tales from my closet

heartbreak of the non-romantic kind

2006-06-01T05:45:00.000-07:00

i mourn for lost friendships.

and one of those is something that has lasted for four years. since the first time we sang videoke together at a company christmas party.

it makes me sad. very sad.

you will only know who your good friends are during trying times. who will stick up for you and who will simply vanish.

then again, have i been a good friend to him, in the first place?

the questions and the answers probably do not matter now. not anymore.

i'm simply too tired to resuscitate this one back to life.

i cannot stand people who make me feel bad about myself. so if you're gone, then goodbye. the fact that you're gone simply means that you are not a friend at all.

the past few (pechay) months

2006-05-16T03:34:00.001-07:00

didn't i say it before. when it rains, it pours, but then nothing really ever grows at all.

maybe i was wrong there. maybe something does grow--not necessarily the Relationship of My Dreams, not necessarily True Love. but something in me, a social survival mechanism. maybe i grow wiser each time.

i had my closure with The Pechay King at the end of the project we'd both been working on. on the night that it ended, amidst beers and festivity, in front of half a dozen people. he didn't tell me directly, he didn't address me, but from what he said i realized the reason--or one of the reasons, who knows--why i lost his interest.

(or did i have it, in the first place? he flirts with every girl. he comes on to every young new thing. but anyways.)

he said, "ayoko sa mga virgin. nasisira ang buhay e." and me, san mig-soused me, instinctively agreed: "oo, nasisira ang buhay." i regretted having said that as soon as the words came out of my mouth, but it was okay, he was a closed case anyway. i had lost interest because i had found no hope. i got over it quick, because there were other things to worry about, more important things then, like work and the politics at work, like the question of whether this person was on my side--professionally--or not. and the answer i came up with is in the negative. that was a complete turnoff. kung hindi kita kakampi, kalaban kita. that was my mindset at that time.

and yes, let's not forget the little detail that he is married with children. argh. when you're really under a lot of pressure in the wee hours you tend to forget details like that. that happened with Venus. but then Venus is an entirely different case. it wasn't circumstantial.

that night when Pechay King said those word, I found my closure, as far as that person was concerned. thank god for my firewalls. thank god for my fully-automated security locks. thank god he thought i wasn't worth his time and attention. and thank god that he realized that messing around with the likes of me would bring him trouble.

otherwise, i'd probably be in pieces now. and my mom's heart would've been, as well.

at the tailend of that little chapter in this Single Pickle's life a lot of funny things have been happening, too. like J-- coming into the scene, along with a few others as well. for someone who's been one of the dozen Wallflowers in highschool I admit that the attention is both overwhelming and surprising at the same time. but i've seen these things come and go.

when it rains, it pours. but then nothing every really, truly grows.

on that same night when i had my closure with the Pechay King someone wondered aloud, "ba't ba ang benta-benta ni Moon? wala na bang ibang babae?" haha. my own sentiments, exactly. either there were no other new prospects in the immediate environment or the other girls have been getting the same propositions as well, and from the same persons at that.

J-- is for "joker" and i never really took his pamemechay seriously. apart from the fact that the pamemechay was in the form of corny jokes that reminded me of pickup lines from "Palibhasa Lalake". hehe. in the beginning i had thought he was somehow the most, erm, ok-looking in the working lot but the initial interest faded as soon as the work started coming in (and, yeah, Pechay King started coming on). and then one day he just sort of came up to the surface. persistently. which puzzled me. i couldn't get it, because we weren't friends. he didn't friggin know a thing about me, aside from what i was inside the workroom. my mind couldn't possibly buy the fact that someone would take interest in someone they didn't know that well--unless the interest was superficial. and thus, possibly momentary.

but, upon the prodding of friends (who meant well, of course, and probably wanted me to quit resuscitating dead loves, ie my longtime crush on Venus), i decided that coffee dates wouldn't hurt, and getting to know the person just might teach me a few things. hah. mighty corny, the whole "courting" process, and i had (have) no expectations of anything close to a Happy Ever After, but it's a journey. at least i've had worse coffee dates before. and worse conversations.

