Romance Rundown

It’s been a couple of months since I last saw Eduardo and he is now somewhere over the Sahara Desert. His job took him there and it’ll be at least a year before he’s back in Manila. He left Manila around July 19th and that is, if I remember the date correctly. We were supposed to hook up for the very last time around the 8th but unforeseen events prevented us from doing so. I’m pretty much sure that he’s doing okay wherever he is since this would not be his first time to be in the Middle East. I haven’t had the chance to talk to him though. As a date, he was okay but there’s still room for improvement.

Shortly after I met Eduardo, Cathy and I bumped into Alvin at the Foreign Chambers Trade Fair in Megamall. I’ve always had a minor crush on him and I was quite surprised to see him there. I met him December of last year during the joint Christmas Party of my Toastmasters Club – Executive – and his – Butter ‘N Toast (Executive Toastmasters have a special bond with Butter ‘N Toast since the founding members of B’NT came from Executive). He’s cute – in a boyishly nerdy type of way. Alvin’s a thin and short of stature bespectacled Chinese who’s a couple of shades away from paper white. I don’t know what’s with me but I’ve always had a thing for guys with glasses.

Alvin’s the type of person that’s so very gregarious and easy to talk to. True to his geeky image, the range of things that we talked about spanned from A to Z. Long after Cathy left for Paranaque, Alvin and I were still engaged in a lively conversation. So much so that it carried over dinner at Teriyaki Boy. Oh and a couple of other movie and dinner dates too.

It was weird, I thought things were going well when he acted strangely during the last time we met up. We were over at the Powerbooks warehouse during their last sale period and he was unusually cold. Normally, he’d be the first to hold my hand but he just kept his distance all through out the night. I tried talking to him but he didn’t say anything concrete or definite. He just apologized and said something like “I shouldn’t have been affectionate in the first place” or something to that effect. I wonder if it was something I did, said, didn’t do or didn’t say. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

The same time that I was going out with Alvin, dear old Jon decided to come back from the dead. He’s the typical Chinese – pale as a ghost, tall and lanky, eats a whole lot but never gains weight (how I envy that genetic trait!). Jon and I have known each other for the last 4 or 5 years. We were dating back then but we became friends since our schedules didn’t really jibe. I was still working for a call center back then and he was still in med school so enough said. We lost touch about a year ago but now we’ve bounced back full time. It started when he either lost his cell phone or he bought a new unit. He was trying to recover all his contacts and he was desperately trying to recall my number from his memory. He forgot the sequence of my digits but he did remember that he still has my e-mail address.

I like Jon. He’s a nice guy but a bit naïve when we met. I’m surprised at how different he is now compared to the last time we were together. I’m a bit concerned though because I get the feeling that we’re having an emotional affair. He’s been with his girl for two years and every time we talk on the phone, he tells me how refreshing it is to tell me things he would never dare discuss with his girl.

He adds that he still likes me a lot and that we have this unshakeable connection. It’s true – we do have a connection. I wonder though, if it has anything to do with us not having had the chance to hook up as a couple. I don’t know what’s going to happen but I certainly hope it wouldn’t end up in me causing a break-up. My karma’s a bit fuzzy enough as it is and I certainly don’t want to add anything else to it.

About two to three weeks ago, I was surprised to have gotten a text message from Dave. He was an intern in my office during the summer and I didn’t think much of him. I only know him by name and don’t even ask me the question if I remember what he looks like. He’s known to be “the lazy one” by everyone so a lot of my co-workers always pick on him to do chores.

We were never close during the three months that he and his companions stayed with the company. I have no idea what he wants so I answer his messages for the sake of being polite. He’s dropped hints of wanting to ask me out but I paid no attention to it. Dating a younger guy just isn’t my thing under normal circumstances (well, you’ll never know. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years is that there’s always going to be an exception to the rule). We still converse through text messages every now and then but it looks to me that he’s fishing for information about me. Anyway, moving on…

The biggest question that I have right now is ‘what is up with my lovelife?’ If I’m unattached, my love life is non-existent. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. When I do have a love or a dating life – when it rains, it pours. Just crazy. Why can’t there be some sort of a balance to offset the socially deprived times?

