How I Met My (ex)Boyfriend and the Karma That Comes Around It

I was 24 years old. Been working since I was 18. Been trying to finish college, with no reliable family life but a great set of overly supportive and successful friends. I never had a boyfriend. I dated a couple of guys ( 'a couple' may even be an  overestimation.). I was a weekly patron of Bed and O - Bar and enjoyed going out. But the 'going-outs' had become stressful and tiring. I was slowly feeling the need to drift away from this gay social scene. I was starting to be envious of friends whose Saturday nights are spent at the cinemas with their partners capped with a nice dinner at a trendy restaurant and then going home together. But then, I was single. i had nobody to 'retire' with, and so the nights at the gay social scene continued.

August 3, 2013. The night that would change my life. it was a regular night out with some friends and an ex-date who dumped me after he had made out with me. They say you don't look for love in such a hopeless place but I took a risk anyways. When we entered this newly opened place, I glanced to my left on the elevated portion of the club and saw this rather stocky and chinito looking guy. I immediately moved to the spot where he was and tried to look him in the eye, but he didn't look back. Until now, I still do not know what was in him that night that drew my attention. He certainly wasn't the cutest guy around, but it was as if there was light illuminating around him amidst the pitched-dark club. I wanted to introduce myself to him but I didn't have the confidence to do so. Nonetheless, I was persistent to make a move. I asked my friends to get ourselves a pitcher of Blue Frog and so headed to the second level of the club to grab one. After several sips and dances to the electronic dance music playing in the background, the image of that chinito guy from downstairs was still constantly reappearing in my head. Hence, armed with confidence and courage, I, with my mini-battalion of friends, went back down to the spot where I first saw him. There he was, standing by himself enjoying the on-going stage show. I finally introduced myself and got his name. We were exchanging chats until I asked him if he had a boyfriend. He said he has. I was crushed in an instant. I didn't know what to say. I just apologized profusely for even trying to flirt with him. I just stood there, feeling sorry for myself. After several tracks of dance music, from Madonna to Kylie, and several shots of Bacardi, and perhaps both of us being slightly intoxicated already, we found both our bodies close together and so were our lips touching each others passionately. It felt good and it felt real. We didn't realize how long it lasted. We were kissing like nobody else was looking. It was a feeling of trance and ecstasy. It was a feeling of acceptance that I lingered for too long until it was time to say goodbye. I got his number and he got mine.

I had a huge smile on my face as i was heading home. I felt a,live all over again. I knew it was wrong considering he has a boyfriend. He said they weren't quite in good terms. Albeit wrong, I took advantage. was he just looking for a rebound? Was he just trying to get back at the wrong that his boyfriend may have done? What was his intention? I didn't know and I didn't care. All I knew was that a new chapter of my life was about to unfold, unknowing of the consequences and the karma of my actions.

Only a day after we met, we found ourselves constantly talking on the phone. I was learning more about him. He was a joy to talk to. He was positive on a lot of things. It was contagious and i got addicted to it. I found the happiness that i didn't have in my daily family life in him. It felt like the birth of someone special in my life. A week after we first met, we decided to meet again. I got at the mall before he did. He arrived in his white button-down shirt walking out of the drugstore into the main mall towards me. My legs were shaking, my heart was pounding as he was getting closer to me. the first time we met, it was at a pitched-dark dance club. This time, we're meeting at a heavily illuminated shopping mall. He'll see the best and the worst of my physicality, I thought. But despite the nerves, I was ecstatic to see him again. We hurried our way to the cinema. It was Percy Jackson, how can I ever forget. We sat beside each other and held our hands through the movie. I was never a fan of Percy Jackson nor was I a fan of such genre of film. But it felt like it was the best movie I've seen in so long. I wasn't really paying attention to the movie. My attention was glued on my right hand holding his left and his left arm tangled in my right. That moment was enough for it to be the best movie ever. After the movie, he took me to his home. Well, it was more like, he sneaked me into his room. He served me Menudo and we talked our way through the night. We laughed and joked around. I even introduced him to Robyn's 'Call Your Girlfriend' and joked that it could be our theme song, not to state the obvious. He then played it in the background. Later on, he asked me what my intentions were. I told him that I was serious about him and that I wanted to know him more. I was surprised to see that he was surprised of my response. After all, I would not have invited him for a movie if all I wanted was for him to sneak me into his room. His reaction made me feel bad. I though I had him at Percy Jackson, but he apparently had thought of me differently.

The night had to come to an end. He escorted me out of the house just before his mom wakes up. I took a cab and bid my farewell. As I was sitting there in the cab, tears  started to roll over my cheeks. The feeling of happiness I had from the time we spent at the cinema quickly turned into despair as I opened myself up to reality. I thought to myself, this guy has a boyfriend that his boyfriend could still be trying to fix ans that I was evil to even hope for that relationship to fail and that karma comes around. I thought maybe I was creating this pseudo-love story in my head with this person. That maybe I was just some guy that he took into his room at night and that it doesn't mean anything at all to him. Then I felt terrible for myself.

