He never met a bike he didn’t want to ride

Pick-up lines and such collated in a cumulative span of three months. Earnest men and an amateur dodger of affection.

1. Boy: “If you were my girl, I’d look deeply at your eyes all the time.”

Sammies: “Eyebags.”

2. Boy: “What would you say if someone told you he likes you?”

Sammies: “I say, you have good taste.”

3. Boy: “Hi, pwedeng makipagkilala?”

Sammies: “No, sorry, hindi pwede.”

4. Boy: “Sayang, we met at the wrong time.”

Sammies: “Bakit? It’s only 10am.”

5. Boy: “Mahal na kita.”

Sammies: “Hindi mo ako mahal, nagagandahan ka lang sa akin.”

6. Boy: “I will miss you. Why will you miss me?”

Sammies: “Why will you miss me?”

Boy: “Same reason why you’ll miss me.”

6. Boy: “Hindi, mahal talaga kita.”

Sammies: “Ok, so anong balak mo?”

7. Boy: “You look terribly wicked.”

Sammies: “Is that a compliment? I take that as a compliment.”

8. Boy: “Pwedeng ikaw na lang?”

Sammies: “I told you, I’m taken, let’s just find you a girl.”

9. Boy: “I miss you.”

Sammies: “I supposed that by now you should have gotten over me.”

10. Boy: “Are you single?”

Sammies: “For taxation purposes, I’m single. But I’m committed.”

11. Boy: “Let’s go out for dinner, after work.”

Sammies: “Let’s just have lunch.”

12. Boy: “If I changed and pursued you, would you have me?”

Sammies: “Is that even possible?”

13. Boy: “Can I ask you out?”

Sammies: “No, I’m taken.”

Boy: “Ok, I’m not asking you to be my girlfriend, btw, just out or something.”

14. Boy: “You’re my type. Too bad you’re taken.”

Sammies: “Style!”

15. Boy: “I love you.”

(Eternal Silence)

Lessons from water under the bridge

Here are a few lessons I’ve learned from a not-much-of-an-affair affair.

Coincidentally, I’ve just seen ‘He’s Just Not That Into You’ yesterday, a first, since I failed to catch it on its theatrical release early this year. I’ve read the book but wasn’t able to absorb much of it because half my brain was debating whether it is all BS.

Also, a friend of mine is presently entangling herself in a web of confusion and, I hope I’m wrong, desperation, misinterpreted as Love.

As my favorite videoke song goes ‘players only love you when they’re playing’. Fleetwood Mac could not have been more correct. Players prey on hot playful well-meaning persons. It’s not our fault we’re hot, or at the very least, well-meaning.

Well-meaning to our personal interests, that is; we all want to be desired.

No is easier than Yes. No is a single syllable, two letter word which requires less effort to utter. The seemingly eternal wonderment of what might have been will wear off after some time.

Like everything else, it too shall pass. Nostalgia will strike once in a while, but so does embarrassing childhood memories, right?

Even persons deprived of romantic admiration can stop clamoring for love too. I grew up hardly turning heads and hearts; the eventual attention and admiration caused me inner hysteria.

Cleverly, I put out the hysteria by reminding myself that I have been invisible, and anyone who has seen through my invisibility is a gem.

Lastly, everything else that tries to come between you and your peace of mind, loved one or goal, subconsciously or otherwise, is just water under the bridge, an obstacle in a track and field lap, or a ring of fire in a circus show. It poses severe excitement but can be overcome.

Sweet Non-sense

Yesterday marks my blog’s first year and it earned 1,040 hits. I’m sure those were visits from three blog-loyal friends namely, Ronald, Joanna, and Richmond.

They left several comments which give my blog the illusion of readability. Ha-ha! Thank you.

There were also intermittent visits from at least ten more friends who happen to come by my page through their blogroll and recently through my self advertisement in Facebook.

At this point it gets very cheesy and paradoxical to my goal of making Samanthaisms as impersonal as possible. So I’ll stop saying my thanks and minimize the risk of sounding like Pinoy actors plugging their pinaghirapan na movie so we may all watch.

The deadpan wallflower

It’s been half a decade ago since I decided to kick off a so-called career life. Because I was on an entry level and thought myself grandly verbose and grammatically correct, the obvious choice was the call center. I proved to be a sorry call center agent with no future in the business processing outsourcing world.

My QA grades were painfully average and my social skills were low. It was there that I realized that the business world have no use for my vocabulary and grammar; whereas in the academe, it made me shine despite my social defect. Customers on the other end of the phone line do not care if my preposition and conjunction are perfect.

It was depressing and my already defective set of social skills has become completely run down; I became the most unenthusiastic agent on the floor. It did not help that my days are spent on school and my nights at work and in between I was traveling and sleeping on buses and cabs. I could not cope with my coworkers whose bond grew stronger as we stayed longer in the company. Despite the presence of a boyfriend at work, I felt my self drifting apart from the rest of them.

