How to Become Disillusioned with Finding Love

Watch Hollywood romantic movies.  Believe that everyone has a one true love.  Etch into your soul the conviction that you will find that one guy who will inevitably accept you for everything that you are.  Who will love you unconditionally and without question.

Create a list of the qualities the love of your life must have. Set high standards.  Reach for the stars.  He must be tall, handsome, brooding and mysterious.  Intelligent and quirky.  Wealthy.  He must go to the gym regularly. He must have dimples dotting his face when he smiles. His hair must fall a certain way all the time.  

Envision showing him off to your friends and telling them how you fell in love with him because of his lovable personality, or because of how good a person he is.  How you fell in love with the way he laughed.   Or touched your hand.  Or played with your baby sister. Or any other quirky little habit that remind people of how cute he is. Subtly insert a few anecdotes that show how great in the sack he can be.  

Know that you don’t need to tell them how impossibly handsome, intelligent, and wealthy he is; they would see that for themselves. Imagine seeing your friends’ eyes widen with envy.

Stamp down any notion that there might be something wrong with you.  That’s impossible. Remind yourself that you are perfect, or as close to it as anyone can be.  You deserve this, and you deserve someone like him. Cosmopolitan said so, and it can’t be wrong.

Go out on date after date after date.  Constantly be disappointed. Rejection, both rejecting and being rejected, makes you cynical. Build up walls. Surround yourself with the emotional equivalent of a moat. Insult people, and point out how they can never live up to your standards.  Stop dating. Or date with the knowledge that these people will only prove why you are better off single in the first place.

Watch Hollywood romantic movies only so you can make contemptuous comments on the stupidity of their plot. Smile patronizingly at friends who believe in a one true love.  Remind yourself that it doesn’t exist.  That it couldn’t exist. That its existence would imply that there might be something wrong with you.  And that couldn’t be true.   Convince yourself that you like being alone.  No, that you love being alone.  That you don’t feel lonely, and that whatever hole you feel in your life can be filled up by friends and family.  Sleep at night with the nagging sentiment that you are missing something, and hope for the best that things will be better in the morning.

People are Made Up of Stories

Image taken here.

Dear Fickle Cattle,

I'm a new fan of your blog.  I haven't even browsed through each tab and entry yet.  I just saw a link from a friend in FB to your blog and I became an instant fan after I read your open letter.  Honestly, I cried, I could relate to it so much.  I hope you don't mind my telling this story. 

I realized I was gay towards the end of college in UP Diliman.  I was supposed to have a secret wedding with my girlfriend at the time since we both thought she was pregnant.  When we found out that she actually wasn't, it was such a relief. Afterwards, we decided to take things more slowly.  During that period, I tried to find myself, and slowly realized my inclination towards the dark side of the force. (I'm not sure how I feel about comparing homosexuality with the dark side, but I'll let that slide for now -- FC).  It was a very emotional stage in my life when I realized I was gay.  I didn't know who to turn to. 

During my years of experimentation and struggle, I met this guy named T.  I instantly felt a connection with him though he had a very different view of gay relationships compared to what I had.  Basically, he thought that having a relationship which no one would acknowledge did not make any sense.

Knowing that we could only be friends, I contented myself with the friendship he had to offer.  Eventually, I met two more of his friends.  The four of us became close, and our friendships made me almost forget that I liked T as more than a friend in the first place. It helped me move on. 

Eventually, T realized that he did like me more than as a friend. By that time however, I realized I was already falling for our other friend A.  When we realized that T was falling for me, A and I decided not to tell T of our relationship to protect him from unnecessary hurt. 

This was a mistake. Our other friend B decided to put our story in his blog, thinking no one would ever read it.  T eventually did, and everything became a big mess. The relationship, the secrecy and the eventual unintentional disclosure created a rift between all of us. 

I decided to distance myself from all three of them since I felt that I started our falling-out. Consequently, we grew apart.

A lot of things have happened since.  But, even with all that has changed, I still long for the kind of friendship I had with them which I have never experienced, and probably would never experience, again.  When I saw your post, An Open Letter to an Old Friend, it reminded me of my friendship with T.  I feel like those are the exact same words I would've told him, given the chance.  He was my best friend and I regret crossing the line that caused our friendship to end.

Since coming out in college, I never had any gay friends other than T, A and B. But I already feel like the possibility of our friendship being rekindled died out years ago.  I'm not even sure if I'll ever meet friends like them.  At some point, we tried, all four of us, to rekindle the friendship we had, but we only found out that we've become strangers to one another.

I've always been proud of my sexual orientation since I came out almost a decade ago.  My workmates know of it, I joined a frat in my attempt at law school and even told my batchmates that I was gay.  I guess I don't allow myself to be defined by my sexuality.  But, you know what, sometimes I wish I had allowed myself to be so defined.  I wish I had given myself the chance to embrace my sexuality.  Had our friendship not met such an early demise, I'm sure my life would've been much more colorful.