As days progress, we continued our constant phone conversations, day in and day out. I couldn't stop myself from falling even more for him until 'good' news came. He announces that he broke up with his boyfriend. i replied and pretended that I was sorry to hear about the break-up, but deep inside a new hope was born.

Sept 21, 2013. We were officially a couple. i was the happiest person. I shared the news to my friends, who all knew how long I've waited for this person to come to my life. They shared their sentiments and were all equally happy for me, for the two of us. it was a different story on the other side of the spectrum, however. Some people in his circle was not as ecstatic as my friends were. It felt to me that some people were cynical. That I was just another guy. It felt to me like they knew that this relationship would not last long and that I should just enjoy the ride as short as it lasts.

Perhaps a part of me wanted to prove them wrong. A part of me wanted to be THAT guy, better than any of his past. I would have to admit, I was and still am, insecure about a lot of things. I am insecure about my lack of  experience and maturity in relationships. I constantly competed with his past and it would turn me upset when I feel like I tried so hard but I simply wasn't good enough for my first boyfriend. My emotions and impulsiveness would always get the better of me and would usually cause our fights. At many points in our relationship I doubted myself and his love for me. The daily phone calls and conversations were cut. going out with me even on our monthsaries did not interest him anymore. The regular dates no longer happened. I complained to him about it but it just caused us to fight more. He said I was needy, clingy and possessive. Maybe I was. After all, this was my first relationship. Maybe I was wrong for being too idealistic. For expecting too much and for not taking it one day at a time. These things I regret today. I complained about his special relationship with his ex-boyfriend. He said I never understood, and that again, i was being needy, selfish clingy and now, even pathetic.

He broke up with me. I was devastated. it was my daily battle to find out the wrong in me and how to make it better. we were trying to fix it, until my impulsiveness and emotions got the better of me again. I had said hurtful things to him which I totally didn't mean. I put up false judgments on him and his special ex-boyfriend. He hated me for it. I thought  he was gonna pick me this time. I had my hopes too high. To my disappointment, up until the endth time, he didn't pick me. And this time around, he wants me out of his life.

I remember he questioned my sincerity and why I would fight so hard for love to the event that I would already make myself look pathetic. Maybe because when you waited  too long for love to arrive, you don't let it drift away from your life too easily. Maybe because it took me 24 years to find this love and it fears me to let go of a single chance that may never come again.

I believe most, if not, all of us at one point on our respective lives had gone through a pathetic stage in love. Maybe this is my pathetic stage, it just came way later than the usual.

As our relationship ended, I can't help but look back to where we started. Maybe all this pain I'm feeling right now is my karma. I was wrong the first time. I expected a lot. I judged too heavily. And I regret having done all that. I just wish he really did love me and and still hopes that he still does. Tomorrow may be a different story. I am hoping against hope. That when I get to find myself and get myself together, he would still be there ready to take me back and start all over again.

PS: CLC, I still love you.



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Not Like The Movies

I guess it's safe to assume that we all love and hate that feeling. The tingling feeling from the most mundane acts that you get from the other person makes you wanna lose everything you have for "love's sake". It  really doesn't mean anything. It's as mundane as it is but you still hope it meant something else. It's a bubble you created for you own pleasure because you are a full-fledged hopeless romantic and you believe that somehow life is just like the movies.

Then after a while you decide to wake yourself up to reality.  You pop the bubble and deny that it existed.  But no matter how much you deny and suppress it, you can never lie to yourself and you know that the feelings are there, oblivious however of when it's gonna go away. A piece of you is still hoping, that just maybe, you have found the person for you, and that you wouldn't know what it is until you try.  After all, someone has to make the first move. You keep believing and you keep trying.

You still enjoyed relating yourself with Anna Scott in Notting Hill, convincing yourself that you're "just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her." Or perhaps, William Thacker in the same movie, who lived quite a modest life and found himself falling for a woman bigger than what his dreams can ever come out of. Or maybe you once saw yourself in Julia Stiles' character in 10 Things I hate About You. You once fell hardly in and out of love, and feared to fall in love all over again. Much more in Serendipity, which is my personal favorite, needless to say.  Hoping that as you stroll the city malls, you'd bump into a beautiful discovery that would change the chapters of your currently ridiculously boring love story.  You do this while you nibble on chocolate-covered prunes, even if you never ate prunes before, you crave the chocolate in it that induces the love hormones in your body (i.e. Oxytocin).

Once your romantic comedy movie marathon had finally ended, and you tune-in on your favorite reality show, you'd realize that even 'reality' shows aren't quite real.  That movie date that you've always longed for.  The dinner date in a fancy restaurant that serves fancy wines that you had always been planning in your head to take that special person to on his/her birthday the following month.  All these are not gonna happen to your sad disappointment. And you're sorry for yourself for bursting your own bubble.

Some real love stories do have pleasantly unhappy endings. There's no other way to take but to carry-on and become your stronger self. Sooner or later, you know you're gonna go through all that again. You would be once again willing to risk it all, for love's sake, only on a much stronger post because you would have realized by then that life is truly not quite like the movies.