And then there are the questions that seem implausible when asked. Did someone hurt you before? Did someone break your heart? Did someone shatter all your expectations? Valid questions, all three of them, but the problem lies with you. You're not supposed to ask those questions.

So you look back to the past. Perhaps, try to figure things out. They all say there's no reason to get hurt, and perhaps they're right. It's just you. Your expectations are there for a reason. They were all betrayed, eventually, and you're left with just another opportunity to start again. Either you decide to reach out, or, as you just did, substitute everything around you for what you think should be there.

Of course, you can flip the argument around and say that they led you to have these expectations. It was they who made you feel like it's home, all before bringing out the bulldozer and cracking the walls open.

Perhaps I didn't understand that. Back then. Now, maybe, I do.

Why do we put so much faith in people?

Better yet, why the same people who don't put any amount of faith in us? The people that, for all we know, can live without you. There is conversation, and then there's that red button that makes it effortless to let go. Better yet, lose grip. Ah, what gives, it doesn't mean anything anyway. And as you start falling off the tracks, the flashbacks begin.

So much for the investment.

So, it's either you decide to start over again, or you substitute everything around you and lock yourself in. Maybe trust the chocolate wrappers or the diplomats. Anyone but me. Rest assured I'll stop asking those implausible questions. Rest assured I won't do the things you've done. Well, at least not yet.

My heart still has a long way to go before it becomes irreparable.

Now that you've mentioned it, you're right; you're going to be thirteen years old in exactly a month. And, all of a sudden, I remember the past year, when so many people despaired during the days leading to their birthdays, because by then they will turn twenty - and, in a snap, it's goodbye to their teenage years, and hello, big world, sort of.

Suffice it to say that the next seven years of your life is going to be the most important. In your case, it's seventh grade, four years of high school, and a fragment of your college years; that actually makes you lucky, because you're going to be given a little more leeway at 21, still in college, perhaps finishing things, or starting all over again. It's in the next seven years when you'll learn perhaps the most important things you'll encounter in life, and that's what makes those years a roller coaster ride.

And I don't expect anyone to turn this to a spoken word track. I don't, obviously, have the clout to be mistaken for Kurt Vonnegut, which I haven't read either.

But remember the influx of responsibilities. Growing up, as you well know, is growing in; the more capable you become, and inevitably you will be, the more tasks you will be asked to do. Don't frown, but don't just do everything. Know what you can, and learn when you think you ought to, or what you want to.

And remember the influx of relationships. People will come and go, and without understanding they will pounce on you. Let it go when you have to; stay firm when the line has been crossed. Keep watch over your friends; the next seven years will be very crucial in determining whether you'll have someone to turn to when you're 25, or 36, or 58. And don't ever break someone's heart without justification. That is the worst crime you could do to someone, and if anything, you'll end up hurting yourself more than you hurt the other end, unless you take on a steel suit and crash yourself towards bookshelves.

Your family will be there, pretty much, and at points they will not understand you. Your friends will be there, and at points it will seem that they're the only ones who do. But it's you that should be watched closely. Confusion will come in; your definition of some concepts will change, once or fifteen times, over the next seven years. Let it be. Don't let mistakes get to you, unless they are really regrettable. Volatility is a given at this point. Be stern, but be flexible, and hold on to your beliefs and your principles. This is not the best time to lose them.

But, most of all, have fun with it. There will be many firsts. And, definitely, there will be many lasts.

The next seven years will define you. The next seven years will determine whether you'll live beyond 20, or live past a century, and whether people will see you as this kid with a rowdy imagination, or a kid with a rowdy imagination and lots of money. Trust me. People will look down on you, the same way people will look up at you, but don't let it get to you. Sometimes this is the make-or-break decision, and when it's gone, you'll look for it, and never find it.

Take it from someone who grew up too fast and wants everything back, inevitably.

And, if it will help, I will stop calling you Ellie when you turn sixteen. It's not a promise, though.

I'm a 20-year-old male, and society has a lot of expectations for me. For one, I should be mature.

I should be sensitive to what others feel, but not too sensitive to exhibit weakness.

I should exhibit strength of will, a determination to see things through, a perspective rooted in reality but never losing sight of what's ahead.