I’m now dating Lei, an old colleague from Sykes. The first time we met, people completely thought we were weird and had a lot of loose screws in our heads. All we ever talked about were garishly gory stuff. Things like headhunting rituals and blood sacrifices of the ancients Mayans and Incans. Though he may not look like it, Lei is an intellectual and history is our forte. I like him a lot and I guess it has a lot to do with me getting to know him really well years before.

Three weeks ago, I was having some documents printed in an Internet shop located on the mall across our building. I was frantic because the documents I was printing was for a client. I though everything was okay but my client gave me new instructions the last minute. I was fussing over the things I have to fix and deliver to my client when somebody approached me. He tells me that he didn’t mean to snoop but he saw the documents I was printing and he can’t help but wonder about what we do. We introduce ourselves to each other and we do a little bit of shop talk. He says he know people who are part of the Training Dept for a call center and that he could help push for our product. I smile, say thanks and we exchange contact details. He leaves and I finish up on what I was fussing over earlier.

Later that afternoon, I receive a text message from Patrick saying thanks for paying attention to him. The next day, I get an invite from him for coffee. I say yes thinking it was a business meeting and I head over to his condo building. It was really funny because his condo building is less than 50 paces away from my office building. I met him at the building lobby and we head over to the Pool Deck restaurant.

When we settled down on our table, the talk was anything but business. It turns out that his first line to me turned out to be a very clever pick-up line. I’m still not at ease with him although I am sure that he must be a nice guy. It must be his age. He’s 35 but he does look young for his age. He asked me how old do I think he is and Patrick was dumbfounded when I got his age range correctly.

There’s just something about a much older guy that you can easily tell them apart from people slightly younger than them or people my age. He asked me what it was and my answer was quite vague. I can’t explain it fully but I just know. There’s something about their level of confidence. They’re very frank and direct to the point that they come out looking very intense, brash and aggressive.

Patrick and I had lunch last week and there’s just something about him that makes me feel uneasy. He’s been very vocal about how much he likes me and how demonstrative he is. I tell him that I'm going to be gone for a couple of months pretty soon for an out-of-town project and he pulls out all the stops to do some hystrionics about everyone he knows leaving. That was a huge turn off (his negativity) but okay, I'll let it slide since his feelings have to be acknowledged.

We finish our lunch date at Cyma (my friend Owen's family is part owner of that place and the food is muy delicioso! Loved the Meatless Moussaka :) They serve Greek fusion cuisine and it's located on the 6th floor of Shangri-La Mall near Starbucks) and I was on my way back to the office. I would've wanted to walk (we've relocated our office to Pearl Plaza in Ortigas Center) but he insisted on dropping me off to the office. Inside the cab, he asked me for my picture. We were talking on the phone the night before and he asked me to give him a picture of mine. I said yes but I was in such a hurry that morning that I completely forgot about it. He does have a right to feel bad about it but when he vocalized how he felt, it came out in such a way that it sounded very accusative of me deliberately forgetting it as if it's something very grave. That just pissed me off that I was nonresponsive when we parted ways.

I don't know if it's me being a fault finder but I was looking back on the time that we were talking on the phone. I've only known him for a short time and he was asking me to promise take good care of him. I thought WTF?!? The words that was coming out of him was akin to asking me for a serious commitment. Whoa down horsey! Didn't I just tell you several times that you're moving too fast for me? Now that I think about it, he sounded like a big baby and it's very unflattering for a guy his age. It's not what I would like to consider in a guy that I would want to date.

He's asked me out again before we left the restaurant and I said okay. I was supposed to take him to my Toastmasters meeting and to one of my favorite restaurants (Bellini's in Marikina Shoe Expo in Cubao) the next night but because of what happened at the cab, I just stopped contacting him.

Lei and I are supposed to go out tonight but he's sick so we'll just reschedule it some other day. He's been feeling under the weather for the last couple of days so it wasn't such a surprise. To think I was pretty much looking forward to seeing him play with his band. We were both disappointed but I told him that there'll always be another gig for his band but that his health is important and that that's the one thing he wouldn't have any second chances with.

Losing My Head Again - Part II

I was scourging through my files this afternoon when I came across this entry that I meant to post last March or April.

