MussoLOLen is Always Right! |

Dating. Courtship. I never understood what those words meant because I’ve never seen a need for these rituals in my life. To date someone involves a certain kind of caution and certainty-seeking that I don’t have the patience for; I believe that the only way you can ever be sure of how the other sees you is by jumping in with your eyes closed. My idea of getting into relationships involves talking nonstop until both parties have fallen in love with each other, enough to want to be an item. The dating stage of my three serious relationships were pretty much whirlwind romance types that lasted less than a month; after realizing that, “You like/love me. I like/love you. Let’s be together!”, we’d officially take ourselves off the market. No dinner dates, no flowers, no dramatic displays of love. (Well okay, the catalyst of the second relationship was the relief I felt over his having survived a physical confrontation with 75 men, but this is a strange story for another time.)

So I wanted to do something different with Marco and try to make the dating period last as long as possible. It wasn’t because I was unsure of what I felt for him; in fact, from the moment I first saw him (January 3 at Cantina through the intercession of the Hohobags; I have Kimi and Rica to thank for being particularly insistent that I be there that night), I liked him. The more I got to know him that night and the weekends that followed, the more I realized that a) we are insanely compatible (he likes zombie movies and he actually listens when I talk about Marxism), b) he gets cuter every time I see him, c) I can’t imagine a weekend without seeing him, d) shit, I want to be with him but he probably won’t feel the same way because I’m creepy and dorky and weird. So I kissed him (and with a “kbye!” I made my way quickly into my house because I couldn’t look him in the eye after). I figured that if I never hear from him after that night, my fears would be confirmed and I can just chalk this up to another one of my many failures in dating/relationships.

But I did hear from Marco the next day! And at some point over the next couple of weeks, he actually told me that he was falling in love with me! OMG OMG OMG. The Relationship Talk was inevitable at that point. He admitted that things were going unbelievably fast for him because it usually takes him forever to warm up to people. Not that he wasn’t happy being around me though. The problem is that he can’t accept happiness until he feels he has earned it. And to that, I showed an unexpected amount of maturity and patience. The old neurotic me would have freaked out, but all I said was, “Okay, take your time. We have all the time in the world. It’s not like I’m dying or moving out of the country or anything.”

Last night, Marco took me to a fancy restaurant carrying a huge bag and a bouquet of flowers. “No, these are not for you yet,” he replied mysteriously when he caught me looking at the bouquet. Throughout our appetizers (snooty French onion soup with lots of cheese), he kept fiddling with something under the table. I wondered if he was setting up a bomb to blow the place up, and if dying together was his idea of romance.

Finally, Marco explained what was going on. He was ready to jump into a relationship with me, but before doing so he wanted to “earn” it by courting me in record time.

“Wait, that’s completely unnecessary, you know I don’t believe in courtshi-”

“Just play along, it’ll be fun!”

And when I nodded dumbly, still confused about what was going on, he procured a checklist and timer from under the table.

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On Friday afternoon, Ale took me to the beach because I had never seen the Pacific Ocean from this side of the world before. He brought with him his readings because he has midterms on Monday; I brought with me a thermos filled with Malibu and Coke.

When my mom reported that San Francisco was even colder than Chicago and Missouri, I braced myself for gray, gloomy skies and biting cold winds. The last thing I expected was to be greeted every morning with a bright, almost-tropical sun and cloudless blue skies.

The sun felt so good on my skin, I couldn’t resist taking off my shirt even though all I had underneath was a bra pretending to be a bikini top. I never thought I’d ever walk around shirtless in this part of the world.

And if you think I actually sipped my coconutty cocktail like a good little girl and left Ale to his studies on such a gorgeous Friday afternoon at the beach, you’re completely wrong.

We ended up walking, talking, drinking, maybe arguing a little about whose side he belongs to in the ongoing Philippine-Korean War.*

Before we left, we tried taking a romantic kissy photo with the sun between us, but because I suck at holding cameras we completely failed.

Not that it made the day any less lovely. <3

* Don’t bother looking up the Philippine-Korean war in the newspapers because it’s such a small, private event, it only affects the lives of three people (me being one of them, on the Philippine side of course). That does not necessarily make it less destructive for those involved. Perhaps I’ll tell you all about it sometime.

When Ale finally left for Italy, I thought the hardest part would be falling asleep at night. I was wrong. It’s waking up in the morning that gets so unbearably lonely.

I’ve never been a morning person. I love sleeping in, and anyone in my family or anyone I’ve traveled with can attest to the fact that I’m always last to wake up. I don’t know why but during the two weeks we were together I’d wake up an hour before he does and just sit there, watching him sleep. I’d be thinking too much as usual, about random disconnected things, and I’d come up with some minor revelation about life, myself, or us, and I’d want to talk to him about it. But he looks so peaceful sleeping there, like a little boy, so I remain seated and quiet, watching him. When I feel like the thought bubble is about to burst I start waking him up slowly. I’d crawl back to bed and wrap my arms around his waist and start shaking him gently. “Panda, Panda, Panda,” I’d whisper into his ear. He’d groan, wrap his arms around my neck, and bury my face into his chest to make me shut up. I’d pull away and repeat, until he finally opens his eyes and smiles (even though I know deep down he wants to kill me for not letting him sleep half an hour longer).

I love the way he looks at me in the morning.

These days all I have when I wake up is a pillow underneath my arm, my other hand clutching on to the t-shirt he’d sleep in, which I keep under my head.

I know that this isn’t a gone-forever thing, like death or a break-up. I know I should be happy because the two weeks we had was more than amazing. But then I start remembering all the stuff we did together – hanging out with my friends, riding jeepneys, me playing guitar onstage with him watching from the front row, swimming in the ocean, roaring through the Bohol countryside on a motorcycle, getting lost in Cebu. I remember how excited I was when I went with Anne and Bim to pick him up at the airport very early on Sunday morning, and how Bim wouldn’t stop making fun of me for being so excited and how embarrassed that made me feel – but in a very good way. I remember all these things and I get so so sad, because it feels like I’ll never be that happy again. There are times when it’s okay, when we talk on iChat like how it started, and I feel like I’m not going to shed another tear until I see him later this year. And then there times, such as now, when it occurs to me that there’s nobody who’ll make silly faces at me to calm me down when I start freaking out or nobody to tell me to eat my vegetables at dinner. And thinking that makes me so sad, the only thing I can do is cry to the songs that remind me of him while inhaling the scent of his aftershave (that he accidentally left). I can’t even begin to describe how happy I was when he was here, and how fucking lonely it gets now that he isn’t physically around.

I wish there was someone I could talk to about this. I mean I’ve told my friends how sad I get and although they’re probably tired of hearing about it, I don’t think they’d tell me to shut up. But I haven’t even begun to describe to them how lonely it really gets. Nobody is around during the worst part, in the mornings, when my chest gets so heavy with sadness and the only thing I can do to feel lighter somehow is smoke myself to death in the bathroom and cry until my eyes are swollen for the rest of the day.

Well, I suppose that’s what blogs are for.