I should not be swayed by past mistakes, instead treating them as the best way to improve everything when the right time comes.

Obviously, I am in the wrong spot.

I am far from mature. I have issues, most unsolved, lingering instead through an unexplainable mix of anger and disillusionment. I prefer, or at least inevitably, dwell on the past, taking pains to remember what I considered as the best of times, and throwing punches at things that have hurt me, not recognizing the distance, nor the fact that I'm not punching anything.

I am sensitive. Too sensitive, perhaps. I agonize over the smallest mistakes, and I try to work out how to reverse them, oblivious to the fact that they are, indeed, irreversible. I am affected by the smallest things, letting the tiniest of particles interact with me until small spots in my body grow and become bruises that are painful when touched. And yet I look to be touched, to be affected, just to get myself through.

I am very close to giving up.

And the irony is, I still return. I said I won't entertain you and your thoughts; I wouldn't bother finding out what you're up to and what you've been, but the world has collapsed, and I have nowhere else to go. Better go with a stranger than go with those who have scorned you outright, or secretly, to their beliefs. I still long for something that I've tagged as unattainable. I give up, and I return.

I hate comparing myself to you, but I am left with no choice. The world, after all, is against me. I've gotten into arguments so many times. I should stop believing that crap, they say, because it isn't true, and it's just me and my squiggly thoughts, and things will get better in time. And yet you say I should see things like I should be. As a man. As society dictates. And for someone who doesn't really have a choice - an idea of how to get things working - the only option is to try figuring out how it actually works out.

That's where you come in.

I want to take things in stride, with nary a fuss, pretty much like you do on a daily basis. A click on the mouse, a few taps on the keyboard, a disinterested look as you stand up and walk away, as you always do, every single day. A perspective that's marred with stoicism, unless when you have to. Or, at the very least, the ability to hide behind intimidation, or laughter, or whatever it is. That's what they're asking for, after all. The talent, or better yet, the ability, to hide yourself in order to keep everything working.

Instead, I'm here wondering about what I've done and what I should've done. Or what I didn't do. Or what I really want. Or whether this will all be worth it, whether you're just not interested, or outright annoyed, or just taking it in stride.

It's not you I really want. It's being you.

In the end, you get the conversation and I don't. Society rewards silence. Or hypocrisy.

I am supposed to be absolutely clueless about this, right?

I mean, I am not supposed to notice. I shouldn't notice you coming around. I shouldn't notice that you aren't asking me questions. I shouldn't notice that we aren't talking anymore.

And I understood. Things got in the way. I had to do things, and you had to do things. If there's anything we both understood, it's the possibilities of space. And respecting it. And we had disagreements about it, and I asked for it, and you stayed away. And you asked for it, and I stayed away.

I am not supposed to notice. And yet I did.

How long has it been going? Weeks? Months? Of me saying I'm too busy, and you giving way? I didn't say I don't want you around. Why do you suddenly don't want me around?

I know you'd do it only because you have something to hide. Something to hold against. You've opened this up to me. You've had this with so many people. And I respected that, even if it overlapped in so many places.

So why do I deserve this?

What exactly did I do? Because, as far as I know, I didn't do anything. The only thing we agreed is, we're both busy in stuff and we wouldn't have the time for anything. I didn't say anything against you. I didn't do anything to do, direct or otherwise. I was just keeping quiet, dealing with my own problems, not doing anything to implicate who shouldn't be.

Instead, you decide to click on those two buttons and shut me off.

I'm supposed to understand why I'm now on the receiving end, but I'll never have peace of mind until I know why you did this to me. What I did. Why I deserve this. Whether I should apologize to you.

But if there's one thing I know, it's that I don't have anything to apologize to you for.

I didn't do anything. You know that. I gave you the respect that you deserve, for being one of the few people who stuck it out when things have gone terribly wrong.

And I never disappeared. We just drifted away, but that doesn't mean I've disappeared for good.

It was you who decided to have it over with.

And I want to know why.

After slipping to Los Angeles, I was surprised to see Jason chat with me over YM. And over the most random of things, too. While I prepare for my first articles at work, and taking advantage of my forced (and still undecided) isolation, we'd discuss things that we wouldn't usually discuss when he was still in Manila, and when we were just students in, err, film school. Or that's how it felt sometimes.

