinderia. We swam in what the locals call "Look" which is a bay facing the open sea. It was pretty safe, not much waves. I saw how strong he is when we hiked to the waterfalls and back. I wanted to hug him if only because he reminds me of my favorite panda Po, as he tried to keep up with us. In order to make the hike a bit entertaining and less tiresome, I played sweeper so I could keep an eye on him in case something happens and sang animé songs like my favorite Fields of Hope. The objective was to lighten up the atmosphere because I was thinking maybe he didn't like all the strenuous activity. I was surprised he knew the song! And I think I began to like him when we did some karaoke with the locals and it turned out that he is karaoke king! WOW! I once told myself, I wanted to be with someone musically inclined and who knows how to cook. Maybe he is sent by the heavens to me.
Never mind that he didn't greet me on my birthday. Never mind that he still hasn't handed to me the dried fish he bought in Seoul in September as of this writing. But when I was asking around who'd love to go with me to a concert where Ben&Ben would be performing, he was the only one who said yes. We had early dinner at High Grounds in Timog area. He said he used to play computer games there. The café has really cool fusion food. He planned to treat me but I was almost 30 minutes late so I volunteered to pay the bill. I´m so happy to find someone who´s super passionate about music and who can understand me whenever I talk about why I love this kind of music and why not that kind of music. We shared a cup of DQ ice cream during the concert and after that, went for some milk tea, my first time to taste Macao Imperial. Then we headed to a cool karaoke place where the mic seems to beautify everything. We did 2 hours and he dropped me off at our village gate at 3AM, the latest I went home to since we moved to the north. Before arriving home, I managed to ask him if he has plans of settling down and he said, if given the chance, why not.
The next few days saw us becoming closer in chats. I was starting to feel at ease with this guy who´s just so talented and so kind I cried a couple of times whenever I remember stories of his exes. Of course everything was from his POV but then imagining the abuses he´s had suffered from different people, my heart hurt for him and I cried. Why do people hurt good people and love bad people? Everytime we're together and remember all the pain he's been through, I wanted to hug him and protect his happiness, seeing that he is a very nice person although he has numerous flaws of his own. I was thinking what if years back I had been bold enough to be friendly with him, what if I attended his birthday party in 2013, what if I confessed to him back then? On second thought, looking back, me during my undergraduate years is an angry girl and I might not be able to give him the love and care he deserved.
I invited him to jog around UP but we ended up walking and going on a mini food trip. That was fine. I actually foresaw that already. We talked more about relationships, his past mistakes which he regrets so much. I asked how his brother is doing after a sudden breakup with his fiancée. Out of the blue, he said that marriage is just something society expects from us and all the postmodern stuff. It made me sad, because it seemed like suddenly he changed his mind about marriage. While right now I am still ambivalent about marriage, I am pretty sure I'd want to have children of my own, although at times I fear that bringing them into this world might be a bad idea because of the chaos and the prevalence of heartless, robotic humans. At this point I was surprised to learn that he wrote a children's book. We talked about poetry and songs and how he likes Sylvia Plath and postmodern stuff and I said I like Romantic ones like Wordsworth, Blake, Becquer and that I care about the form and structure of the poem as much as I care about the message.
We didn't see each for days and on the 31st, I picked up the courage to ask him if he's free to hang out. At that time, I have noticed that I was always the one who's taking the initiative to ask him out and to plan activities together and I was kind of thinking that maybe he is just being polite when he tells me he enjoys being with me. He never asked me out except for the trip that we planned together. So I was thinking maybe this time he will decline because NYE is kind of special and if he declines, that will be the last time I will be proactive. He was more than happy to see me but he asked to meet up after their family dinner, which is understandable. As for me, I panicked when I later on realized that establishments close very early. I asked him if he wanted to postpone to a later date instead because we didn't have anywhere to hang out in and he asked his friends around and one couple agreed to take us in. So he picked me up and together we spent NYE and first hours of 2020 together. It made me feel special but I do not want to assume anything since he never said he liked me. Everything just happened so fast and I just want to relax and see how it goes.
