"So the only hot celebrity crushes I've had?" I texted Icka. "Munn, Gomes, and maybe Magnus. The rest are adorable to the point of rape."

That eventually turned out to be a little inaccurate. I realized I had another celebrity crush who's freaking hot: Dichen Lachman. If you've seen Dollhouse, you probably know her. But you probably haven't, so I might as well tell you that she's this Australian actress who's part-Nepalese. In the words of a former Seattle colleague who got to interview her, she's "the most stunning creature I've ever seen. She is seriously not human." And then there's the fact that there's nothing sexier than an Australian accent.

Problem is, hot people often have this intimidating air. They're always too awesome to be accessible. I mean, if you fly to Portugal to pose for Sports Illustrated for a living, or get on the American Idol stage and instinctively know what to do, then you must be this really awesome person, and awesome people tend to be hard to reach. I remember feeling the same way towards Eena when we first became classmates in literature class - and no, I did not have a crush on her.

Thus, the last line on the text message. "The rest are adorable to the point of rape." Rather, adorable to the point that crushing on them feels wrong because they're more the person you'd love to hang out with rather than see every night showering you with affection. (Putting it safely.) Thus Agron, Gomez, Marigliano, Shawkat, and maybe a little bit of Iraheta, because meeting her personally has changed a lot of perceptions.

And thus, my crushes have often been more of the adorable type than the hot type. Pretty, sure, but there's got to be that (in Celine's words) "certain charm." You know, the sort that you'd wanna hang out with.

But often these pretty girls aren't happy with just being pretty. Thus, in Hazel's words, a "girl crush" - should I add that the person who thought Dichen is "not human" is female? And since it's quite hard to be hot - that takes a lot of discipline, a lot of time, some lucky genes and a sense of obsession - you just become, well, awesome.

That does not bode well for me.

"Everybody has insecurities," Imogen told me once, but I believe mine's quite, err, heightened. Imagine knowing very well that you're not the most interesting person in the world. You don't have a hobby, you don't go out much, and you bore every new friend you make after a year or so. (Hello, birthday girl.) Not to mention I'm a relatively obnoxious person.

So imagine liking someone you find pretty - pretty, which is in between cute and hot - and realizing that they're the sort that's up to something all the time. And while you want to be with her so badly, you realize that you're not exactly up to speed with them. You talk, and you're friends on Facebook or something, and you see her talk about this and that - things you wish you could absolutely relate to. And you could, but you think that actually floating that thing would make you look like a phoney. That, and you aren't exactly comfortable with learning stuff just to make conversation.

But other people are, so never mind the "you have to spend a lot of time getting to know the person" thing Cha told me before - there's just got to be something in common, and once you have a couple of months or so you can launch a grand production and get her to say yes. At least until they say "I don't want to anymore" or something like it.

Maybe I am aiming too high. Maybe I should just go for the cute, unremarkable ones, who just aspire to become pretty and end up getting something that lasts much longer. Or maybe the ones you can't really figure out.

"Siobhan should have her own category," Icka texted back. "She's hot, in her cute weird way. She's not a bombshell, but she isn't a cutesy either."

"Surprisingly, initially accessible sex appeal."

"I guess it's an understated sort of sexy."

If she was someone I knew, I'd probably be dead by now.

Sometimes I'm amazed at how smart Facebook can be. Except, at least, for the part where it tells its users to reconnect to certain friends who they haven't talked to for a while, but only because they're already dead.

One day, it told me to reconnect with a couple of my 380 friends. Quite a subtle way, really: the person didn't appear on my recommendations, but rather on my profile itself, as one of six friends that the site randomly serves up. So, I thought, I'd click on the name and write a quick wall post. Funnier, I've been meaning to do that. Smart, smart Facebook.