It is awards season, after all. The frustration of having to read and write about all these films is, you realize they're not going to be shown here, or at least, most of them. One month ago, the possibility of cinemas here showing Frost/Nixon or Doubt or The Wrestler or Vicky Cristina Barcelona is very small. (Since then, two have opened in cinemas, albeit in disappointingly limited runs, considering Makati isn't my cup of tea on lazy Saturdays.)

Inevitably, out first post-flight conversations would be about these films. Upon touchdown, Jason most definitely did his catching up, and then he'd tell me things online afterwards. I wasn't a stranger to these discussions, having been in the middle of them since we became thesis partners before we knew it. But it was refreshing in a funny way - he was gushing over Amy Adams, admitting that he has a little crush on her, and even going on about her underarms. Then he would gush over Doubt's cast and how effective the film was with them. We argued, we bluffed - or I bluffed, not having seen anything yet - and we laughed at each other. And then I'd figure out that he was right about Amy.

The funnier thing, though, was in the way he would chat with me: in straight English. I eventually got the gist, and in later chats - when we'd discuss utterly random stuff, from Iza not letting him announce him spotting Bono, to the American Idol premiere - I'd have fun pretending that I was talking to an American, only someone that I've known for the past three years. We even went to the point of deciding to write a full-length screenplay - imagine, two guys separated by nine time zones in a really wide ocean collaborating on a movie script? That's yet to begin, though, since the ball's on my park and I haven't had the time to kink out all the details.

What else can a newcomer to a pretty alien city do? Communicate with the base, that's what.

The conversations died down as the weeks passed by, and although honestly I'm not all that muffed, since I've also gotten busier as American Idol crawled to the air, I did think about what eventually happened. One of out last chats was about him looking for a car, something that he's bound to do since, as he contends, he can't be stuck at home looking for a job for long. He just passed the driver's test, and got himself a license; the next thing I know, he's picked up a Camry, and he's now able to drive to that coffee shop somewhere in Melrose Place and hang out with the crowd. I won't presume, but I guess we no longer need to talk that much anymore.

Which is why I've been bothering random people, or at least those who aren't busy with their own preoccupations, over the past months.

He got one phone call.

"Things are going to change around here," the other end said.

His stomach started churning. He wanted more details.

"I'm not yet sure how things will go," the other end said. "But I can tell you, get ready."

"Will it be good or bad?" he wondered.

"I couldn't tell," the other end said. Then, silence.

"I've gotta go."

He ended the phone call, only to receive another one.

"Hey, guess what?" the other end said.

"What?" he inquired.

"I got it," the other end answered. "I can't believe I got it!"

"Oh," he answered. "I am very much surprised. Why didn't I know this?"

"We haven't talked for a while, you know," the other end answered.

"So what do I say, then?"

He grasped for words.

"Oh, there," he finally said. "Congratulations!"

"Thank you," the other end said. "You know, you should start preparing, too. It could be there any time soon."

"I am preparing," he said. "Perhaps it's cosmic. It's just not come yet."

"Well, it soon will," the other end said. "Just hang on."

"I am trying my best to hang on."

He pauses, looking at the people around him.

"Oh no," he said. "Not again. I think I'm going to cry."

"Magdala kayo ng jacket," my mother gently reminded us in the wee morning hours. "Umuulan."

Indeed, it was raining. It almost happened over the weekend, but it only felt the need to let go today. By six in the morning it was still as dark as an hour before, further accentuate by the sound of the drizzle, partly drowned out by the radio. I never needed reminding, however, since I always had my jacket and my umbrella with me, powered by that everlasting belief that you'll never know when you'll need it.

It remained that way throughout the morning car ride, and in a fit of cooperation my iPod started playing slow songs. I quickly fell asleep on the highway, and woke up fifteen minutes later at C5, with the sun shining brightly outside. The windshield was barely wet, even. Where did the rain go?

"Umuulan diyan?" I told Ariane a couple of hours later, from some computer in some building in Ortigas. "Ang weird. Ang liwanag ng araw dito."

"Oo, ang lakas ng ulan," she answered. "Pero maliwanag. Labo."

