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WE’RE HEEERE!

Well what do you know, I ended up NOT making an ass out of myself on the intarwebs after all. The wonderful Lorna (aka TheBachelorGirl) took the time to personally speak to Fritz and me so we could sort out the mess that was my unexpected marketing scheme. What a very nice lady she is! Thanks to her, we got to occupy the best seats in the house. Even the obscenely tall couple sitting in front of us could not ruin the view from where we were seated.

Unlike Fritz, who pretty much knew the soundtrack by heart even before we got our tickets, I only knew of two songs from Avenue Q: Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist and The Internet Is For Porn. (Aside: I find it odd that my friends keep cracking jokes about how I would know a lot of things about the internet being for porn. Me?! Lauren Dado? Role model for the Filipino youth? What do I know about vulgar things like Internet pornography? Srsly gais.) I felt like a douche for showing up unprepared, so I went on a mad Avenue Q OST download spree before heading out. It’s a good thing I wasn’t able to find the complete soundtrack though. You see, when it comes to watching movies or plays, I believe that Ignorance Is Bliss. I like knowing next to nothing about what I’m about to see. This makes me a more open-minded viewer and keeps me from falling into the trap of holding unrealistic expectations or from “challenging” what I’m about to watch (”Come on puppets, bring on the LOLZ!”). Also, I become more receptive to happy surprises and unexpected plot twists.

The Ignorance Is Bliss tactic brought rise to a rather unusual experience I had while watching Avenue Q: for a very brief moment during the second act of the play, I actually felt like crying.

This happened when Kate Monster sang the lines, “I wish I could go back to college. Life was so simple back then.” Fuck me if I haven’t made that same wish (almost) every day since I graduated! Actually, the opening lines of the play - “What do you do with a BA in English? What is my life going to be?” - was enough to hit me right where it hurts. I did not expect Avenue Q to address the question of Purpose or to portray the confusion and self-doubt that plagues us sheltered college kids when we step out into the Real World. The lighthearted moments were appropriate placed though, so that the heavy stuff didn’t get too heavy. Thank god for that, or I really would have burst into tears and made an idiot out of myself.

Besides the existential angst, Avenue Q also brings up other Real World issues people don’t like saying out loud simply because they aren’t very pleasant things. Things like: you aren’t as special as you thought you were, money is a real bitch to come by even with a degree, and happiness is an evasive and fleeting thing. If I had kids, I’d take my kids to see it because nobody ever tells children about the awful things that await them in the Real World. Then I’ll make sure they don’t have access to sharp objects or ropes afterwards. Also, nobody ever tells children about sex and how it happens. So parents - if you feel awkward about explaining how the boy’s peepee goes into the girl’s vajayjay to make babies, the very graphic sex scene in the play is quite instrumental explaining the reproductive process. My mom did her best with me, but for the longest time I seriously thought I could get pregnant by kissing someone.

We have pictures of the cast, just not with them. Suxxorz.

Performance-wise, the cast was excellent, particularly Aiza Seguerra, who pulled off a very believable performance as the grown-up child actor Gary Coleman, right down to the accent. Joel Trinidad was also amazing as Trekkie Monster and Nikky. Then again, I’m a little biased because I’ve had the hots for him ever since I saw him perform at Mag:Net Bonifacio High Street. Once I have more time, I intend to make Jayvee bring me to his SPIT shows so I can stalk him properly and propose marriage, or perhaps concubinage, when the opportunity arises.

I think the reviews done by bloggers more eloquent than myself already said what I want to say. Which is: go watch Avenue Q! I hear the shows are all sold out, but try to mug someone you know with tickets anyway. The jail time will be worth it, I promise.

For days after you wrote a certain blog entry about a certain Pearl Boy dating experience, a certain Pearl Boy has been trying his damned hardest to meet you over dinner or coffee. You’re surprised by this because you kind of expected him to never want to see you again after reading what you wrote. Then again, he probably wants some sort of closure with you, and you believe in being fair and nice (even when you think you’ve already used up all your niceness reserves). Ignoring your parents’ threats to chain you up in your room until your corpse is covered in cobwebs, you agree to meet him for a quick dinner and coffee on a Sunday evening. Might as well get this over with, yeah?

Because you’re sooo heartbroken, liek srsly

As the two of you make your way to the restaurant, he asks you if you notice anything about him. “Umm…you didn’t put hair wax?” you say. He shakes his head and points to his shirt, which was blue and has a cartoon drawing of a boy with glasses and the caption “NERDS GET GIRLS” right below it. You feel the urge to walk far far away from him and yell, “See this 10-foot distance between us? Can we maintain this until we get to Fazoli’s? Also, can we just sit at different tables and communicate via ESPN?” The last thing you want to be is the walking proof right next to his t-shirt. You are the one chick he is not going to get. He must have seen the WTF? expression on your face because he asks if you find his shirt funny. You pointedly tell him that it’s funny in the same way t-shirts that say “Sex Instructor for Hire” are funny ironic.