Thanks for taking the time to listen.  Sometimes, talking to a complete stranger makes it easier to open up.  Your blog brought to the surface a lot of emotions that I've been bottling-up through the years. 

Following your entries, 

R 

You Should Date a Writer

Image taken here.

(This is a response to this particularly brilliant piece of writing found here, entitled Never Date a Writer).

You should date a writer. You should date a writer because he will fictionalize everything. He will write about things you have done to him, or things you have never done to him. He will write about the time you held his hand, in the rain, and shared an umbrella. Or said nothing when he cried copiously in a movie theater. He will write, in pure passionate prose, about how, during the time you were together, you came across a stray cat on the street and you cried and you took it home and gave it to him and he fell in love with you for the first time.

You should date a writer. You should date a writer because he will fictionalize everything. He will write about the time you fought, and made up, and made love, and fought again. He will scour the details of your lives, and make from them poetry.  And his words will sing in your head like birds in spring.

You should date a writer.  You should date a writer because he will fictionalize everything.  He will write about things that have happened, or that have not happened.  He will write about the time you broke up, and he broke your heart.  Or the time that he asked you to stay, and you left.  He will write, words bleeding on a page, about love and life and lessons learned.

And you will learn about the time he waited outside your door for hours, not knowing if you were coming home or not. Or about the time he baked you a cake, lopsided and burnt, and threw it away because he did not want to give you a stupid ugly cake on your birthday. Or about the time he woke up at 5am in the morning to get you fresh flowers in the market, because he couldn’t afford the ones they sold at the mall and he knew how much you liked them.

Or about the time when he was sick, and you were there, making sure he was safe and warm. How you skipped work that day, and puttered around his apartment, making more noise than was probably necessary.  And how you kissed him on the forehead when you thought he was asleep, and whispered a promise he dared not believe.

You will learn about the time he stood by your door, and told you he loved you, and how that was the happiest and scariest day of his life.  How nervous and fearful he felt, not knowing if you loved him back.

You should date a writer.  You should date a writer because he will fictionalize everything.  He will immortalize in words, the life you shared, or the time you both laid in bed, and whispered affectionate promises of forever.

Proverbs

I met fellow blogger OutedNarnian last night, which was a lot of fun. We met for dinner at Greenbelt, waited for a couple more friends, and moved to Barcino for wine and conversation.

At some point, I asked my friend Reggie if he wanted to hang out the next day (that's today).

"I can't. I'm still thinking if I want to meet this guy from the gym."

"Ah ok, that makes sense."

"Isn't the rule 'Bros before hos'?" OutedNarnian asked.

"Of course not." I added, with a small chuckle, "Friendship will always be there. Sex won't."

Nothing like wine to make us all one with the universe.

Photo taken here.

First Date

I once dated this guy named Jason, a part-time model who was in a commercial for a popular facial wash a few years ago. It was a semi-blind date; I saw his commercial, so I knew how he looked like, but he had no idea how I appeared at all. For all he knew, I could be troll with a huge wart on my nose, but he agreed on the date, so I figured the person who set us up probably told him a lot of good things about me. We agreed to have dinner in Cafe Breton.

The moment I met him, I immediately thought that he was much better looking on TV. It surprised me just how short he was. A friend once said that commercial models tend to be shorter than ramp models, but I didn't know they could be that short. But he was cute, and I figured the date could still lead into something more interesting and fun.

When he saw me, he immediately launched into a tirade about how the taxi ride going to the restaurant was so horrible. The rant took a while, and it kind of set the tone for the rest of the date. He was pissed at everyone. I tried to act more upbeat, but he wasn't buying it. Our conversations felt awkward and contrived.

In the middle of dinner, a friend texted me that him and his boyfriend were hanging out in a bar in Greenbelt, a 10-minute walk from where we were. He asked me if I wanted to meet up. I figured the date couldn't get any worse, so I thought why the hell not? I asked Jason, and Jason said ok. I told him that if he didn't mind, I'd prefer to walk to the bar because I didn't want to go through the hassle of parking all over again. Jason said he didn't mind, although I did notice the shadow of a scowl on his face. I dismissed it, and thought it was probably just my imagination.

So we met with my friends, and had a few drinks. Jason was still in a dark mood, and at that point, I stopped caring. It was a first date for pete's sake, it's not supposed to be that hard. If he wasn't willing to have fun, there was no point forcing him.

On the walk back, he told me he was pissed at me because, he said, first, I made plans with friends even though I knew we were on a date. I told him that's why I asked for his permission first, and when he said yes, I took that at face value. There was no reason for me to think he was lying. He said, notwithstanding, I should have known it was rude in the first place. I didn't really want to argue, but I thought that him teaching me about manners was the height of irony. But I figured silence was my best friend.