My sister and I had agreed to go home together and when she got tired of shopping, which is unusual BTW, she texted me asking when are we going to finish. So we had to part ways and I even forgot his name when I introduced him to my sister. (It was super embarrassing but nothing can compare to what happened late last year when I went out with a guy whose family is friends with my brother's fiancée. We had lots to talk about because we both travel a lot and after getting dinner and some ice cream, we exchanged numbers only to find out we both forgot each other's names! How awkward and stupid was that! I still laugh when ever I tell that story to my friends.) So J mumbled his complete name which is rather long and I find it cute and I really didn't comprehend half of it but I suddenly remembered his nickname! My sister asked me again his full name when we were headed to the van terminal and I just said, I forgot. Shucks.
So anyway, I didn't want to give it much thought except I am happy that someone from my past without much connection to me reached out and went out with me. It felt like my reconnection project after finishing my post-graduate diploma studies. Weeks after, I invited him to watch movies at a film festival but he declined due to an emergency. We lost contact for a while and out of nowhere he messaged me and asked me to travel with him just because he found me one very cool person. (Spending New Year's Eve with him up until daybreak of 2020, I remembered to ask him what he meant by "cool" then and he said that I was fun to be with. The same comment I get from my male friends who just want to hang out but never did try to pursue me romantically.) So in October of 2019, we went to Albay together with my roommate in Penang, a girl whom I eventually regretted bringing with us because she was overly dependent on us and cared only about herself. We stayed in his house the night before our early morning flight and he cooked fish curry for us. He used pampano and it was really good, except I would have preferred a spicy version. That was the first time I saw how cool J was. And he became an even cooler person in my eyes because he never complained even when we stayed in a non-AC room, even when in Rapu-Rapu Island we never did any of the touristy stuff and had simple meals in the local carinderia. We swam in what the locals call "Look" which is a bay facing the open sea. It was pretty safe, not much waves. I saw how strong he is when we hiked to the waterfalls and back. I wanted to hug him if only because he reminds me of my favorite panda Po, as he tried to keep up with us. In order to make the hike a bit entertaining and less tiresome, I played sweeper so I could keep an eye on him in case something happens and sang animé songs like my favorite Fields of Hope. The objective was to lighten up the atmosphere because I was thinking maybe he didn't like all the strenuous activity. I was surprised he knew the song! And I think I began to like him when we did some karaoke with the locals and it turned out that he is karaoke king! WOW! I once told myself, I wanted to be with someone musically inclined and who knows how to cook. Maybe he is sent by the heavens to me.
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| I finally got to see the majestic almost perfect cone of Mt. Mayon, pride of Bicol. |
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| The sunset as viewed from our simple room in Rapu-Rapu Island |
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| Bicol's famous chili ice cream at 1st Colonial (NAIA T3): I had the spiciest one. He had the less spicy version. |
We didn't see each for days and on the 31st, I picked up the courage to ask him if he's free to hang out. At that time, I have noticed that I was always the one who's taking the initiative to ask him out and to plan activities together and I was kind of thinking that maybe he is just being polite when he tells me he enjoys being with me. He never asked me out except for the trip that we planned together. So I was thinking maybe this time he will decline because NYE is kind of special and if he declines, that will be the last time I will be proactive. He was more than happy to see me but he asked to meet up after their family dinner, which is understandable. As for me, I panicked when I later on realized that establishments close very early. I asked him if he wanted to postpone to a later date instead because we didn't have anywhere to hang out in and he asked his friends around and one couple agreed to take us in. So he picked me up and together we spent NYE and first hours of 2020 together. It made me feel special but I do not want to assume anything since he never said he liked me. Everything just happened so fast and I just want to relax and see how it goes.
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