Now, I'm not mentioning names for a reason: I don't want to tag anyone when this blog entry makes it to Facebook. Let's just say that the person - a girl, I must add - was one of the many crushes I've had over the past decade or so, and if you've been reading my blog the same way you watched Inception, you'll know who this is soon enough. Anyway, it's been that long - a decade, more or less - so it goes without saying that the feelings are gone. Long gone. I even told Gwen that it's a "silly" thing when it unfolded back then.

So I posted this wall post. It's just a parenthetical "buzz". And then I saw her feed, and there was this photo album, and inside was a photo with her arm outstretched, with a guy kneeling, putting a ring on the hand. Damn, Facebook is so smart: she's engaged!

Welcome to the most surreal feeling I've had.

(Yes, at this point it should get obvious who I'm referring to. Now, if you're wondering why I'm not mentioning names here, well, you're getting ahead of the story.)

No, it's not because I suddenly had those silly feelings for her again, a whole ten years - okay, nine - after they came in and were promptly shown the door. It never got serious - silly, get? - and, just to drill the point, the three steps to moving on are in full effect. But yeah, sure, it felt absolutely surreal that someone who I went to school with and had a (relatively) huge crush on is getting married, when people your age - well, most of them - aren't really rushing to tie the knot and do everything that it entails.

It was when I started reading her blog, and going through the photos, and seeing her flashing that hand with the diamong ring, when I realized that I'm absolutely getting left behind.

"I just remembered this," Gwen said. "My TRED prof once said that not everyone was built to be in a relationship."

"Ouch. I do think I'm destined to be alone and helpless. Nobody picks me for anything."

"I just remembered it. I feel like I'm not built for relationships either."

"But you are in one. Kinda?"

"Yeah, I think."

Well, that's not exactly it, I thought. I mean, I'm surrounded by couples every day for the past ten years and I should be feeling extremely bad - more so with increasing cynicism - but I'm not. Okay, maybe I do, but it could be worse, but oddly, for some reason, I felt bothered about the news. And then I realized that it's in the photos, and that huge smile in her face. Genuine happiness.

I just clicked "like" on the blog entry. (It's on Facebook, obviously.) I didn't post a comment, not because it'd be weird, but because I didn't really have a reason to do so. No, I don't want to sound like a miserable git because of that, because I'm a miserable git already. And there are many things I could've done within those ten years that would've made me a little bit like her. A little happier. Genuinely happier. You know, following hunches, asking for phone numbers, starting conversations, staying the route...

Part one: distraction. I met some girl, somewhere, through a common friend, and as we talked I thought to myself, hey, we're actually getting along quite well. I always felt I'm the obnoxious guy that nobody wants to spend time with - completely forgetting, and perhaps completely affirming, the fact that I have friends who, for the most part, forget that I exist. Anyway, we're actually getting along quite well, right. I always make this mistake of confusing this comfortable feeling with love, or at least infatuation, although that could sound quite correct. And, since I always make this mistake, I end up going through the crappy things that come with it.

I believe that we tend to like - as in that kind of like - people who we know we cannot attain. When you're cool, it's nothing. When you're cool but you don't feel that good about that person, you must like her. Thinking about it now, it's just a way for us to hold on to that budding friendship. I mean, if your differences get in the way, you'll break apart soon - and love will keep you together, right? And I know, we have differences. And I know, I cannot attain her, because somebody beat me to it. Cue those involuntary flashes, those moments when you imagine you and her doing things together.

Part two: distance. It could've gotten worse, if not for the fact that we live in two different worlds. I live on the southern end, while she's in the northern end. Considering our busy schedules, there's no chance we'd meet, as much as I'd love to invite her to coffee again, this time somewhere in the middle. Soon enough, I stopped having those flashes, thanks to the distance - oh, and a few text messages to friends, those very friends who tend to, for the most part, forget that I exist. "Am I delusional?" I'd tell one of them. "Why am I thinking that she's also hoping to have a relationship with me?"

