Best Buddies (Old BC Blog)
(originally posted Oct. 8, 2005)
“Ano ba ang nakita mo sa kanya?”
My ex angrily asked me that question after we broke up. What did I see in my buddy anyway? I couldn’t give the ex an exact answer. Was it her eyes that twinkled when she smiled? Was it her fair skin? Or her katarayan ? I told her the only thing that came into my mind.
“It was Fate.”
Yes, fate. I noticed her a long time before I even knew her. All I knew was that she was this girl in her usual outfit of a baby t-shirt, short A-line skirt and sneakers darting in and out of your dormitory that summer. She always seemed to have a sense of purpose, walking ahead without looking around the lobby. Yeah, I found her cute. But she looked mataray. Summer ended and I forgot about her.
I joined this regional org since I wanted to find out more about my adopted province. I had some schoolmates applying too, mostly from the lower batch. It was orientation day when she walked in again, smiling and laughing with her orgmates. I couldn’t believe it. She was a member!
Bidding time for buddies came, and she wasn’t even there. I have been an applicant for more than two weeks now and I haven’t even talked to her yet. Most of my other co-applicants already got their buddies and there was a new one coming up. Impatiently, I bid the highest reasonable amount I could think of and bid for whoever my buddy would be. It went uncontested. Imagine my delight when I found out it was HER.
And still no sign of her. She showed up a week later while I was whiling away the time at the tambayan that afternoon, chatting with my co-apps. We had more chats (and spats) after that, including that eventful buddy date which both of us poured our guts out on hang-ups, angst and traumas to each other.
Sadly, my application didn’t push through, even if we did get declared best buddies on our Talent’s Night. Ironically, we weren’t on speaking terms that night due to a misunderstanding beforehand. You see, I told her my feelings.
One afternoon, days before the Talent’s Night, my co-apps were kidding me about my attraction to her. It so happened she had just arrived while they were at it.
“Hello! What’s up?” she asked.
“He wants to tell you something,” one of my companions pointed at me.
The rat. I’ll get him later.
“Well, what is it?” she looked at me inquiringly.
I tried to hedge and worm my way out of it for more than an hour but this girl knew me and stared at me and wouldn’t let me up. She knew it had something to do with us. And she wouldn’t give up until I told her. And I did. Full of hope and dread and excitement, I did.
I told her I liked her. Very much. And she said, not unkindly, “ I like you too, but as a friend. I’m not closing my doors though. If you’re willing to risk it then let’s see where this would go. But I can’t give you any guarantees.”
“I’m going to break up with my girlfriend”, I blurted out.
“I can’t let you do that just because of me and I can’t give you any assurance that there would be an “us” either.” I was too angry to see the sadness in her eyes. All I knew was that she was rejecting me.
We eventually patched things up and remained good friends even though I wasn’t able to continue my application to their org. I also stayed with my girlfriend. After her graduation, we kept in touch sporadically.
A year later, I broke up with my girlfriend. She was seeing another guy behind my back. Someone better-looking than I was. I was at a low point in my life when she popped up again just after the church service. As usual, she became my sounding board. The one person that didn’t give me bullsh*t, who told me it was going to be all right and who told me what was on her mind – except what she was feeling.
I asked her out a few days later. She finally said yes and we had a wonderful time. Two days later I was knocking at her door at 11:30 in the evening. I just had to tell her how I felt. Needless to say, it was a repeat of the previous conversation.
She didn’t shut her doors though. We went out a couple of more times in the next three weeks and had fun. But I was getting impatient. I didn’t read the signals right.
She’d call me every now and then. She’d hold my hand from time to time and play with it. She asking for a hug and me laughingly giving it to her. She embarrassedly confessed that she’d been having dreams of us kissing. Me actually teaching her how and her surprisingly sweet response. How she couldn’t get out of the car because her legs felt like “jello”. But she never said anything about how she felt. So I read a lot of things wrong. And I believed my ex.
“She likes you only as a friend, not even romantically. Why do you persist on pursuing her?” she told me angrily a few days after I told my buddy how I felt.
I thought about it again and decided that it was an exercise in futility. I gave up. And went out with other girls. More experienced and worldly females.
The next year, I got news that she just had a boyfriend. Well, good for her, I thought, as I dismissed her from my mind. Until we met again after the church service a few months later and she told me about my write-up, the music sheet for a piece she wanted to return and countless notes she wrote and never sent – all addressed to me.
I read them all. It told of a young lady who was falling for her buddy. How broken-hearted she was when he suddenly had a new girlfriend who was obviously prettier and richer than she was. How she was still hoping he’d come back. How he never came back – and she just resolved to be a good friend to him. How she loved and lost and finally moved on.
I think of the hits and misses, the miscommunications and the misunderstanding, the joy I felt when I finally had her in my arms and wish that I had known better. But Fate deemed it so. She’ll only be a friend I can lean on. In the meantime, I still search for The One. Or had I found her and just let her go?
###############
This is how I imagine my buddy would’ve written our story. I hope this will be your closure, as those letters I gave you had been mine before. I can’t think of anything more appropriate to say except (to borrow the words of a friend) - “ I loved you once, if for a while…”
Post Script to the post script:
I wrote this article more than a year ago under a different pseudonym, on a particularly down period of my life, but this story happened years before that. Anyway, I was surprised how this story is so like many other buddies out there. And how uncannily right on the dot to the guy's real story.
