TANGA part 2

Sometimes I wonder, is fate so cruel that you tend to like the people you randomly bump into or don’t know? Or is it just easier to "like" strangers coz you really don't know a thing about them and your mind subconsciously fills in the blanks as who they might be (usually biased towards your ideal type)? Anyhow, the answer cannot really be determined since the questions cannot be really tested...I think.

Anyway, it isn't always the case. I mean the just "liking strangers" part. I had a classmate once whom you could say was a good reason for me to be more diligent in going to class than I usually am, and weirdly enough we became friends(weird because I usually don't make friends in class, haha). Well, one day I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and decided I was going to be grumpy all day long. I was doing fine till I took the jeep to the gym. She was taking the same jeepney and we sat right across one another. I was shocked when I actually smiled and said hi (It appears my resolve to be grumpy melted away like butter...go figure). She returned the gesture and we ended up talking all the way to class. I found out she wasn't quite as young as I thought she was, which of course to me was more of a good thing. So after that day, it was already quite casual for us to say hi to each other and sometimes even talk a little. Although in all the dances we did for the class, we never really got to be partners. Nagkahiyaan pa kasi (blame it on all the sexual tension! Hahaha...I wish!). Seriously though, she seemed like a classy lady (but in the same time very down to earth too). She had porcelain oriental features that seemed so regal. And she too had the glow, and if there was any bitterness or sadness about her, it didn't show at all in her eyes which were so...clear. And when she smile or laughed... haaaaaaaaay:) Well, on the day for the final dance, she did borrow my glass for the Pandango sa Ilaw dance, and she ended up breaking it near the end. It was okay really, although I thought of it as a sign that anything that I might have given her, she would eventually end up breaking it (*cough cough I'm pertaining to my heart;P), Then she smiled her smile again and then I go, "Bring on the pain!!!" haha:)

Of course, these things were really just little crushes to get me through the day mostly. No harm in having those right? Right! Which reminds me, over my summer OJT; I did however, get the unenviable attention of one of my supervisors. She's a married woman but she sort of teases me jokingly that she had a crush on me, which made me quite uncomfortable. One time she was on the phone and I could hear her talking about me, she even said I had a nice butt (the only time I've heard that which made it doubly weird). She'd sit close to me sometimes when giving me instructions and comment on my how I had nice biceps when she was actually feeling my tricep. It's not as bad as it sounds, although I'm pretty sure that if I were a woman, I could have already built up a small case for sexual harassment by then, haha. But it was mostly harmless really.

My other supervisor (who's a guy), then asked me the usual "guy" questions, the details of which I will have to skip. But he concluded in the course of the conversation that I was Tanga. He said that someone who "looked" like me should have seen more "action". He said that if he looked like me, he'd already have had all the women he wanted (for whatever purposes he wanted). In my brain, you couldn't count how many ways there were of how I thought his statement was erroneous. In a matter of speaking, he was implying that guys shouldn't bother with a conscience so much when it came to women.

Maybe it was just guy talk, but for my part, I simply said that it wasn't what I found important. Then they asked if I was gay- a terribly unoriginal train of thought, haha. Of course I laugh it off most of the time, but sometimes it gets me thinking of how difficult it is these days to try and be a "good" man. It isn't easy being "good" when the world tells you that you aren't suppose to exist, or that you aren't even suppose to try. To complicate things further, I know deep down that I am not a "good" person. That inside of me are same the demons I hate that cheer and goad me into agreement with such "manly" convictions. What then is it that makes you a "good man"? Is it your actions? Your thoughts? Is it your guilt? Or is it in our choices despite of who we really are? I don't really know anymore. Sometimes I just don't know what it is I am hanging on to.

As far as these things go, maybe the time will come when I will no longer try to be a "good" man (although I was never truly one to begin with). But somehow, I still know there are real things out there...better things, if they are at all meant for those who wait for it. Although I have come to question my resolve in things for the past few years, I realize I have already been waiting for so long...

I guess I can wait a little more.

....

"Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him, and then choose that way with all his strength." - Hasidic saying