mighty sweet, though. the "traditional" things he'd do. how he'd insist on making "hatid" sa bahay, or buying "pasalubong" for my lola. i don't like those kinds of things, not only because they're so corny-traditional, but because i don't want him investing money or extra effort for my sake tapos isumbat yon sa kin if things didn't work out. i'd feel too guilty. i don't want that kind of burden on my part.

now i've been away for two weeks. J-- keeps in touch through Fwendster, but like every guy and every case from the past several years, i have no trust. and no expectations.

maybe i've learned enough about these things (despite the fact that i've never actually been in a real relationship). or maybe i'm just not that into him at all.

pickled truths

2006-05-16T03:34:00.000-07:00

Self Preservation Lines from the 26-year-old Virgin Pickle:
(or what to say to ward off unwanted amorous attention)
1. "You're not my type." (or something less direct but basically says the same)
2. "I'm lesbian."
3. "I have a boyfriend."

Being miles away from home, being with strange friends, i felt that i had to use Self-Preservation Line 3 for my own good. Just in case. Just to make sure. Just so that anyone who thinks they can break me will know I have no intention to make strange bedfellows at all.

The Boyfriend. haha. Here's what I've been telling. We've been officially together for about a month and a two weeks now. We met in the last work project I'd took on. His name is J--- but the picture in my digicam says he looks exactly like Venus, the Man-of-My-Dreams-Who-Just-Happened-to-be-Gay.

It's a lie that's made up of half-truths, actually. Because there IS a real J-- and he's been courting me. But he doesn't look anything like Venus, and no, we're not "together". Everything else I've been saying is somehow true, except for the One Great Lie. I'm single. Always have been, still is.

But for the time being, for the time that I'll spend away from home, with strange friends, I will play the role of a "Taken" Woman. haha. One Great Joke.

queen of pechay

2006-02-12T11:07:00.000-08:00

i'm the pechay queen. not in the flirt/tease/promiscuous sense, but mainly because i develop crushes almost as often as i shift from one project to another. maybe even more often than that. and some of the "rules" i'd set for myself in an earlier post, i've already broken. goes to show how people change. how tastes change. how we evolve and/or revolve into different beings or around the same people.

january. i fell for a stage actor. met him on the set of a baby project we'd been concocting. on impulse i realized that he was attracted to him, which raised mass objections from people around me, on a few grounds:
1. "mediocre-looking" is a kinder term to use for the likes of him. he's not pangit for me, but the bulging stomach, loud mouth, and kanto-tambay garbing style turn a lot of people off. friends say i really do have horrible taste, just by seeing his picture.
2. he acts, looks, and sounds gay. owkay. right on the mark where my taste in guys is concerned. but that's not the real issue here. it's...
3. he's been living-in with a woman for seven years now. and, while i may have been guilty of hurting myself more than a dozen times in my past dalliances with one-sided, bubblegum romance, but i would never want to carry the guilt of hurting other people, especially female hearts. babae rin ako. so this was the biggest issue for me at that time.

so what happened: i could only go around so much and proclaim to people that i have a crush on him, but i could never go up to him and do some serious bonding/flirting/befriending/whatever. we weren't close in the first place and i felt too "guilty" of my feelings to actually do something so relatively "active" like that. tsope. eventually, i got another project, never saw him again since the last time (except on friendster, harhar), and somebody else came into the picture...

or returned, most likely.

february. my archetype for the Ideal Guy was back in my current world. venus. working with him again, after four months, and working closely for almost an entire week at that, somehow revived what remnants of The Old Feeling. again. for the umpteenth time.

i scolded myself for "recycling" crushes, for not moving on, for "falling into the old ways", for mixing work with personals and all those blah-blahs. but logic couldn't overrule my emotions in this case. i've tried so many times and i kept going back to him. i entered this new world and he was one of the familiar faces. he was a friend--which he barely was the last time i got to work with him. and so i was...well, smitten.