It remained that way throughout the morning, or so I thought. The disadvantage of my new desk (apart from the unwelcome smell of brewed coffee in the morning) is that I no longer have the window to my advantage. I used to glimpse as it and, if there are droplets of water against the glass, I'd delay walking out for lunch, since it definitely means it's raining hard outside. I could still tell if it's sunny outside, though, and so before I took off I peeked behind me. For safety, I brought an umbrella.

The rain was terrible.

But, what the heck, I still pushed on. I had an umbrella anyway, and although I knew it was too small for someone like me - making my skin and moisture an irresistible pair - I knew I could push on without much damage. It was the usual four-minute walk to the Shangri-la Plaza, and in that short time, I encountered a handful of unusually deep water puddles, had slightly wet polo sleeves, and had my corduroy pair drenched a third of the way up. I arrived at the mall hardly the face of corporate neatness, but never mind if I looked like a term that I'm hesitant on adopting from someone else. I came there for lunch. I ended up having lunch. It was, ironically, very hot when it came to me.

I don't understand why it's only lately that I've entered my deviant stage. Sure, not everything is correct on television, but if that's to be followed, then I should've started rebelling during my high school years. I should've started sneaking out (at least more often than I actually have) and, perhaps, started doing things that I shouldn't be doing unless I was really being adventurous. I shouldn't be sticking to ages-old beliefs, instead making my own from all of those experiences I should've had.

Rather, it's only now that I feel compelled to break away from common knowledge and just, well, do it. Never mind whether I'd go back to the office very wet, with people looking at me and wondering whether I was running along Pearl Drive without any cover. I'd probably have an excuse - "inabutan ako ng ulan pabalik" - or, perhaps it's me overreacting, but it's that line of thought that some people have tried forcing into my skull for the past four years: walang pakialamanan.

I planned to stay inside the mall for, say, around three hours, considering myself lucky because I was (again) finished with all of my tasks before midday struck. Only equipped with less than a thousand bucks, a pen and the lunch receipt, I decided I'd hang out inside a bookstore, and perhaps read or write stuff, trying to make something cathartic out of everything. Instead, I was again walking on rainy Ortigas streets barely forty minutes after I went into the mall absolutely drenched. It wasn't raining as hard, thankfully, and for good measure, the sun was shining. The puddles weren't as deep as they were before. I was thinking about the things I wanted to do once I get back to this desk.

Sometimes, I figured, I deviate from my own deviance.

I actually find structures useful. If I'm trying to make something big really work, I'm probably planning things out in advance. Ideas get mapped in my head, routed towards each other, given a space to breathe in and ultimately developed as I see it fit.

For some reason, that's what I did for the past two weeks. Day fourteen is the ultimate - another one of those excuses to write about things that I'd rather not write about. The final line would be a status message that Valerie liked a couple of weeks back. Along the way, the concept gets slowly propped up. Day one was about waiting. Day four should have been about attraction, although it ended up appearing on day five. A few more conversations later, I got something for day six - something about oppression.

I had it all beautifully set up, really. Day eleven, or day twelve, would probably have something about ambivalence, a concept that I picked up from a former college professor a couple of weeks back as well. I figured I'm this confusing person - I like things that I hate, and I hate things that I like. I was pretty close to quoting Ale's "I'm a walking contradiction" line, and went as far as to retrace its origins in my head. I think it came from Huey.

And, the last seven days should have been dedicated, behind the scenes, to unearthing every reference to the concept that I have made before. Perhaps, as far back as June, when it never mattered, to the following month, when it was on the verge of being such. I knew where to look for those lines - words that Carmel, or Anna, or Jenn, or Majet, or Ariane, or Jackie, or Ella, or Icka, or Asia, or Valerie, said - and, since I usually have lots of free time after lunch, I figured I can go back to the past, pull out choice bits, and compile them.

I had my thoughts figured out.

So why are you hanging on, even if it isn't really going to be worth it?

Because there's no turning back. What happened cannot be undone. What was thought cannot be forgotten. Truth is, your sunshine is irreversible.