“Ano ba ang nakita mo sa kanya?”
My ex angrily asked me that question after we broke up. What did I see in my buddy anyway? I couldn’t give the ex an exact answer. Was it her eyes that twinkled when she smiled? Was it her fair skin? Or her katarayan ? I told her the only thing that came into my mind.
“It was Fate.”
Yes, fate. I noticed her a long time before I even knew her. All I knew was that she was this girl in her usual outfit of a baby t-shirt, short A-line skirt and sneakers darting in and out of your dormitory that summer. She always seemed to have a sense of purpose, walking ahead without looking around the lobby. Yeah, I found her cute. But she looked mataray. Summer ended and I forgot about her.
I joined this regional org since I wanted to find out more about my adopted province. I had some schoolmates applying too, mostly from the lower batch. It was orientation day when she walked in again, smiling and laughing with her orgmates. I couldn’t believe it. She was a member!
Bidding time for buddies came, and she wasn’t even there. I have been an applicant for more than two weeks now and I haven’t even talked to her yet. Most of my other co-applicants already got their buddies and there was a new one coming up. Impatiently, I bid the highest reasonable amount I could think of and bid for whoever my buddy would be. It went uncontested. Imagine my delight when I found out it was HER.
And still no sign of her. She showed up a week later while I was whiling away the time at the tambayan that afternoon, chatting with my co-apps. We had more chats (and spats) after that, including that eventful buddy date which both of us poured our guts out on hang-ups, angst and traumas to each other.
Sadly, my application didn’t push through, even if we did get declared best buddies on our Talent’s Night. Ironically, we weren’t on speaking terms that night due to a misunderstanding beforehand. You see, I told her my feelings.
One afternoon, days before the Talent’s Night, my co-apps were kidding me about my attraction to her. It so happened she had just arrived while they were at it.
“Hello! What’s up?” she asked.
“He wants to tell you something,” one of my companions pointed at me.
The rat. I’ll get him later.
“Well, what is it?” she looked at me inquiringly.
I tried to hedge and worm my way out of it for more than an hour but this girl knew me and stared at me and wouldn’t let me up. She knew it had something to do with us. And she wouldn’t give up until I told her. And I did. Full of hope and dread and excitement, I did.
I told her I liked her. Very much. And she said, not unkindly, “ I like you too, but as a friend. I’m not closing my doors though. If you’re willing to risk it then let’s see where this would go. But I can’t give you any guarantees.”
“I’m going to break up with my girlfriend”, I blurted out.
“I can’t let you do that just because of me and I can’t give you any assurance that there would be an “us” either.” I was too angry to see the sadness in her eyes. All I knew was that she was rejecting me.
We eventually patched things up and remained good friends even though I wasn’t able to continue my application to their org. I also stayed with my girlfriend. After her graduation, we kept in touch sporadically.
A year later, I broke up with my girlfriend. She was seeing another guy behind my back. Someone better-looking than I was. I was at a low point in my life when she popped up again just after the church service. As usual, she became my sounding board. The one person that didn’t give me bullsh*t, who told me it was going to be all right and who told me what was on her mind – except what she was feeling.
I asked her out a few days later. She finally said yes and we had a wonderful time. Two days later I was knocking at her door at 11:30 in the evening. I just had to tell her how I felt. Needless to say, it was a repeat of the previous conversation.
She didn’t shut her doors though. We went out a couple of more times in the next three weeks and had fun. But I was getting impatient. I didn’t read the signals right.
She’d call me every now and then. She’d hold my hand from time to time and play with it. She asking for a hug and me laughingly giving it to her. She embarrassedly confessed that she’d been having dreams of us kissing. Me actually teaching her how and her surprisingly sweet response. How she couldn’t get out of the car because her legs felt like “jello”. But she never said anything about how she felt. So I read a lot of things wrong. And I believed my ex.
“She likes you only as a friend, not even romantically. Why do you persist on pursuing her?” she told me angrily a few days after I told my buddy how I felt.
I thought about it again and decided that it was an exercise in futility. I gave up. And went out with other girls. More experienced and worldly females.
The next year, I got news that she just had a boyfriend. Well, good for her, I thought, as I dismissed her from my mind. Until we met again after the church service a few months later and she told me about my write-up, the music sheet for a piece she wanted to return and countless notes she wrote and never sent – all addressed to me.
I read them all. It told of a young lady who was falling for her buddy. How broken-hearted she was when he suddenly had a new girlfriend who was obviously prettier and richer than she was. How she was still hoping he’d come back. How he never came back – and she just resolved to be a good friend to him. How she loved and lost and finally moved on.
I think of the hits and misses, the miscommunications and the misunderstanding, the joy I felt when I finally had her in my arms and wish that I had known better. But Fate deemed it so. She’ll only be a friend I can lean on. In the meantime, I still search for The One. Or had I found her and just let her go?
###############
This is how I imagine my buddy would’ve written our story. I hope this will be your closure, as those letters I gave you had been mine before. I can’t think of anything more appropriate to say except (to borrow the words of a friend) - “ I loved you once, if for a while…”
Post Script to the post script:
I wrote this article more than a year ago under a different pseudonym, on a particularly down period of my life, but this story happened years before that. Anyway, I was surprised how this story is so like many other buddies out there. And how uncannily right on the dot to the guy's real story.
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