Um, no they don’t

At dinner (where he eats and you watch him eat because you feel as skinny as a ballooning condom), you wait for him to bring up the reason as to why he dragged you all the way out here on a Sunday night. You already have a vague idea of what he’s going to say, so you try to broach the subject. He says he wants to chill and have a “normal” conversation with you for now (”normal” meaning no heavy topics). Unfortunately, it was kind of hard for you to relax all throughout dinner; you’re the type who can’t have fun unless you get the heavy stuff out of the way. You also grow increasingly irritated that he sees you as some sort of venue to relax after a long week at work. What am I, you think, a geisha? Since when was it my job to provide entertainment and witty conversation? As dinner goes on you become even more annoyed because you can’t even hold his attention 100%. A girl in a scandalously short skirt and tall boots passes by and he becomes visibly distracted. You fail at entertaining guys. Or rather, nerds. Because nerds get chicks. Perhaps you should have worn shorter shorts.

If you wear this, does he will pay more attenshuns to you?

After what seems like an eternity, he’s finally done with dinner and the two of you head over to a coffee shop so you can get down to business. You’re a relieved that you haven’t run into anyone either of you know, but that’s about to change. After buying coffee, he spots a former college bandmate and goes over to say hi. Introductions are made, and you put your showbiz face on when the College Friend reads the Pearl Boy’s shirt out loud and gives you a knowing glance. Ground, you think, this is your cue to open up and swallow me whole! No? Kk.

Finally, you grab a seat outside a coffee shop and get to the part why he dragged you all the way out here for dinner in the first place. He tells you that he saw what you wrote in your blog about him (whoops!) he didn’t like that he came off looking like the bad guy. If you have any issues with him, now’s the time to bring it up instead of him finding out about it somewhere else. You fight the urge to laugh, because this isn’t the first time someone IRL found out that you wrote about him/her in an unfavorable light. For a moment there, you feel like a douche. But only for a moment. You almost apologize but you choose to shrug and say, “Bzuh?” In hindsight, you realize you should have said something like, “Well of course you seemed like a bad person in my blog! That’s how I perceive you, therefore that’s how I will write about you! Not that you’re a bad person, really. Just some douche who bruised the shit out of my ego. Seriously, you should feel a tiny bit flattered that I actually wrote something about you. That’s a whole lot more than the other guys I’ve dated got.” Unfortunately, your ability to deliver clever comebacks fails you at crucial moments. This is why you don’t want to become a lawyer.

You pretty much just parrot whatever it is you wrote in your blog entry, and once you’re done with your word vomit, he systematically tears your statements apart into two manageable chunks. Chunk A being your depression and his views on it, Chunk B being his response to every single time you declared, “I know you don’t like me because I’m so not your type.” Chunk A took about half an hour to discuss and by the time it’s settled, your dad starts texting you to go home NOW. I knew it, you think. I knew we wouldn’t have enough time to talk. Why didn’t you stop being a courtesan and bring up the heavy stuff over dinner again? Oh yeah, because underneath all that bravado you’re really pushover nice. Gotcha.

Misunderstandings in a car crash

The two of you talk about Chunk B during the drive back home, and this is when things turn really heavy. He tells you that every time he sees you, he feels pressured to give you some sort of an answer. Just because you were stupid enough to declare that you were in love with him during the second week, doesn’t mean he’s obligated to reciprocate. What was important to him was that he get to know you first and develop a relationship. You, however, seemed to be in such a goddamn hurry to get into a relationship. Or so he says. And that it was so sad that you had to view things this way.

As his voice rises and the tension thickens, you can feel yourself shrinking until you’re twenty sizes too small for your clothes. You want to explain that all you wanted to know from him was if this was getting somewhere! You don’t know how long it takes for the average person to realize they like the person they’re dating, but that’s not such a hard thing to figure out, is it? It’s not a multiple choice question, for fuck’s sake! You’re the type who can make up your mind about whether you like someone or not upon the first conversation. But then again, you’re kind of a weirdo so maybe you’re the only person in the planet who thinks that way.

Oh noez! Life’s unbearablez!

By the time you reach the last few blocks to your house, you are almost in tears. All those weekends you reserved for him, all those mornings you crept up to your room at 5 am only for your mother to yell at you for coming home so late, all those evenings you said no to your friends just to see him - you gave up so much of your time for a guy who can’t even decide if you’re likeable or not. Whatta pushover you are. As you climb the stairs to your room, you kick yourself in the ass with your spare limbs for yet another loss in the game called The Modern Dating World. Though oddly enough, the only loss you really feel is all that time you could’ve spent with friend or dating other guys. If you had other guys.

You contemplate slashing your wrists, or perhaps gathering your emo band together for a late-night jam session. Instead, you turn on your PC and click on the wp-admin of your blog. Then you type the words, “For days after you wrote a certain blog entry about a certain Pearl Boy dating experience, a certain Pearl Boy has been trying his damned hardest to meet you over dinner or coffee.” He’s probably going to hate you forever once he reads this, but you don’t really give a damn anymore. You feel much much better already.