In the middle of the persistent misery, I had an epiphany. I suddenly wanted a job that would make full use of my motor skills. I thought then that my enthusiasm may be spruced up if I expend more energy at work.

And I was right. My years spent as a barista was a turning point in my life, if not of my career. I had another realization; I belong somewhere and my skills are relevant and I am an important person. I was prized for my abilities.

But there was a draw back, I can not make the front line, I can only stay on the side lines. I envy my colleagues who can carry out a small talk with a hesitant guest. I was a feisty vivacious girl behind the bar as I was the laconic freak during table visits.

I remember telling my coworker Bab Gillera that I was not used to being talked to while growing up. I was used to being invisible and ignored. And it wasn’t even a bad case of ignored, I was simply not talked to probably out of disinterest. I am always overcome with disbelief whenever persons, strangers and those whom I normally mutually ignore speak to me. When my former college classmate Kay Duenas mentioned wallflowers in her nostalgic Facebook album, I was convinced that I was the major wallflower.

Ronald told me that I am elitist; my difficulty to socialize does not stem from pathology but from an innate repulsion of everything I find disagreeable.

However I struggled with customer relations, I successfully felt empowered as I discovered my niche, and this gave me delusions of grandeur. Aside from making friends and bridging authority, which used to be a waterloo, I also found admirers, which included me.  I discovered and cultivated my aesthetics and developed a deeper interest for material wants, specifically, clothes.

It was then I altered my plans of culinary servitude and dreamed of climbing the ladder of a fashion powerhouse.

These jobs caused paradoxical changes in my attitude. I became more reserved and patient towards strangers whenever I’m out of the work place and developed notoriety for scorning and disparaging irate customers. I was conscious about how I behaved to potential customers, but unmindful to those who made my job more depressing.

As I evaluate my progress in this detour of a career path I made, I can feel the resentment boiling. I have long suspected that this was a wrong turn and I have indeed carelessly walked out of the niche I found. I am slowly slipping back into the deadpan wallflower I was before. Bleak future, no friends, and without enthusiasm.

The difference is I am probably scorned, please don’t ask why, but that’s better than invisible. Also, as I regain further social awkwardness, my wardrobe will make up for me.

My Village

Contrary to popular notion that I have always been a city girl, my formative years were spent in rural Cebu. We live in an idyllic place that feels like ‘The Village’ village.

It is off the highway and a little skirting road leads to the foothills where we are situated. It has an atmosphere of a self sufficient tiny bed of civilization. Bordered on the north by great hills, on the south by a brook, and on the east and west by fruit bearing trees and corn fields.

There’s a tiny elementary school where I studied. Although it is no longer as tiny as I remembered it; because improvements were made. I embraced its quintessential barrio school touch that I was disheartened to see that they traded in our vegetables plots and school gardens for additional classrooms. In the 90’s we only had six classrooms all for grades 1 to 6, and the gardens were so vast I extended my gardening to our own home yard.

I used to sneak into the gardens during weekends and pick tomatoes, eggplants and okras. I ate the green tomatoes dipped in salt and spend the rest of the lazy afternoon playing with tadpoles in the stream.

The great hills, much to my dismay, had parts of it buldozed for a cement road. We used to visit relatives up the hills by foot. We hiked up the foot path made of rocks and tree roots. I thoroughly enjoyed these hikes, but it wasn’t so apparent because I was a lousy hiker.

As kids, we turned the ravine into a giant slide. We each got our own palm leaves and any giant leaves we can find and use it to slide against the steep hillside.

Cows and goats abound, I had an unforgettable immaculate sighting-for a seven year-old, at least-to witness the birth of a kid. It felt like the confirmation of animal books and nursery rhymes and sesame street episodes.

I can still sense the earthy smell of fruits, damp soil, cow manure and burning leaves. The frogs still come out in the early evening, some still hang out at the door. The big lizard, a.k.a. tuko is still making the tu-ko sound at night.

But my childhood brook is no longer pretty. Modern stone houses have sprung up in our quaint village. The mountains which provide a mystical backdrop to our smallness is now venue for expensive real estate. The moving fire lights at night, which we used to think as voodoo ceremonial lights are now gleaming halogen bulbs.

That’s the beauty of…

Professors are an interesting bunch of people. I’ve had couple of male college professors who always appended the word ‘beauty’ whenever they are justifying the intricacies of their topic.

One was a math professor, and he would say “that’s the beauty of mathematics”, after parading before us a dizzing equation of Algebra. It was peculiar to find beauty in a mathematical equation, let alone consider it beautiful.

Another was a criminal law professor, and he really was a lawyer. He would say “that’s the beauty of criminal law”. Oh how clinical! If anything it was thought provoking, but not at all beautiful. He would say that smugly after a nice debate, where of course, he would win against any student whom he debated against. I wasn’t spared from the debates, particularly because I thouroughly enjoyed it, but not the ‘beauty’ part.