Second, he said that he was angry because I made him walk to the bar. I told him I asked him about that too, and he also said yes, so I took that at face value. I didn't even know him that well; there was no reason for me to think he meant something else. He said I should have known he was already very tired from the horrible taxi ride he endured to get to the restaurant. He said I should have already taken that into consideration, and I should have known he'd be too tired to walk. I remained silent, mostly because I just wanted the date to end, but also because I didn't want to argue with him anymore. I thought of how stupidly difficult he was, and that for someone I've met for the first time, he acted too much like a longtime boyfriend. It was annoying beyond words.

The whole experience made me want to swear off dating models completely. If he was representative of the bunch, I figured I'd be better off dating adults. The date wasn't so much a date as it was babysitting a 12 year old. Looks can only go so far. At some point, we're going to have to have a conversation, and talking with someone who never stops whining is really just torture. Maybe the date would have been much better if he just kept quiet and looked pretty.

Photo taken here.

Trading Up

Over ice cream in a popular dessert place in Makati, James told me an anecdote that touch on a peculiar aspect of dating which all of us who've been playing the dating game for a while can probably relate to. The story revolved around a friend of his named Patrick, a successful and wealthy executive, who was single and looking for the love of his life. At some point, he dated a guy named Franco. It seemed they got along splendidly; their personalities meshed well together, and they enjoyed each other's company. With the relationship itself, at least with how they interacted with each other, it appeared that they had no problems.

The only obstacle they had, really, was that everyone thought that Franco was not within Patrick's league. He was not a looker, or successful, or blessed with a charming personality that could have made up for all these lack. In short, he was woefully average; there was nothing about him that was extraordinary, except for the fact that he seemed perfectly average in every sense. Patrick's friends had no idea why he was dating the guy, and outside of the fact that he really liked Franco, it seemed that Patrick had no idea either. Because he gave his friends' input on the people he should date a great deal of importance, and also because he believed that what they were saying were true, he decided to dump Franco. It wasn't a bitter break-up, but of course Franco had ended up with a broken heart.

Fast forward a few months later, Patrick learned that Franco was dating a guy named Benjamin. Benjamin was a popular banker who was even better looking, wealthier, and more successful than Patrick. Patrick couldn't understand what happened. The reason why he dumped Franco in the first place was because he felt he needed to trade up, so to speak, and irony of ironies, Patrick ends up alone, while Franco traded up from him. He thought the whole thing bewildering.

Now this anecdote is interesting for me because, when I was still dating, I always fell into this trap, where I was never contented with the one I'm with, and always kept a roving eye on a possible trade up with someone "better" than whom I was already dating at the time. Here's what I learned from those experiences: that is the worst possible way to date someone. It's not a matter of being with someone within your league, at least in the superficial sense; it's about being with a person you love. You either like someone or you don't; you either love someone or you don't. If you put too much stock on the unimportant things, thinking that there is only a particular pool of people you could draw from whom you could date or fall in love with, you limit yourself unneccessarily. I've since learned that falling in love (or "like" if you prefer) is always a tricky thing, and better to accept the experience as a gift, than look for problems that weren't even there in the first place.

Photo taken here.

Missed Opportunities

My first foray towards gay dating was through the Internet, in this chatroom known as #bi-manila. To give you an idea of how it worked, well, basically it was a chatroom. Random users put random personal ads on the main page, and if you liked someone based on his description of himself, you can send him a personal message. Then you chat privately. If you two mutually agree that you like each other, you usually trade pictures, and then meet in real life.

I met a lot of boys this way. Well, at least electronically. I wasn't ready for the real thing yet. But chatting with people semi-anonymously kind of eased the process.

I remember chatting with this guy named Leo. He was interesting. He liked the same things I liked, and we chatted for hours. At some point, he asked if I wanted to talk on the phone. I hesitated at first, then agreed later on. I typed in my phone number.

He was just as interesting a person on the phone as he was on the computer. I found him very likable. We bonded over a mutual appreciation for fantasy novels and the television show "Charmed". As a pseudo-date, it was pretty good I thought.

Then he asked me if I wanted to meet in person. I knew I should have expected this, but it still felt like it came out of nowhere. I remained silent for a while. I heard the worry in his voice when he asked if I was still there. I said that I was. And then told him I'll think about it.

We ended the conversation on that note. It was getting late, and we were both tired.

The next day I texted him that yes, I wanted to meet up. He said great. He told me we could meet in Powerbooks in Megamall.

The whole day was spent worrying over the upcoming meet up. Several things were running through my mind. What if he hates me? What if he thinks I'm ugly? What if I think he's ugly? What if I meet someone I know in the bookstore while I'm with him? What if the date goes horribly, freakishly wrong? What if he really is a mass murdering serial killer in disguise?