Being a young 20-something in the modern working world makes you realize that it’s about time you start acting “normal”. Part of acting “normal” means abandoning your messianic mission to save emotional retards from their own self-destruction. So when a the first “normal” guy starts showing interest in you, the love-is-blind cliche suddenly holds an important truth. Despite your best friend’s warnings, you chase after him like a lovesick teenager, convinced that he has the emotional maturity and the mental capacity to handle you and understand you completely. Because he’s so normal. Apparently, “love” also makes you stupid because you just let yourself fall in love with a Pearl Boy!

Pearl boys are also known as “douchebags”

A “pearl boy” is the most straight-arrow, conventional guy you can ever come across. They are uncomplicated creatures who enjoy manly activities like going to the gym, watching basketball (or other sports), going clubbing, taking pictures of themselves (to post in their Friendster), collecting girls (to put in their Friendster), taking pictures of themselves with lots of girls (to post in their Friendster), flirting with girls, dating girls, talking to girls, etc. You want to date a Pearl Boy because of your desire to conform to society’s image of what a girl your age ought to be like. And every girl wants to snag a Pearl Boy because they make great Trophy Boyfriends. Dating a Pearl Boy –> you are awesome –> you are conventional –> you are normal. Yeah I don’t get the logic either.

Well, looks like you lucked out this time because holy god, you met one with a brain! You actually listen to the same bands and share the same philosophical beliefs! And he can make you laugh! Sort of. It wasn’t very funny when he snickered at you for using a film camera instead of throwing away your money at a D-SLR. Come to think of it, you didn’t laugh when he called you a dork after trying to explain to him why Dungeons and Dragons is teh awesomez0rz, either. He actually made you feel a little ashamed about being a chick pseudo-geek. But that’s okay! You’re in love! And if you can make a few minor adjustments to your personality, he’ll be in love with you in no time too!

We must all aspire to be this beautiful

When people see you walk arm-in-arm with him in fancy places like Greenbelt and Serendra, they’d probably think that the smile on your face is the result of the serotonin rush. What they don’t know is that you’re smiling because being seen with him in public is a MAJOR ego boost. You are dating a guy who is constantly surrounded by girls that look like they should be snorting cocaine in the restroom when they’re not at fashion magazine photo shoots. To be seen with a guy like him is affirmation that you are pretty by convention. That makes you feel damn good about yourself.

You don’t know exactly what he sees in you because you know for a fact that you’re not his type. You are not a Pearl Girl, the female equivalent of the Pearl Boy. So you ask him, and he says he likes you because you’re different from the girls he usually goes for. You take that as your cue to tone down the impression management and start showing him what you’re really like when you aren’t dancing in the club. (Yes. You actually go clubbing now!) Over coffee, you try to bring up your existential crises, and he cuts you off by saying that you’re being too heavy. When depressed, you call him up thinking that he could give you some reassurance. At times like this, all you really need is someone to tell you that the world is not the sack of shit you think it is. What you get instead is a condescending lecture. He doesn’t understand why you’re so sad when everything in your life is peachy. You attempt to explain that depression something that happens to you periodically but that it’s nothing to worry about. He tells you it’s abnormal to be sad over nothing. But it doesn’t stop there! He adds that you’re old enough to have control over your emotions, that you’re acting like a high school kid for being so negative, and that you are an insult to people with “real problems”.

Ur a freak, sry2say

Once he sees what you’re like when you’re not Miss Fun Time, he realizes that you’re not what he wants because you’re just too weird, or too emotional, too you. Despite your moments of emotional instability, however, he still insists on getting to know you more. To him, you’re a museum curiosity because he’s at least smart enough to recognize that you’re quite unusual. Unfortunately, fascination and curiosity can only take someone so far. You know that in the end, you’re never going to be enough for him. Beauty and substance is what he thinks he wants, but what he’s really after is a girl in a short skirt, impossibly tall heels, and a lollipop in between her lips. That is so not who you are.

You’ll never be a skank ho like her!

When all is said and done, you ask yourself, what did I see in him in the first place? Why did I try so damn hard to change the very core of who I am just to make him like me? The answer is simple: pride. You’ve already spent so much money on an entire pearl girl wardrobe to wear on your dates with him. You’ve already had too many conversations where you analyzed every date because you don’t understand why he hasn’t fallen for you yet. That “I’m so in love with you” feeling you once had for him no longer exists, but you still don’t want to stop seeing him. You think that with a little more work, you’ll finally get the returns of your emotional investments (e.g. a declaration of love, roses in a vase, maybe even a compliment on how good you look tonight).

This is when your friends come in to tell you that you’re being an idiot. Why spend time with someone who makes you feel like a class A freak? Why chase after someone who is incapable of appreciating you? Why limit yourself to this one guy when there are others who are interested in you? To the last question, you reply with a, “LULZ the other guys who are interested in me must be invisible because I DUN SEE THEM!” The answers to the first two, you figured out just now.

Despite the horrible emotional roller coaster you went through, you don’t regret dating the Pearl Boy one bit. He’s not a bad person, really; both of you just think on entirely different wavelengths. Besides, you’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons from the experience, the most important one being: if you’re trying waaay too hard, don’t bother.

Screw being normal. You’re happy just the way you are. And my God, you’re way too awesome to deserve any less than a guy who will worship you for being your fun, crazy self, with occasional moments of existential angst.

Oops.