And so, after I pin the blame on myself, for having a serious case of delusion, I forget something ever happened. Not that I forget she exists: I just learn to live with her existence, and slowly I get used to our differences, to the point where we talk about it, until they melt away and we become just that: friends, nothing else. We still talk once in a while, crazy discussions about musical influences and football, and it feels like we've known each other for a long time. And then I remind myself, it's only been months, and soon you'll act like you don't know each other.

Part three: denouement. Yes, sure, this sounds sad, but I've "fallen in love" with many girls over the past few years. Most of the time I've gotten past the pain, usually caused by me stopping myself from falling in love in the first place. That process varies, though: it can take me a week, or it can take me a year. A year, maximum. That should be enough time for me to slowly move away from where that particular girl is, and for me to find someone else to go clunkers for, and while the vicious cycle continues, at least I've moved past what I'd call my biggest pain yet.

This time, though, the three steps to moving on aren't there. And I thought I had them. I was having coffee with this girl I met through a common friend, and I started wondering, maybe we're good together? and then I tell myself., oh no, you bleeping aren't, and then I start texting people and, somehow, I start realizing how much of a fool I am. That's done. And that brings me back to one of the very first stories I told her, about a girl who I was trying to get over with. For quite a while now.

They say SM Megamall is, from end to end, a kilometer long. As a kid, I believed that, since whenever we go shopping there - the rare occasion, just before the holiday rush - I get slightly cranky because my feet and tired and there weren't many benches back then. I believed it so much that I used that fact sparingly in conversations, just so I can look like a smartie.

In hindsight, it's a wrong assertion. The mall isn't a kilometer long - those Metro Manila maps that are drawn to scale say so - but I think that the mall's corridors are a kilometer long, if not more. Try walking all six floors from end to end and tell me it doesn't feel like exercise.

I was wrapping up my day yesterday when Gwen sent me a text message. "I'm in SM Megamall," she said. Apparently a friend who had errands to do in the mall dragged her along in exchange for Zagu, and as it turned out, they might watch a movie. To a person like me who's bored and has lots of time to kill, it sounded like an invitation for me to try to find her. Or, as we'd all probably call it, stalk her.

Indeed, it is a challenge. On paper, looking for someone at Megamall is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Or, in my case, it was like Patrick Star looking for a light bulb to save Roger's life: you're facing a mountain of them, but you proceed to grab the one attached to an electrical source anyway. Imagine digging through six floors (in my case, three) of shops, stalls and corridors - in the middle of peak shopping hours - looking for someone who (in theory) doesn't know you're looking for her. Painful is an exaggeration, although it depends on who you are.

"Nasa Zagu kami," she texted me.

Since it's a challenge on my part, I set some ground rules: I will not call her, but I will text her - after all, I need to know whether I'm still looking for someone. The one definite: I will not ask where she is, simply because there are only a few places to look for her: a Zagu stall, or the cinemas on the third floor, provided that she and her friend decide to watch something. Problem is, I couldn't remember where the Zagu stall in the mall is. Oh, right, there is one inside the supermarket, right near the entrance where I'll come from - but I was fairly convinced that there was another Zagu branch elsewhere in the mall. After a quick survey, I started walking.

Turns out I was looking for nothing at all. I went from one end of the mall to the other around, I don't know, four times, maybe five? I went up the fourth floor to search for Zagu in the new electronic mall directories, but it turns up nothing. Maybe it's because it's a stall, I figured, and not an actual shop. Then again, Gwen was giving me those hints - I don't know what to call it, because she certainly wasn't encouraging me to look for her. "Naglalakad lang," she once said, causing me to panic a bit, because suddenly I have five floors to look for. My feet were getting painful and I was regretting wearing my black Deutschland top, because I was getting a little sweaty.

"We're gonna watch Eclipse," she later texted.

That shrinks my choices, then. I rushed up to the third floor - I used the stairs, natch - and wondered which of the mall's twelve cinemas carried the third Twilight movie. Eight of them.

"Nakabili na kami ng ticket. Hint hint."