I tried to take a nap, but I couldn't sleep. I decided to watch television.

Fifteen minutes before the appointed time for the date, I decided I wasn't going to go anymore. It was too nerve-wracking. I tried to take a nap again. I still couldn't sleep.

I heard my phone beep once. Then twice. Then several rings. I never answered it. I deleted the messages before reading them as well. I knew what they would say. I was embarrassed, but more than that, I was angry. I was a jerk. I hated myself.

And in my head there was this small voice saying I will never find anyone. I'm too scared of opportunities, too broken. Perhaps it would be better to accept I would be alone for the rest of my life.

I told my friend about the incident, and he told me not to worry about it. "There are plenty of fish in the sea," he reminded me. I nodded, appeased. Then I remembered the real problem. I couldn't verbalize it. Saying it aloud would make it come true I knew. But the small voice was insistent. "What if they don't want me?"

Photo taken here.

Rules are Like Super Important (Rule-breaking too)

When I first started dating as an openly gay man, I turned to television shows for rules. Because I felt that rules were important. And because I had no clue what I was doing.

So, you start out with the "no kissing on the first date" rule, which really just works on the heterosexuals (I'm not sure about the lesbians). Gay guys are like bunnies. Kissing is important.

That rule transformed into the "no sex on the first date" rule. Which I managed to follow for a time. Until I realized that gay guys are like bunnies. Sex is important. (And I'm a gay guy, just to remind you).

Which metamorphosed into a third rule: "I will only have sex with you if I like you" rule. Which I've broken so many times it became crazy-stupid. Gay guys are like bunnies. And it gets worse when you're drunk and in the mercy of beer goggles.

Then I stopped having rules altogether. Which is a disaster. Not having rules is an invitation to heartbreak. You fall in love and emotionally connect to soulless automatons that vaguely resemble humans, and break the hearts of good people just looking for someone to connect with. So, we're back to square one. Rules are important.

When I met Jt, I had made up another rule. It was the "I will not get into a relationship with someone while I'm in law school because I will break down and cry from the pressure of both school and the relationship and I don't want to have a nervous breakdown and I promise to the universe this will only be about sex" rule. I broke that one. And I've never been happier.

So what's my point? My point is that dating rules are important. But make sure they never get in the way of your happiness.

Here's another one. I really can't make up your rules for you. No one can.

Photo taken here.

The Pitfalls of Dating the Perfect Guy

Jt is not the easiest person to date, especially if you're the jealous or insecure type (just so we're clear, I'm not). He's good-looking, (very) intelligent, and successful. Seriously, everything I've been looking for in a man, I found in him. And he loves me. What more do I want?

At the risk of sounding ungrateful, there are a few pitfalls to dating the perfect guy:

1. It magnifies all of your own insecurities.

I once told my friend that I just realized Jt is everything I ever dreamed of becoming. First, he's a lawyer (and a very successful one). Second, he's an opinion writer for a popular newspaper. Third, he does freelance writing for art magazines, where he interviews up and coming artists, as well as a few established ones.

Now look at me. First, I'm a law student working my butt off to pass the bar. Second, I have a blog. Third, I do freelance writing for random magazines which would take me.

I'm like Jt redux. The diluted Jt. His sidekick.

I'm not an insecure person in general, but there are moments.

2. Eating out can be a hassle, especially if he stopped telling you he knows people in the restaurant who used to court him.

Here's a typical conversation.

"That was a nice dinner," I would say.

"Yes it was," he'd reply.

"The guy next to us was pretty cute."

Pause.

"What?"

"We dated maybe once or twice."

Repeat.

Then he said, a couple of nights ago, that he didn't tell me there was this guy in this restaurant in Greenbelt that he used to date because I might get jealous. Of course not, I said. Then wondered which one it was, and if he was cuter than me.

3. You don't want him to talk about his exes. Then you do. Then you don't. Then you imagine random guys he probably dated and why he ended up with you.

I was at his apartment when I saw a picture of this very good-lucking guy on his bookshelf.

"Wow. Hot guy," I said.

"Oh that's nothing," he replied.

"Who's he?"

"Someone I dated before."

Eyebrow raised, I swallowed a little bit of my own spit. "And?"

"He moved back to Malaysia."

"What does he do?"

"He's a model."

"Kill me now and stab me in the gut," I thought. I looked at the picture, imagined the guy without his shirt off, and I started to hate myself.

"Oh, that's not a real job," I mentioned offhandedly, if defensively.

He smiled.

Then I thought, "Please, please, please, let him be an idiot. Or else I may have to tell Jt myself he could do better."

I wouldn't exchange Jt for anyone in the world, and I do love him, but we have our moments.

In all fairness, another friend did point out that Jt is 16 years older than me. "That's a pretty decent headstart," he said, and I agreed, but that's probably something I should tell in a different story.

Photo taken here.