well, almost.

so what happened: while the feelings never really died and are still alive til now, hanging around him more and getting to know him a lot better has somehow demystified him to me. which led me to a different kind of affection: the resigned, hanggang-dito-na-lang-talaga-pero-ok-lang kind. so he's gay. i like him, i would want my future children to bear his genes, but he's gay, and the farthest that i could go with him is for us to be friends. bosom friends, perhaps. extreme na yon. or maybe...co-parents. hahah.

i know this person will always be special. lately i've somehow opened up to him a lot and he's reciprocated the openness with some (and that's saying a lot for the kind of person he is--reserved, secretive, quiet), but i can feel the relationship evolving. soon enough, the romantic bubblegum schoolgirl's feelings will die a gradual, painless, natural death.

because...

february. i just woke up one day and realized that i have a crush on someone else. ha-ha-ha.

he's a member of the so-called "cream of the crop" in our world. i've told no one at work, but i'm kinda, well, attracted to him. which sparked more objections from my non-work confidantes. and even stronger objections from the lucid/logical part of me, for the following reasons:
1. i've heard too much talk at work about his reputation with girls--i reckon that he wouldn't be
called the "Pechay King" for na-da. i was never a fan of playboys. wannabe ones, or otherwise.
2. he's already a husband and a father. ouch. ouch. ouch. off limits. you should be getting turned off by now, moonie moon. didn't you say something about married men turning you off before? what da hell is this about?!?

i know, i know. owkay. maybe i'm just in a vulnerable state right now. maybe you should ask me why i'm attracted to him. i've noticed from day one that he seemed interested in me. honestly, i'm flattered. when a sense a guy sending out signals like that it could only sit with me two ways: repulsion or flattery. if i'm not repulsed, then most probably then most probably i'm flattered. and there's a chance that i could grow to like the guy.

that's what happened to me. never mind if he's the Pechay King, and most probably he flirts with every new girl who passes through those office doors each time. never mind if he's married, so long as i'm not doing anything about my feelings then i'm doing nothing wrong.

but the question, dearie moon, is how long can you keep your feelings on the green-light scale.

i know me. i don't fall easy, but when i do, i fall hard. and it seems easier for me to fall hard these days. i friggin wonder why, but that's straying from the topic. thank god for my firewalls. they have kept me safe. thank god for the inborn aloofness which trebles when i'm around the current object-of-my-affection. they have kept me safe.

thing is, i know i should stay on the safe side. meaning, away from him. he's the type who can destroy the likes of me. and lead me to break my mother's heart, not to mention my own.

okay. so that's what bothering me. i'm the pechay queen to his pechay king. not in the same context, but still. i hate it.

yet i like him, still.

hay pokpok.

fix me

2006-01-05T02:04:00.000-08:00

People come, people go, life goes on, so they say.
I thank God that I'm moving on as well.

Well, technically.

But you can't help but think about certain persons every once in while.

I'm over Venus, yes. But somehow it still stings whenever I hear things about him or said by him, things that Rub The Awful Gay Truth in. Lagi na lang nya kong sinasaktan, kahit hindi nya alam, kahit di nya kasalanan. Drama ha.

I love you, Venus. I always will, even if I'm past the phase of dreaming of being the mother of your children someday. Someday, someday, I'll get past that.

I chat over YM with a close acquaintance of Sun. Last night, I happened to ask kung kamusta na sila. What i meant to say was, kamusta na si Sun, but of course, I never would have said that.

She said that Sun was leaving New York at the end of the week for another foreign country. South America, to join Moon Lady for a vacation. Okay. Wow. Well, you go have fun honeymooners. I guess you really are meant for each other.

I guess I'll stop singing "Fix You" in your memory now, dear yet-another-faraway-dream.