I was near the escalators, near the entrance to cinemas 7 to 12. I was staring at the ticket booth but I couldn't spot her. Maybe they're on 1 to 6, I figured, so I walked to the other end of the mall to stare at the ticket booth and try to spot her.

"And pumasok na kami. Awww."

"I knew it. Dang, I was at the cinemas already."

"Cinema 9? Were you calling?"

"No, I wasn't. Damn, I'm standing right there!"

"Awwww."

I stood right there, staring towards the snack bar, eyeing a bottle of iced tea, fresh from the fridge. It cost me thirty bucks. On the flip side, it ate up a good chunk of my time: I left the mall shortly before seven in the evening, and after thirty minutes of walking aimlessly, I felt pretty primed to go home and lie on my bed.

"That Zagu isn't in the supermarket, right?" I asked Gwen from inside the shuttle.

"It is."

"Dammit. I was there too."

"Awwww."

I should've followed my gut, rather than justify everything I'm going to do with terms such as "triangulation". Sure, I might be correct with thoughts of two Zagu branches in the mall - it happens, especially when the place is big, and when a trip from one end to the other entails an exaggerated kilometer of walking - but I should've followed my gut. Sure, she might've been really hard to spot - I always thought she was a bit taller, but she claimed to be "short", "average" and relatively unchaged - but I should've followed my gut.

I had a bad seat on the shuttle. I was squeezed, I was tired, and I felt I absolutely let myself down.

Watching sports on television is, unsurprisingly, a family affair.

My dad skips work (well, he can afford to) so he can watch the NBA All-Star Game and, a few weeks back, the final game between the Lakers and the Celtics. My mom follows the tennis, and if she's up to it, she can stay up late to watch a Rafael Nadal match.

And then, of course, there's my brother. He's this snobbish sporting kind. He's a member of his high school's basketball team, and it's no surprise he watches a lot of basketball, but he's also up to speed with my mother's tennis and the UFC. But I can't rely on him to explain slightly alien concepts to me. I'd ask him what's going on and he'd sneer silently, probably wondering why I, his brother, am not into sports.

That description isn't entirely accurate, though. I can watch a basketball game, and I can watch a tennis game, and I can watch the UFC. I just don't know enough to call myself a fan - you'll never spot me browsing through sports news websites, reading about who's trading who. I'll watch a UFC match - say, the Brock Lesnar-Shane Carwin shocker earlier - and I won't know much about how they fared before the big face-off. I get it when one's going down, but don't get me started on the technical terms.

Thus, I was surprised when I decided to follow the World Cup in South Africa.

That description isn't entirely accurate, though. Sure, my constant listening to British radio stations at work made me more curious than usual, helped by the fact that a local channel is airing all the live matches, but I haven't really paid much attention. I'm the sort who wants to start things from the very beginning so I can really get a grip on what's going on. With the World Cup being years in the making - all the qualifying matches, and all the gossip - I figured I can't get myself into it, or at least, not this time.

But I'm still watching, or at least the matches that I can get myself to watch. I mean, I don't exactly expect myself to stay up until four in the morning just so I can say I've seen everything. And watching football is a test of patience - ninety minutes of players kicking the ball around, with the chance of making a goal not as big as basketball. I'm not exactly the patient kind.

And yet, I decided to watch these football games for one thing: to watch one player make a goal. Live.

I guess seeing Icka and Eena (talk show idea, anyone?) tweet about the games compelled me on this silly quest - and the idea that  the probability of a match having at least one goal is pretty high. That turned out to be a pretty flimsy excuse. I began with the Portugal-Brazil match, presuming it would yield at least one goal - hey, the girls were looking forward to it, and so was my brother, who suddenly knew enough about football to act snobbish around me again - but that ended in a draw. And I stayed up for it.

The next match I gave a lot of attention to came during the round of 16: it was Paraguay against Japan, and I was in a bar. The first half passed and there wasn't a goal. I got home and there wasn't a goal. I fell asleep and the game ended in penalties - not that it counts.

