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.

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.

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.

Unenthused existential shop manager

A customer complained about my snobby demeanor and demeaning haughty looks, according to a co-worker. The complaint was made last night and unfortunately I was not there to witness her anguish.

This is not new to me, and I do not feel sorry, only bemused. I suppose what she interpreted as antagonistic expression was merely a default poker face usually worn during disinterested times.

If I had the luxury of an acerbic reproach, I would have begged her not to give herself too much credit. Other than never seriously demeaning anyone, save for comic relief, I never give that ‘dagger looks’ look.

But then, she doesn’t have to know that my enthusiasm is as dry as the arid soils of Africa, and my previous superiors and employers can attest to that. Also, she doesn’t have to know that my idea of genuineness excludes staged graciousness. It is disinterest in times of disinterest, the rest are all pleasant, at least to me.

Like all other attention-starved emotional shopper, she was probably longing for the nauseating sugar loaded attention a shop manager could afford her. She was probably hoping for me to jump at her and offer anything that could establish our equality in the world of fashion.

Well, I don’t live in the world of fashion, my existentialism is swinging between the real world and a parallel universe.

Interview musings

I forgot to give the jeepney driver my 12-peso fare. I was deep in thought the whole ride; swimming in reverie of would-be interview episodes. In my busy-ness of reconstructing my future, like an automaton I stepped off at the last jeepney stop in SM City Cebu.

Imagining myself in job interviews make me feel like a fortune. I can almost feel the glory of getting hired and staring a new job, especially now when I am very near quitting my current employment. I give myself challenging questions, I answer brightly and smugly.

Oh, if only job-hunting would be as easy as I have it my day-dreams, I would quit this politicking called store management and move on a new field I fancy.

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.

Once a fat girl, a always a fat girl

Six inches off and forty pounds less later, I look in the mirror and still see my old self three years ago. No amount of encouragement and positivity will ever make me see my actual present image.

In my book, it’s called image distortion disorder. I will always find and magnify the ripples on my arms, the bulge on my tummy and the dimples on my thigh. From size 10 to a mere size 2, I will always believe that I’m bigger than the rest of the girls.

I religiously followed my weight loss scheme and made a lifestyle out of it. But I will never see, with confidence, the change I have done with myself. I will only hear about it, when people tell me so, but I will listen with a bit of reluctance.

It is not out of choice, it is more of an occupational hazard of having to live with the image all my life. Hypnotism will probably help to open my mind and let me see what other people do.

Magazine

For someone who claims to be extremely stylish, with an employment in the fashion mecca to boot, I seriously avoid fashion magazines. Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Preview, Mega, Seventeen and other locally published magazines make me self-image sick.

These magazines  leave me with a stabbing heartache and a lump in my throat. I always feel less important, insecure and incompetent. The sustainable world which I built around myself crumbles in the face of a perfect cosmos which revolves around the material heavy media.

Their campaign for female emancipation have reached me in a different context. In my parallel universe, I make my own rules, I am the best, I am the only one who feels the pea under twelve mattresses, and as Alana Davis puts it, I am whom everyone harbors a secret hatred.

Fashion magazines tell me I’m not who I think I am, because if I were indeed, I should be on the cover, not her. Their  success and real-life articles are too good to be true. If  it were based on real women, why haven’t I met anyone who has been surveyed, or interviewed for any of their sources. Why? I am a real woman, I live in the real world and I have real people friends. Why do their self-help articles seem impossible for someone who don’t know anyone above middle-class.

In Wonder Spot, Melissa Banks describes a life of not fitting anywhere. That is precisely where the local media has put me, nowhere in the face of the glamorous world.