These professors must be very obsessed with their subjects to consider it beautiful. They devoted all their thinking years in developing and mastering Xs and Ys and sections and articles. Maybe even bring the subject with them in their sleep. And so the concept of beauty has been distorted.

Mathematics could have been resplendent, though synonymous, at least it doesn’t sound pretty. Criminal law could have been perfect.

Humanities can be appropriately beautiful, or Sociology, even Economics. But Math and Criminal Law!

For one, Math is strictly mundane, much like Physics, and Criminal Law is, austere, would very often remind me of Victorian spinsters and shrewd fiscal. Now that’s not beautiful!

Why would I marry?

Oh, why indeed? I can only think of one upside to this commitment: shameless consummation. My fundamentals of marriage considers this primal activity as the only enticing and encouraging factor.

Everything else, to me, is terrifying beyond imagination.

*Babies: are only fun when they’re not yours. Yes they are cute and cuddly and I am pretty confident my offspring will be born with outstanding IQ and aesthetic value. But small as they are, babies have a way of running your life for you, diapers, nappies, feeding bottles, cots, measles, and unimaginable sickness.

So why won’t you have just one? A single child, is still a child dependent on you for its food, shelter, education, clothing, upbringing. And that single child, will, at some point in its infancy through toddler years, scream when it’s hungry, wet, bored, sleepy, lonely et.al.

The amusement of child bearing and upbringing will get old soon after it starts crying. That amusement will be thrown over by hysteria, depression, sleepless nights and poopoo.

*Homemaker status. I am domesticated to the point of gardening and plumbing. Occasionally, I am willing to extend my domestic prowess in the presence of house guests. But I can not resign myself to cook, wash, clean and pick up after someone my age, if not older, who is perceived to be from the stronger sex.

How can I successfully dominate my field of practice if I have to be home before six ‘o clock to make dinner? And while I’m making dinner, should he be really lounging on the sofa watching TV or busily reading the news online?

Why must a married woman become a wife? And why does wife sound so demeaning? Wife is almost the personification of housework. I don’t like the idea of performing most of the domestic chores simply because I’m female.

*Conjugal property. We’re earning our own dough, but then I still have to inform him that I splurged on something. The only time I intend to talk of my splurging is to extract compliments. It would be better if he offers to reimburse the money I spent for it.

Why must I feel guilty for something I’ve worked for? Why must our shopping monies combine? Should it feel like I’ve robbed us of our savings?

I’ve never been proposed to, and after this, I doubt if I ever will be.

It’s just a fantasy, whoa!

I have a worldly fantasy. A man to mindlessly pay for my shopping and surprise me with lovely new clothes and accessories. He may also take me to expensive dinners and holiday trips. Oh how lovely!
Of course, I believe in self-sufficience, but who doesn’t like guilt-free spend-free new clothes.
But I will never get princess treatment from anyone. No man will ever be too macho to beat the handyman in me.
And if he can’t do more carpentry than I can, less likely for him to spend for me.

Smartie

There are very many things I am not confident to claim about myself. If I should list it down, it would make up my full being and that would make me feel depressed.

Despite my vanity, I am always battling with praise about my appearance. I secretly think I am beautiful all throughout, but I also secretly think I have zero aesthetic and physical market value.

Secretly, I believe and doubt that I possess innate impeccable style.

I am also unsure where I stand in the circle of my friends.

These thoughts prevent me from arguing, asserting and taking liberties, lest I hear the dreaded so-called truth.

There is one thing though, which I am very confident no one will stand to contest about. That is I am very smart.

I am that kind of smartie who fits anywhere and shuts up when everyone else starts showing off and talking shop.

Oh, and another, I make a very good comic. For a girl who has bland taste (literaly), I make laughter a daily treat.

Five minutes.

The first time I realized the actual length of a minute was during a skating game with my eldest brother.

 I don’t remember if I was eight then, but it was definitely during the popularity of roller skates. We each had our own pair of in-line skates, which I heard, was better and more modern , than the usual roller skates.

My brother and I gave each other a minute to show-off our skating moves. He went first and I was getting impatient because he seemed to take long. I complained and he replied to look at our stopwatch which we used to time ourselves. True enough, he only took a minute.

I though then, “oh. that’s how long a minute is? I thought a minute is just a minute. As quick as you say it.”

Twelve years later, in my first week in the call center, I discovered how long seconds can take.

I was itching to log-out and hoping for the dial to drop my time and there was only a few seconds left and I don’t want to get a call in my last second.

The seconds, I found out, also mattered in time keeping, especially when I’m running late.

Now, I left Ronald in Manila with a promise to return in six months. A month has flown by quickly, but looking ahead, the five months seem very far away.