Day fourteen could've been a declaration of some sorts. That's what the ambivalence reference was about: the fact that you don't want something you actually want, or are at least very much confused about what to do with it. Step back one, step back two, step back three, then forward again, until it becomes - another Valerie term - a vicious infinite loop. It was like that. I'll do something, I won't, I'm not allowed, I'm infuriated, I've seen this happen before. I get annoyed at the fact that I can't do anything, and yet I get annoyed at the fact that I badly want to do something, and despite the ambiguity of my actual intentions, it's like, here are your feelings, go work with it.

And then you settle, and then it happens again. Smack in the face. It will never be worth it.

So, do you continue accommodating something which you've been rejecting even if it actually gets you through the day - and ruins it for you?

And do I continue the plan that I've worked on half-consciously but meticulously for the past month, while I'm idle and while I'm asleep, while I'm tortured and while I'm relieved?

No.

There's this Korean restaurant in the area. Actually, it's a Korean-owned fried chicken restaurant, or better yet, a franchise of a Korean fried chicken restaurant. Two things draw me there. One, it's always closed, despite being all tricked out inside. Two, it keeps on promoting itself despite being closed, and I wonder whether anybody understands the Korean words inscribed in the three tarps that are placed in the vicinity. Perhaps we've been invaded by Koreans, or selling poultry with beer isn't really a good thing for an establishment near a school.

I was looking out the window of another restaurant, waiting for my order to come. The place was empty, which was unusual considered it's just past one in the afternoon, and there'd usually be a couple of diners or something. The server, in a shirt, came with my sisig meal, with bigger slices of pork and a noticeable amount of liver, something I've totally missed. And, in a change of heart, I took the calamansi and squeezed it on the plate, and the sizzling just went on and on.

I did that before. When I was still in college. Red Spoon. "Ate, isang sisig with egg, saka C2 lemon."

I was thinking of texting Misha last night. It was probably the most random thing I've ever done, if I ever did it. I was sleepy, though, and since the ride was smooth - and the trip surprisingly quick, or it's just me leaving the office at earlier times - forgetting half-baked ideas was effortless. All I knew was, I was supposed to thank her for something that she didn't even know she'd be doing. I did some imagining before fatigue got the best of me.

"I'm so bored," I told Icka earlier. "Time is flying slowly. Or, more of gliding."

"Por que?" she answered, as she usually does.

"I don't know. I feel sleepy and bad - let's end it there - and sentimental after looking, again, at old photos. That feeling of seeing Misha all of a sudden, for one."

I was browsing through old Multiply albums. I think I was hanging out at Mae's space, looking for a particular photo she took during the elections. I was obviously surprised, but it was the most pleasant surprise I've had in months.

"So you're not entirely over her?" Icka asked. "Or just nostalgic?"

"Nostalgic," I answered.

"Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside?"

"Feeling better, really. Like, all the shit in the office, poof."

"Things still aren't better at work?"

"Got worse."

It is perhaps one of the most basic lessons we were given as kids.

Language class tells us to say po and opo to our parents, older relatives and other figures of authority. Religion class tells us that we should not have any other god but, well, the Catholic god. Even homeroom class, if ever there was such a thing, tells us to ask for permission from everyone. You can't just, after all, storm out of the classroom to go to the toilets without telling your teacher the classic "may I go out?" line.

It is even a lesson that's enshrined in the school's rules. Simply, you shouldn't fight your classmates. Don't ever dare them to a match, either a shouting one or a more physical one. Don't raise your voice in front of your teacher, and your principal, and your janitor, and your canteen server. Don't throw a tantrum in class, for you're disrupting the flow of the lesson, annoying the rest of the class, and perhaps puts everyone in trouble.

I tried my best to follow those rules. After all, you don't want to be given a pink slip and have to explain yourself to the principal, or have your parents go to school at an unfortunate time, or get suspended for three days for your actions. Still, I managed to break a light bulb and hit four classmates' heads with a wooden ruler, and I was suspended for three days. But my principal loved me anyway. When I graduated from elementary school, she never faltered in giving me that piece of advice she always gave. Self-control.

I still made friends, even through that three-month hell period that followed. All it took was, perhaps, a little more effort to not offend anybody else - don't say wrong things, don't do wrong things, do think wrong things. It was a hard thing to do, considering that everybody else did not follow that. The whole population was against me, so to speak. So how exactly are you supposed to give respect to those who don't give you respect? Aren't you supposed to give way to each others' whims, when reasonable?