I was just so friggin’ tired a couple of weeks ago. If you could just imagine the predicament that I was in – I go to work followed by going to Deutsch Unterricht with Cathy. Every morning, I usually would have to try my hardest to muster up the energy to get to work at all, resulting in my being late – around 10ish or sometimes even later. Once the clock hits around 5, I would dash out of the office like mad and catch the MRT going to the Santolan-Annapolis Station and then walk a couple of blocks to Herr Ang’s flat. It isn’t really normal if we end our sessions before 10 pm L

I know it is a pretty detailed explanation and that is my excuse for not being able to continue the second half of my story. But anyway, to make the long story short – I ended up having a one-night stand with Military guy. He was interested in us seeing each other again but I wasn’t sure I wanted the same thing as him. There’s just way too many things in my head – issues that I anticipate would pop up if some type of a relationship would form. I won’t elaborate on what those are because I would be listing some of them below.

At the present time, Military guy is long gone. I just couldn’t make up my mind about going out with him and I ended up driving him away. I don’t know whether it’d be fortunately or unfortunately would be the word that I would have to add.

I have observed a nasty habit of mine if I am unsure of a guy – I do a 1-2 step. I don’t really mean to do that but again, it has a lot to do with my not being able to come to a final decision. One minute I’m thinking about the positive side of hooking up with the individual in question and I am agreeable to making plans with him. The next minute when doubt sets in about going out with someone, I just completely shut down and they automatically get the impression that I am pushing them away after I reel them in. It’s happened before with me and the Saudi Arabian diplomat (who also happens to be at least a decade my senior).

I remember that it was a Wednesday night and the girls and I agreed to meet up to get a Brazilian job done over at Blue Wave, Macapagal Avenue. Military guy and I were texting each other when I asked him about his age. He tells me that he is 42. Forty fucking what?!? I’m the type of person that knows nothing about approximating one’s age by how they look and what happened afterwards was completely the slip of the tongue. I was so stunned that I wrote exactly what was in my head – that he is only 10 years younger than my dad and even asked if he’s having a midlife crisis.

It was a very innocent mistake and no doubt about it, my friends castigated me for dropping the two unmentionable words to somebody who’s transitioning into his advanced stage. Ouch! I did apologize the next day via text (I was guessing at this point that he probably didn’t want to talk to me ever again for my titanic faux pas) and as expected, no response.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen if I would accidentally bump into him or his friends again. Sure he’s a great and an intelligent guy but I’m no fan of May-December affairs. There were too many thoughts in my head – like how people from his circle would perceive me hooking up with him: 1) somebody way older and 2) somebody who’s out of my league if you’re talking in socio-economic terms. Both options are not too good and I don’t want to put a big burden on myself having to prove to other people a lot of different things. I also consulted with a lot of friends about my little predicament and most, if not all, thought of the same thing.

Besides, I probably would have to live up to the shadow of his ex-wife. Ex-wife was a sexy actress in the movies during the 80’s and is the daughter of a matinee idol-turned-politician. She’s now married to an inactive politician (translation: he lost during one particular election period)/scion of a former First Lady.

I bumped into Ex-wife and her current family during a recent outing to Rockwell and boy, am I glad to being so out of it all! I could just imagine the huge drama that it will be since Military Guy still has huge gripes about Ex-wife.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks and my dating life was again a dud. JP, the computer programmer friend of my ex-co-worker Sheryl, got relegated to really horrible schedule on the call center that he works for. The last time I saw him was during our Valentine’s Day date. We barely kept in touch as our schedule didn’t really jibe – he was awake when I was sleeping and he was asleep when I was awake. Communication lines during the weekend wasn’t feasible either as his rest day kept on changing every week. There was even a time when he wasn’t even allowed to have a rest day for two weeks straight!

Cam played matchmaker and gave my contact details to a friend. She didn’t tell me much about the guy and was just surprised when he started sending me text messages sometime around March. His name is Eduardo, an easy-going 30-year-bachelor. Mind you, he doesn’t look he’s 30. He’s a fun guy to be with as he’s very much capable of a highly intellectual conversation unlike some other people that I know from my past.

Martin knows about all this and we’re cool. We’ve talked about it in detail and we’ve settled all issues.

