"Forget Prince Charming. I'll take the wolf." - Emily the Strange

Saturday, July 29, 2006

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.

1 Comments:

Blogger Blackdove said...

Hi diamond_blue! Yes, I'm VPPR. Well, I have to say I'm impressed with the enthusiasm of your club members. Does your club have a website? We don't have one yet but am planning on one.

Colorful lovelife, by the way :)

10:05 PM

 

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