Every now and then, I remember Mercury. I don't know why, but there's something about the memory of Mercury that doesn't repulse me, like most others of his type (in relation to their relationship with me). He reminds me of someone that I used to like. Yeah, that must be it. The way he deals with people. The way he even talks. And to a certain extent, the way he even looks. He looked so harmless I had come to see him as neutered. Sexless. Not a man at all, but a friend.

So pag man pala, hindi friend? Haha. False logic or man-hater ka talaga?

Cynic. I may be the antithesis of the Sweet and Lovable, but in deep I know. I'm still hoping that there COULD be a conventional happy ending for this non-normal girl.

a boulevard of broken dreams in a galaxy of (unreachable) stars

2005-12-28T22:00:00.000-08:00

venus was, for a while, the one who could bring out the hidden poet in me. i wrote about him endlessly, in the other journal. every sentence was an homage, a confession, a gift to him from me, beyond his awareness or understanding.

i'm not going to do a repeat of everything here. and i realize now that i would do better not to resurrect dead loves. especially not when the one you love of is of the literally gay variety.

after venus, i learned that i was normal pala. yes, i can still be attracted to other guys. hetero guys. no, venus, i'm not doomed to be in love with you for all eternity. there IS hope for me.

but sun failed me. or maybe i failed myself with sun. he's back home now, back in that other world where snow falls far, far away. a hopeless case. no big loss to me. it was nothing but another failed experiment.

girls like me, they don't find happy-ever-afters. (bring on the beer, will ya) girls like me should learn to content with the ones who would want to take them in and love them.

but i don't want to. even if i would want to, i probably couldn't.

can't.

they say that you can acquire taste just as you can develop love or liking. but i'm a stubborn, non-normal girl. i won't settle for what i don't really want.

no prom queen i am. the nerve of me, eh.

if that's the case, then it's on to a solo trip to the boulevard of broken dreams for you, moonie-moon. packup a lot of winter-wear cause it's gonna be cold, cold, cold.

fine. so be it.

merry christmas postcript

2005-12-28T05:50:00.000-08:00

christmas eve. text messages across the miles from everyone, to everyone.

mercury forwarded a funny gag about santa claus. i somekinda miss him. so weird of me. forget it, he's married. no touch, remember?

nacha-challenge lang siguro ako. kasi hindi na sya nagpaparamdam lately. at napakabait nyang tao, kung babalikan ko ang mga alaala. haha. forget him, moonie. ksp egoist lang ang drama mo in this case.

sent an all-original, composed-from-the-heart merry christmas message to the following, erm, "notable" personas:
1. orion. my crush in late 2003 - early 2004. now just a "business" contact of a sort. no reply.
2. neptune. my crush in late 2004 - early 2005. (see a pattern here? usually nagkakaroon ako ng "crush" pag palapit na ang pasko. haha, wonder why?) phone's screwed, the last time i heard. couldn't text even if he wanted to.
3. sun. latest crush. most of the time, he doesn't text, he calls. he didn't text OR call. bah humbug.

buti pa si...
4. venus. the love of my life for the longest time. at 1:30 am he texted back, "merry christmas, moon! (smiley)". it meant nothing but it made a smile bloom from my lips. considering that i had known this guy to be some sort of a...snob. and that we hadn't seen each other in about a month. and that we're not exactly bosom friends.

some tastes are acquired. but others have been with you the day you were born.

i get a heart-tug each time i see that face. every time.

he would have been perfect in this stargazer's eyes, except for one thing.

he's gay.

new year's resolution # 1: forget the gay Ideal Guy prototype.

here and now

2005-12-20T07:25:00.000-08:00

if mercury weren't married, were five years younger, and didn't have such a playboy reputation, maybe he would've been someone to reckon for me.

then again, he is what he is. so i shouldn't even think of those if-only scenarios so late in the game.

what only exists is what is here now.

to move or not to move

2005-12-20T00:42:00.000-08:00

last night, the working team and i were on board a van to a sponsored dinner. Sun was sitting with the Moon Lady, his better half. they're married but the open secret is that they've been separated for five months now.

so? what's it to you, 9th commandment violator?

immaterial, anyway. mine is just a passing fascination.

anyway. i was fated to be seated in the least desirable seat in the van--a row behind his row, on the outermost section near the door. soon the Moon Lady announced that she'd forgotten something at home and would have to go back and get it. so she got out and took a cab.