When I fought back, I found myself booted out.

And then I was reacquainted to those lessons in school. The circumstances may be different - "you have ADHD, which means you can be impulsive, which means you'll have to watch your actions more often" - but everything else remained the same. It was a long, hard road, but the message was still spot on. All those experiences with recovering drug users and teenage mothers and school dropouts and the occasionally naïve Filipino-Japanese girl have come in handy later, and while some cases differ than others, the template has been the same. Don't judge unless you've seen almost everything, and put everything else in consideration. That was the most basic, and most important, lesson we've been taught as kids, and are still being taught as adults. Respect.

I don't believe in it anymore.

Respect is, after all, just a way of keeping things in check. We all don't want chaos, sure, but would we rather keep quiet when things go awfully wrong? All for keeping the status quo?

It basically amounts to keeping quiet when things go differently than planned. It's not squealing when you're being stabbed, because they're in a position to do so and you aren't. It's keeping everything that you feel inside because nobody wants a commotion. Let go of just one inch, and regardless of the severity of your reaction, you get tagged for life. You're a tattle tale, you're a fightmonger, you're an arsonist, you just don't give a damn about what everybody else feels.

But the irony lies in the fact that not everybody deserves your respect, and those people are the ones squealing when you react to whatever they're doing. Why keep quiet when your parents abuse you? Why keep quiet when your classmates bully you? Why keep quiet when your friends call you names behind your back? Why keep quiet when your colleagues demand an answer they don't deserve?

Why keep quiet when you've spent most of your time trying to understand where they're coming from, and why they're doing certain things? Why keep quiet when they're accusing you of doing otherwise?

Whoever invented the concept of respect much be a lunatic. Why invent such an ideal when, all around you, people clearly would choose to disregard everybody else rather than give up their interests?

I've long believed in respect. I've long subscribed to it, not because of the weakness it exudes, but because people do deserve it. Those who look for the best way to keep everybody in check, without being unfair to anyone? Those who don't discriminate on the basis of presumed attitudes, or threats to their own? Those who make an effort and don't just leave it behind when it doesn't work for them? They do deserve it. And I have encountered such people, and to them I owe a lot.

But in a world where everybody would rather go against you, then my respect goes out of the window. Out goes respect for authority. Out goes respect for position. Out goes respect for values. Out goes everything we've learned in school, and everywhere else. It's time to play the game.

You can't just keep everything in, after all. You sometimes have to stab, and kill, everybody, just to get what you want. They've been doing it all along. Why can't you?

Regardless of how you do it, I figured, courtship will always be a series of oppressive actions. I mean, why bother asking someone to do something that they're not into in the first place? Why bother going to someone, stating your intentions, and persuading the other side to do the same thing? Why show off your good side so that the other side will go towards you?

Isn't it better if you just let things happen, the way nature wanted it to be?

Well, of course, it'd be very chaotic. Just imagine dogs picking out other dogs at random and start humping each other on the street. So, apparently, I have to earn your approval. I have to prove that I am the person made for you, and I have to prove that my love for you is genuine and all that. Most importantly, I have to make you feel the same way for me.

Then again, in every case, this is a very high hurdle to jump, because almost always the other side doesn't have anything. You don't care about me. You don't give a toss about what I say or what I do. You don't mind whether you're giggling because of this and that, because you don't want to be in a relationship, because you don't see the use in all of it.

But of course, time and again, I'll be proven wrong. I am the product of my parents, and before I was even conceived they were already together, having all these cheesy feelings about each other, and being capable of going to a million dates (during the tail end of Marcos' tenure at that) without getting bored of each other. My mother fell in love with my father. My father fell in love with my mother. But the gap here is, who fell in love first? Who made the first move? Probably my father, since that's what society favors. So my father asked my mother to fall in love with him too? Isn't that asking too much?

I did tell you, love is selfish.

Let's just say I love you. Thanks to what everybody else is doing, I am compelled to show you what I feel. And I am compelled to make you feel the same way. I'd have to do everything - from giving you teddy bears that you would give to your cousins, to sending you short notes that contain the worst lines ever conceived by man - to make you do so. You have to feel that sensation. You have to feel special, and when that happens, you have to come to me and everything will be well.