Mid Year Resolution

Last night, I got inducted as the new VP for Education for the Executive Toastmasters Club. I never really realized how big of a task it is until it was spelled out to me in detail during the Induction of the new set of club officers. I am the second in command in the club and I got to thinking about what my goals are for the club during my term. Last year’s feat is a tough act to follow – President’s Distinguished Club Award (the highest award a club could achieve) – even though I was part of the club officers’ roster during the last fiscal term.

I am absolutely happy that Mark accepted the position of Secretary. This early, he’s proving himself to be the completely involved club officer. Note to self: He’s a busy man himself and I shouldn’t have excuses that would prevent me from carrying out my responsibilities. After the meeting ended last night, Mark and I started brainstorming about what we could do to improve and bolster our club’s strengths even further.

Mark is going to take over the ‘moderatorship’ of the Yahoo groups and he’ll start archiving everything. By that, I mean all the speakers’ speeches, the timer’s report and the dreaded Ah count. I was thinking about holding an awards ceremony type of program in the next couple of months and Mark’s plan is a perfect fit for what I want to do. I have noticed that the attendance and promptness of our members leaves much to be desired and I had the novel idea of handing out special prizes to drum up interest.

As for personal goals, I’m going to work on my CC and CL this year. While I’m going be on a 3-month hiatus from the club, I’ll make sure to write the remaining 7 speeches that I need. I’m expecting to be out of town from end of July until September for this government contract that my company got. Two key concepts to bear in mind – Lead by example (courtesy of Mr. Potential Khris Albano) and Do as I say not as I do (from Julia during her address to the members and guests last night).

One way that would stimulate me to do my speeches is to keep on writing whether it be in my blog or in my journal. Anyway, I’m crossing my fingers that my boss, RVD, will let me get involved with the paper that my immediate boss’ family owns as a writer. About a month back, RVD’s already asked me if I wanted to write for The Manila Times shortly after he read the proposal that I was working on at that time. I could certainly learn a lot from RVD as far as writing is concerned, he’s a Palanca Awardee for Literature in 1956 for his short story entitled “The Centipede.”

Sick

I stayed at home today because I wasn't feeling well. It's the weather - hot throughout the entire day then it would rain at night without any warning at all. I went to Rockwell after I got off of work last Saturday. They were having a mallwide sale (up to 70% off) and I was hoping to get lucky to score a cheap 2GB Flash drive. Transfering files from my laptop is such a bitch without internet connection since I don't have a disk drive :( Burning files unto a CD is a complete waste if it would be just one file.

I wasn't able to find a flash drive but my mood was certainly uplifted after I got out of Beauty Bar :) I was able to buy a really good foundation from Pout with a 45% discount (50% if I had paid cash) :D The formulation was exactly what I was looking for - oil-free liquid foundation that goes on from a sheer to medium finish. The other thing that I love about Pout is their packaging - I'm a sucker for lace and Victorian design :D I also got a free make-over to boot using their latest line called the Goddess collection. Looks great on theory but I'm not too crazy about bronzers because it'll look disgustingly greasy on me and my oily complexion.


I got this from my e-mail today and I smell a scam...

Dear Mendoza,

My name is Mr. Yemi Daniel, a Banker with one of the leading banks here in Abidjan Cote d'Ivoire West Africa; I am the personal accounts manager to Mr. William Mendoza, who used to be a contractor with an oil servicing company based here in Cote Ivoire. My client, his wife, and their three children were involved in the ill fated Kenya Airways crash in the coasts of Abidjan in January 2000 in which all passengers on board died. Since then I have made several inquiries to locate any of my clients extended relatives but has been unsuccessful. I decided to trace his last name over the internet, to see if I could locate any member of his family hence I contacted you.

Of particular interest is this large deposit with our bank here, where the deceased has an account valued at about ($15 million US dollars) They have issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or the bank will declare the account unserviceableAnd thereby send the funds to the government treasury. Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over last 5 years now, I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you have the same last names, so that the proceeds of this account valued at can be paid to you and then you and I can share the money.

All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us seeing this deal through. I guarantee that this will be executed under all legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. If you can handle this with me, reach me by sending the following informations now through this email account:

1. Your Name
2. Postal Address
3. Date of Birth
4. Telephone and fax numbers
5. Profession with position

Thanking you for your anticipated cooperation.
Sincerely yours
Yemi Daniel
yemidaniels882@hotmail.com