Sun was left on his own in that spacious middle seat. "anyone want to move here?" he asked to no one in particular.

i was the person closest to that row, the only one in the most inconvenient seat. the one who would most likely accept the invitation.

in response, i stayed silent. and leaned my head on the shoulder of the person sitting beside me, Ursa. a confirmation that i was happy where i was.

after a moment, i heard him say, "oh. ok." almost to himself.

i knew i should have moved. i knew he might taken it as a slight.

don't be silly. he's not that shallow. and what's the big issue in whether to move onto a more spacious seat, anyway? why wouldn't you do it?

guilty, you little girl?

afraid he'll sense just by sitting next to you in a dark, enclosed space?

Men are from Mars, and I'm Light Years Away

2005-12-14T04:04:00.000-08:00

Mars was a born flirt. He's no damn looker but what he lacks in looks, he makes up for with humor and carinyo. Ordinarily I'd be wary of those types, the feeling-playboy, feeling-hunter ones, but somehow I feel that Mars can be trusted. He's a flirt, but more or less he's harmless.

So long as I'm not into him he will stay harmless. And I know I will never be.

Tanga na lang ang babaeng magpadala sa machinations ng mga katulad ni Mars. It's just all in the spirit of good clean fun, anyway. Light diversions in between work moments. I'm not annoyed by it. I'm actually glad that someone's there to make me laugh. To neutralize my intense seriousness whenever Sun is around. Which is almost all the time, during work moments.

One time I told Mars, in an ultimate show of anti-male bravura, "Hindi mo ko kilala. I'm wise to you."

And he replied, "Tingnan natin."

You're challenging me, eh. Are you joking? The mere fact that you put the bet out in the open automatically "disqualifies" you. As if you were ever "qualified", in the first place.

That doesn't mean I don't like you as a friend, though. You lighten things up at work a whole lot. And you give me candies. That makes you a friend somewhat.

non-normal tragedy

2005-12-12T19:15:00.000-08:00

it's tragic. falling for the ones you can't get. not falling for the ones who want you.

when a woman is in love and is loved back, she blooms. i want to bloom. i want that kind of happiness to bring sunshine to my days. i want my own love story.

i will always go back to the question.

but i know i've always had the answer.

i'm not a normal girl. non-normal girls shouldn't expect to be loved back.

solar eclipse

2005-12-12T18:52:00.000-08:00

I think he hates me. Or hates the fact that i like him.

But yesterday he tried to speak a straight Tagalog sentence. He came out as sounding pretty authentic. We laughed and applauded.

Right in front of him, my (ever-messy) papers fell off my binder and down on the floor. He tried to help me pick them up, but I hastily did it myself. "I'm ok, I'm ok." i said, and spun around to leave. "I was a bit too slow there, moon," he lightly called out to my retreating back. I turned around briefly to smile. It was an embarrassing moment. Uber embarrassing.

But I've had worse yesterday. And I'm not going to dwell on them.

Each time I would see that face I will always associate it with that of a man who's in love with someone else.

loving in tongues

2005-12-09T03:38:00.000-08:00

he's amusing whenever he tries to speak in Tagalog. it comes out as really cute.
i wish i could do something about this little torch but i'm just such a torpe at heart.
plus the fact that i'm not a normal girl.
oh, shit.
i never get the ones i really want.
that's one of my pettier life-angsts.

today in one of his lighter moments, he mimicked my words. i looked at him and i liked what i saw in those eyes. it was nothing special, but still. he loves mimicking us pinoys when we speak. he has come to make a sport out of it. not intending to ridicule, of course, not out of disrespect. more like out of fascination. because he's a pinoy by blood and yet he can't speak the native tongue of his lineage.