I didn't pay attention to the Netherlands-Brazil match, but my British radio listening told me I missed three goals. The Brazilians got one in. The Dutch got one in. The Dutch got another one in. I finally watched, but it was too late to make a difference.

For a moment I was rooting for Brazil, but I had very selfish intentions.

On one hand, I started to think that I'm jinxing the games. I told Icka something along the lines of, "since you're rooting for the Dutch, I'll watch the game so they'll hold on to the lead and win, since whenever I watch a game nobody makes a goal." At least we have something else to talk about now.

On the other hand, I was actually gaining the patience to watch the games - and the curiosity, too. One of the Dutch's goals was caused by the Brazilians, which led me to ask my sister: "what exactly is an 'own goal'?" Sure, it definitely refers to when one player makes a goal on the opposing team, giving that team a point, but after our experience with defining what an offside is - I'm still too lazy to look it up online - I've come to presume that everything in football is complicated. Now, my sister was part of her high school's football team, but she doesn't have an answer, either.

My brother can't explain it either."Parang fastbreak," he said, using that basketball term. "Pero nakalinya yung defense. At least yun yung nangyayari kapag offside ako sa PSP."

At least he wasn't sneering.

That explanation came yesterday, while we watched a rerun of the Netherlands-Brazil match. I was somehow setting myself up to watch the Argentina-Germany one, although I didn't really plan to do so closely, since I was in front of the PC. But I was looking at the television just as someone from the German side made a free kick, leading Thomas Müller to hit the ball in the head, sending it to the goal. I finally saw my first live football goal.

As if making up for the past few weeks, I ended up watching the Germans bring tears to Diego Maradona and his Argentinian kids. One goal led to another, and to yet another, and in the second half of the game, I realized I somehow get it: the wisdom that you need to distract your opponents while keeping sight of the goal to make things work, and the reality that you can set up a beautiful route to the goal, only to be foiled by one person. I felt genuinely bad for the Argentinian goalie, but upon realizing that I have a Deutschland shirt on my wardrobe, I felt I rooted for the Germans by default.

Still shallow, but at least I knew better. And just in time, since the last four matches will all air at two in the morning.

It was four o'clock. I was nursing a headache, and silently wishing that people would start leaving the office so I won't feel as scrunched as I already am. I spotted someone retweet someone on Twitter: a woman fell to her death at the Shang.

The Shang. I'm always there.

The details filtered in. She's yet to be identified, but she fell from the sixth floor to the second floor. It's the atrium with the fountain, I thought.

And then the speculation began. Was it an accident? Maybe, I thought, she drowsed off or got dizzy and lost her balance. Not exactly plausible, but there were a few times when I took that long escalator from the fourth floor to the sixth and thought, I might fall if I'm not careful. It's completely plausible.

Was it suicide? Everybody just heard a thud. The body lay face first, flat, not sprawled, perfectly aligned. And you can 't just fall off the escalator without hitting the rails.

I remember reading a tweet from someone who also heard of the news. She was, needless to say, shocked. "Emo girl, you wasted your life!" she said, or something.

Maybe, but I didn't feel comfortable speculating.

Naturally, I oddly looked forward to going home. I know the body won't be there. (She was rushed to the hospital, and was pronounced dead on arrival at twenty past four.) I wondered if there'll be a candle at the atrium, an awkwardly-placed reminder of the tragedy that happened just minutes before.

There was, half-oddly, nothing. The spot where the body lay - dropped with a thud, witnesses say - was cordoned off. The atrium was clean: a cocktail was apparently supposed to be held there, judging from the photographs, but it was all swept clean. And people were avoiding it - really avoiding it, to the point that I can't tell the difference between respect and disgust. I mean, there were people in the fountains, but they weren't looking at it. And the most curious people I can see were those on the escalators, looking to their right, wondering what that blocked area is.

For some reason, it struck me, enough to make me wonder whether I'm being totally appropriate with these thoughts. A thought bubble is still a thought bubble, though.