Painful to be Private Preoccupations [part I]

I.

I’ve been rushing lately, despite finishing my thesis defense a week ago. I’m overworked, dead half the time and still getting heavier because I’ve been compensating my lack of sleep with eating. I’ve been rushing because three weeks ago, after being in Asturias where I ate a hearty bag of bikang-bikang, Ma’am Gamo told me that we’re organizing the annual Exposure Trip to Bilibid Prisons again. Of course I was surprised because just last semester, our program was halted and released a chain of events too horrible to even menti—

This is tedious work, and even though I have briefed my juniors and sophomores of the activity and their part in it, the stress is becoming unbearable. I can’t take this anymore, not now, not in my last semester as a college student in this university. The only consolation I want to have is that now, I hope, there would be another girl to date, who is worth my time, who would give way for anyone or anything to give me a break on everything that’s happening now.

I take the waivers and letters upstairs, to rm201 of 1jrn1. Ok, ok. Now to the next room, that of 1jrn2, where there seems to be a commotion because they have no professor for the next subject. I talk to someone standing in front of the door.

“Pwede sa president?” I say.

“Uhm, nasa CR po eh. Pakihintay na lang. Ayon, anjan na. Joyce! May naghahanap sa ‘yo!”

The girl walks in, glides in, and looks at us. She squints. Poor eyesight? And that long skirt, why so long? Or is it just me? Lesbians in my high school wear skirts that are too long. I really think it’s too long. She approaches me, we introduce ourselves, I state my purpose, the trip, everything, and I hand her the papers that should be photocopied for the whole class. She says OK. Come to think of it, she’s quite cute, her looking at me with her head nodding and her shoulder hunched. Maybe she’s shy, facing someone with wide shoulders, unshaven, with distended, exhausted eyes below a scarred forehead.

Do I look intimidating? Or just pathetic?

Then I smell something. Cigarettes. From her blouse or hair maybe. This Joyce smokes. I don’t see that there’s a possibility that she has a source of income to subsidize that vice. Oh well, teenagers. I smile and she smiles back before I say goodbye. Then to the stairs.

That girl, that smile. But I’m used to this. The fact that you’re taking 10 or 11 sections to an educational trip leads to things like these because, out of that 400 or so youngsters, there might be someone pretty (and lucky!) enough to consistently get my attention. And so far, as far as my anticipation is concerned, she’s it. Perhaps I’m graduating with a girlfriend anyway. Oh no. No. I must not get my hopes up too soon. Jinx!

But then again, maybe she has a boyfriend already. That secure look, maybe she has someone more masculine that me. Some guy who could lift heavy things for a living, if he wanted to. A boy-next-door type who doesn’t have creative facial hair, who is cleanly shaven. But I remember that she was with her friends and classmates earlier, a reason for that secured look. Maybe she’s single after all.
Days later, I meet up with all the presidents of the 11 sections. I usually show her to my classmates or friends when I see her, in the corridor or after meetings. I see a pattern implicit in their comments about her looks—that she looks pretty “mundane”. Commonplace, natural, ordinary, at least in comparison to my past prospects or dates. A classmate tells me that I’m so phenomenological just like my thesis, very fond of mundane things, even persons. I neither find the joke funny nor offending. It’s too pedantic. Good thing is, I’m gonna be dating with someone again. Consistently that is, if she’s worth my time.

I’m not arrogant or conceited, but after reading a considerable amount of literature on eidetic sociology, on dating, and hearing tons of feedbacks from other people, I always establish the fact that I’m the (or also) the prize. And women (or girls) must also make their way towards me. It’s pretty simple, really. Dating, being also (but not only) a political phenomenon, requires that there must be a healthy alternation of power. In this sense, I’m only lessening the opposite sex’s leverage and leveling it with mine. And while many jerks and narrow-minded skeptics scoff at the idea, many of my friends, particularly girls, like it and are entertained by it. Oh well, might as well review some stuff on the matter.