"get some pawis on him." he said. he sounds somekinda like a homosexual sister whenever he tries tagalog but...aww. i could almost imagine how he would have sounded, had he grown up speaking our language. like a bakla. hahaha!

he's the type who grows on you. soft-spoken, patient, even-tempered, easygoing, laidback. brown, slender, almost androgynous. soft features, aquiline nose, smooth brown skin, lean muscular arms, fine dark hair, kind eyes, down-to-earth smile. haaaay.

flirt with me. ask me out. be my first kiss. marry me. father my babies.

i promise i won't say no to you.

Mercury Rises

2005-12-06T21:55:00.000-08:00

Mercury has been texting me for the seventh (?) straight night. I never saw that coming, you know. I'd come to see him as some sort of a brother--sister pa nga nung una, cause i had initially thought he was gay--and so, while the nightly text messages would always be "good evening ma'am" or "good night ma'am", I was slowly getting the message behind the messages.

one time i jokingly told him the morning after the third message, "kaw bat text ka nang text? ala kang magawa?"

"ayaw mo yun?" was just the reply, accompanied by the trademark don't-ask-me-i-just-work-here chuckle.

well. i'm just taking it all in stride and treat him the same. he's married, you know. and if i hadn't come to treat the person as one of my friends in this project, i would have been aghast at the thought of a married guy making "pasaring". euw. nothing could be a bigger turnoff than a married guy.

shush, it's a secret

2005-12-06T04:25:00.000-08:00

i'm attracted to Sun. but nobody in the team knows. and that's a rarity for this girl, who just couldn't keep her feelings to herself-- somebody has always had to play confidante at some point-- but it's a secret that i intend to keep for eternity, or at least until the project is done.

because it's nothing. it will lead to nothing, yield me nothing. except for candy to the eyes. smiles every once in a while.

i was standing next to him at work today. he was at the helm, he was busy. he was so close, so physically within reach, so unaware that i was looking at him, for a second there i felt the urge to hug him. and run.

out from the closet

2005-12-06T03:27:00.000-08:00

the reason behind the birth of this new blog is, quite simply, a matter of indulging that "other" facet of myself-- the one that cries over Notting Hill and My Bestfriend's Wedding, the one that goes "awww" whenever there's couple somewhere getting lost in each other's arms.

mushy. euw. could i be any more of a stereotypical girl than that?

the closet is very small. lonely at times--okay lotsa times--but it's a solid space with four corners, and a lot of tales within. this is my other world. not that anyone would care, but who cares? i'm just out to spill my guts.

10 Things About Me Concerning Matters of the Heart:
1. I've never been in a romantic relationship.
2. I've never been kissed.
3. Ergo, it goes without saying that I belong to that rare variety of 20-something virgins. Yes, folks, I'm a virgin. I'm amused whenever people don't believe. Maybe I don't look like one.
4. I have a built-in distrust towards men. Something that puzzles me, considering that I've been raised by a wonderful father.
5. Two of my biggest peeves against men are lewdness and chauvinism. I tend to go on Gabriela mode--I call it quasi-feminist complex.
6. I've had a curious history of falling for gay men. The masculine "pamhin" types.
7. I've had a curious history of falling for unattainable men. Gay men included. And the ones who are just not into me--either because I'm not their type or they are already taken; i.e. by their respective girlfriends.
8. Married men are like sacred cows to me. No touch.
9. When it comes to matters of the heart, I'm pathetically retarded. I have the tendency to think, feel, and act like a highschool teenybopper.
10. I can't flirt. Not consciously, at least.

to set the record straight, folks

2005-12-05T06:19:00.000-08:00

i figured that it's about time. to out myself.

i...am...

...a hopeless romantic.

i'm not gay. sorry. the blog title was misleading.

so how's that for a first entry?