The Multiple-choice Guide to Practical Hooking-up

Pick your favorite pen or pencil. Play quirky song for dysfunctional people. Dance, dance, dance.


1.
a. Introduce yourself but never give away your real full name, maybe just parts of it to ease conscience.
b. Change/add letters to your name, from Mark to Marc, John to Johann. Do not insist on Alexandra if you’re an Alexander. This is not advisable.
c. Only coolly inquire for his name at the end of it all. Then add him straight away on Facebook using your real life account.

2.
a. Maintain proper distance while exercising politeness and the obligatory show of interest during conversations.
b. There will be moments of awkward silence. Do not be bothered if he feels bored, as long as things appear to lead to your getting inside his pants.
c. There will be moments of awkward silence. You want to keep him interested in you, he seems smart, not to mention cute. Rack your brains desperately for a good topic. Failure should lead to regret, success wins you his smile which you receive like a trophy.

3.
a. Avoid sleepovers. Grab the first opportunity to go. If you can leave even with the rubber on, kindly head to the nearest exit.
b. Let him lean on your chest as you watch a rom-com or a chick flick. Before this, he heats leftover adobo in the microwave, your feet dangle from the edge of his bed unknowingly swinging in the widest of arcs.
c. Maybe, even hold his hand as both of you doze off. Be endeared when he snores.

4.
a. After the deed, avoid communication for at least 3 days. Otherwise, you will appear clingy.
b. Mask your replies with pretensions you are only after being fuck buddies.
c. Ask him an hour later if you’ve left behind something very valuable at his place (e.g. mint candies).

5.
a. You have a short-term memory and you always put it to good use. This is called being rational.
b. Google is your friend. Type in his name and tirelessly go through the results. Repeat 3 times a day. This is called being obsessed.
c. Meeting a person of his kind, you quickly find out, is like being thrown a lucky bone. Will you call yourself naive or fortunate?

6.
a. Hey, you want trade movies sometime?
b. Hey, you want trade movies sometime? :-P
c. Hey, you want trade movies sometime? hehe

7.
a. Manage expectations. Having next to nothing is optimal for peace of mind.
b. Debate on the idea of dating. Suddenly, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, out of fear, out of his presumed judgment, coming to you in waves.
c. It will either be due to the circumstances or in spite of. In this summer heat, is there a mirage that (con)fuses both?


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How to say "I love you" accdng to Ayn Rand

"Because love is an expression of self-esteem..."

For some weird reason nagkaroon naman pala ng matinong content ang Playboy at one time. (wushu sasabihin ko kaya to kung Playgirl instead? lol) Nagpublish sila ng interview with the philosopher/novelist Ayn Rand. Medyo nagresonate kasi sakin yung mga sinabi niya kahit wala pa kong nabasang works niya previously.


Excerpt:

PLAYBOY: Where, would you say, should romantic love fit into the life of a rational person whose single driving passion is work?

RAND: It is his greatest reward. The only man capable of experiencing a profound romantic love is the man driven by passion for his work -- because love is an expression of self-esteem, of the deepest values in a man's or a woman's character. One falls in love with the person who shares these values. If a man has no clearly defined values, and no moral character, he is not able to appreciate another person. In this respect, I would like to quote from The Fountainhead, in which the hero utters a line that has often been quoted by readers: "To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I.'"

PLAYBOY: You hold that one's own happiness is the highest end, and that self-sacrifice is immoral. Does this apply to love as well as work?

RAND: To love more than to anything else. When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person's need of you. I don't have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person.


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Bam! Ayn Rand, gusto ko for the most part yung sinabi mo eh, tagos eh, kaso kung susundin ko to the letter, parang magiging matagal pa bago ako magkaroon ng love life, haha. Ampf, walang namang ganyanan.

Share ko lang: Nung lumabas yung playboy dito sa Pinas, bumili ako actually ng copy. Lesbian, yikes!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPod touch]

Making Peace

Recently I realized that my coming out had another dimension to it: it made me more at peace with my body. Dati kasi there's always this thought at the back of my mind that my body would rat out my "secret." Not that I'm pretending. You know, mahirap lang talaga kapag inuunahan ka ng ibang tao, eh sa sarili mo hindi pa naman malinaw. Yun siguro yung in-the-closet feeling for me, mahirap, kasi chances are, it might trigger your defense mechanism just for the sake of proving others wrong. Unnecessarily. When that's the last thing you need to be able to accept whatever it is you need to accept.

Digression: Counting out my family and a handful of people remaining, I think I can say I'm almost done coming out. From hereon I'll strive to be plainly open about it to the people I meet, with proper judgment of course. Being gay is just a yes-or-no question after all. Being you, on the other hand, isn't that where the real hard work is?

So I'm thankful for having outgrown that kind of worrying. I feel freer and lighter (Modess?!?) sort of. Although sedentary pa rin ang lifestyle ko for the most part, I'm trying out activities I really enjoy. Then, you realize na teka may katawan nga pala ako noh, sumasakit yan at napapagod, maraming hindi kayang gawin. Yet, it grounds you at the same time, a lesson I'm learning to appreciate more and more.

I think, those thoughts I've been mulling over are what motivated me to fish this out of my subconscious, hehe.


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Errata


Sure I wanted the body
exacted toll for its infirmities

I could list down to make up
the whole, the sum even

of missing parts, this is merism:
I say breath, limbs, and heart,

those beat against the head
-ing to the farthest I've been at sea,

again I say breath, limbs, and heart
for that much has been, much

lost from you or relieved
where does being whole stop

but at infinite. So a body begins and begins
its natural closing on its tiny self

taking in hook, line and sinker,
these beyond the body allowed in

safe passage, free to take course within.
So I counted down to eight planets,

measured the age of light, made this shore
an ancient crater of the earth. All along

the porous body still nothing finally
to be faulted for, too difficult there

small fissures were crusting
all over its exterior, deposits

I began calling spirit, essence, soul—
small currents coursing a geography:

stretch of mountains to trenches,
channels of veins, nose hair and cartilage,

skin, pigments, watercolor, words, fence,
wind, watermilll, song, all of the same finite

element I pick up, I break, I could mend
only incompletely, and I do those again

all over to this I possess, center, flat,
maybe on turtles all the way down.



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