In that case, then I was totally insensitive to what you really feel. You hate me because I'm doing these ridiculous things, and you hate me because I'm trying to push my way into you, and you hate me because I have pimples in my nose and a wart on my finger and an unusually big tummy and a weirdly prominent moustache.

Never mind that you're insensitive to me too, and all that.

Isn't love just supposed to happen? Two people find each other and, give or take a few days, can go into the convenience store holding hands. Never mind a few weeks of letting go and getting used, but the next thing you know, you're perfectly happy, and perfectly special. Perhaps until you get bored. I don't know. But given all the crap we've been taught about freedom and free will and equal opportunity, courtship - the beginning of everything wonderful - is a series of oppressive actions.

I can't pull your arm towards me. And I can't hug you. Or you won't let me. And I can't force you what I want, the same way you'd force me what you don't want. And I hate you. And yet.

"Hey hey, lapit na Valentine's Day."

"You're implying?"

Switched to what I call a dreamy voice. Spoke in an uninterrupted, breathless fashion.

"Rae, I would've dated you, but you're there, and I'm here, and you're young, and I'm old, and..."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

Switched back to usual voice. "I'm being shallow."

"Oh, right." She laughed. "You're so... seriously. I can't even say it."

"So..."

Confused. "What?"

"Wait, wait, are you single?"

That was an unexpected question. Voice in head. "Come on, Rae, say it, say it..."

Actual voice. "Yeah. Why?"

"I can't believe you're single. How can a smart cookie like you be single?"

Because we're dorks whose social ineptitude render us incapable of getting to grips with our romantic feelings, more so acting on them, even if the subject may very well be a dork, only with less social ineptitude?

"You've probably caught someone's eye by now."

"Where are they?" Sarcasm. "I am admittedly unattractive. Or, the idea of guys having to get there first. You get me?"

"Yeah. That's sad. Well, I find you attractive."

Eyes rolled.

"I adore your intelligence."

See, I am a dork.

"I almost wrote 'well, that sucks' before you said the last bit. Now I'm forced to blush!"

Tried, probably was successful. I don't know. I probably looked constipated.

"Wow! I made a guy blush!"

"Virtually?" Thought bubbles race. "You haven't made your... ex-boyfriend blush?"

"I guess not. It's either that or his skin's too bronzed. Either way you felt flattered."

"I need flattering. Really." I really meant it. "But really, Rae, if I could date you, I would. If only I knew how."

"Well, that's why I'm here." Even if she's in Dallas and I'm in Manila, and she's 17 and I'm 20. "As your female friend."

Whispered to self. "Sayang, hanggang dun lang."

"You would? That would be cool. We're miles apart. I think I'm unattractive myself."

"Nonsense."

"No. Its sense is plentiful." This case sounds familiar. Very familiar. "I wonder how many girls you've said that to."

"I haven't encountered a woman who said she's unattractive. Either she's quiet or she goes, 'I'm gorgeous!'" Ale suddenly sprang to mind.

"No. Seriously. Haven't I told you that I'm strange? Just like you? Great. We match."

Whispered to self again. "Oh, good Lord, why the distance?"

"Are you really serious?"

Do I look serious? Do I have to explain that I joke like this sometimes?

"This is such an awkward conversation. But I like it."

This concept entails a lot of waiting, and terribly so. They do say the best things come to those who wait, regardless of how you define those words. They also say that nothing beats a little effort, especially if you think it's worth it in the end.

So, in the end, one waits for the daydream to occur.

One waits for the right time to make a move.

One waits for the best chance to ask someone out.

One waits for the date.

One waits for the right words to write on the card.

One waits for the yes he's been waiting for.

One waits for the money to buy an engagement ring.

One waits for the anticipation to come in.

One waits for the feelings to disappear.

One waits for the dreaded conversation.

One waits for the right time to give up.

One waits for the circumstances to force her to do so.

One waits for the best way to move on.

Endlessly waiting.

Surely, we all have to act on these things sooner than later, but in reality, many of us are still waiting. Perhaps, it's the problem with uncertainty.