Totally UNrelated BUTT a GOOD reading anyway

Sometimes you just want to see things a little differently. Sometimes you want to see stuff that's not really there. It happens so often that some people make careers out of it, like that guy who wrote "He's just not that into you." I haven't read the book, I just read about him in the Inquirer, and I got the impression that his book was such a hit simply because *hurrah hurrah* here was a man who told it like it is, who would save thousands, nay, millions! of women from making asses out of themselves.

But, jeez, I bet every woman's girl friends tell her the same banana every time she gets duped. Note that I said duped, not "dumped." One letter makes all the difference. "Dumped" implies the presence of a dumper, and a dumpee; it implies a coordination of both parties, to communicate in some kind of form to relay these feelings. Whereas "duped" just means, hell, for a moment there I kind of thought this was something, but apparently it's nothing, and hahaha sorry to have wasted everyone's time...

Take, for example, the case of Perry Ellis, this girl I knew from high school. She goes to her high school reunion, ends up drunk in a classmate's house, makes out with some cute random ex classmate, and hold hands on the way to Jollibee the next day. A week later, she gets drunk again in the same house, and calls up random ex classmate and yells at him on the phone. "Ano ba talaga?!" (of course, the answer, she knew, was nothing), she says, and proceeds to throw up on the newly manicured lawn. Upon waking up sober the next few days, embarrassed and feeling self-righteous (possibly the world's worst combination), she tries to call ex classmate to no avail. He cancels her calls, doesn't answer her texts. But here's the thing: she just wanted to apologize. Granted, the fact that she tried to call him up thrice a day probably didn't improve her chances of ex classmate wanting a straightening out of stories, but if he'd listened, she probably would just have said sorry.

You might say, well, there was no need to apologize; such sordid experiences are best forgotten. True, yes. But random ex classmate was also sort of a friend; they did share birthday greetings and know each other's love life updates. So she just wanted to make sure everything was cool.

So. Both parties were duped there. But hey, guess what, everyone survived. Because everyone knew, the answer to that rabid question, that mind-boggler, "Ano ba talaga?!", is "Wala lang."

And take this other story, that of this friend of a friend, who is thrilled with the idea of being brought home after school by this other guy who has a girlfriend. Girlfriend doesn't know because she goes to a different school, and the guy doesn't mind because both he and the girl live in the same area. The guy is just being really nice, and being a gentleman, and it's so easy to misinterpret that as something, especially since there are so many few guys who have as pure intentions as he does. And he really doesn't make anything out of it; it's just something nice that he can do for a classmate, right?

But my friend of a friend, smitten and giddy with the idea of such kindness existing in the world, wants to think there's something there, an actual reason why he's going out of his way to be nice. But, hey, let's face it; there's nothing there. The guy probably loves his girlfriend like madness. Everything is fluid and ambiguous. Infatuation is so easy to acquire. And just as easy to dispose of. It's so easy to accidentally dupe someone. It's equally as easy to lead yourself into being duped.

But the hard part, of course, is that until someone comes up to you to shake you into reason, to dig you out of a hole you probably feel like you want to be buried in, you don't really understand the logic of it. But it's there. The probability of misinterpretation is staggering. One side just wants to be loved, the other side probably just wishes it had never happened. But, you know, everyone wakes up sober the next day anyway, and no matter how hard you pretend, you always remember what happened the night before. You know, in the pit of your stomach, if it's something. And when you know it's nothing, it's not worth it to try to vomit up air.

Because, you know, sh*t happens to everybody. And it sure sucks, but sometimes things just aren't what they seem. It's nice to have a little crush, it's probably healthy for everyone. But sometimes that's all that it can be. And it may not be much, but it'll spare you the drinking binges, the crying, the embarrassing texts. And you'll have this sort of pristine memory. Which, dammit, sounds boring as hell.

So I guess what I'm tring to say is, go ahead! Make an ass out of yourself! Learn from it! And learn when not to do it. Because if we never make asses out of ourselves at least once in our lives, then we'll never learn to wipe our own sh*t.


Source:
In a Rage : Making Love out of Nothing At All
Contributed by caravaggio (Edited by blue_kuko)
Sunday, October 30, 2005 @ 12:00:10 AM