The Boyfriend List
Inspired by E. Lockhart's "The Boyfriend List", I've decided to make a mini rundown of all the guys I've dated, almost dated, should've dated and dreamed of dating. Hidden behind (what I'd like to think are) clever pseudonyms, I consider this entry to be, more than anything else, a commemorative piece.
They say that if a writer loves you, you live forever. Too bad for these guys because, you know what? It's kind of true.
***
1. Josh (the one I've never talked about and will, after this, never talk about again.)
He was my cousin's best friend. I grew up in an all-girls school and, as fate would have it, met this guy at the height of my pre-teen hormonal explosion. My cousin invited him over to our house one day (we lived together for at least 8 of our formative years) and that was that.
He was an entire grade older than me and as we sat on the sofa, the TV playing a movie I don't even remember, all I could think of was how I had never been in such close proximity to a boy I wasn't related to before. There was nothing romantic, there was no reason, there was no logic. There was just a boy and a boy-deprived girl. The attraction was inevitable.
I knew so little about him then and the little that I've kept in my head 'til today are tiny, inconsequential fragments. I know that he used to rap. I know that he later on moved to a different provincial state in the Philippines. I know that he eventually flew off to the States and, from there, assumed a strange Marilyn Manson type of persona.
I have never talked about him because I never wanted my cousin to know the truth. And even though it wasn't a full-on love affair (in fact, it wasn't anything at all!), the humiliation of letting my cousin know that, at one point, I found his best friend adorable even though I had absolutely no grounds to think so at all, shame me beyond words.
Because, while I did like him by default (ie: there were no other options available), I will admit that it was a hungry, embarrassing, I-remember-Coco-Lee-songs-when-I-think-of-you-slash-I'll-write-poems-for-you kind of crush that I'd honestly rather forget. (Apparently, on the rare instances that I do get a crush on somebody, I have a tendency to get a wee bit obsessive.)
I wonder where he is today.
(to be cont'd.)
They say that if a writer loves you, you live forever. Too bad for these guys because, you know what? It's kind of true.
***
1. Josh (the one I've never talked about and will, after this, never talk about again.)
He was my cousin's best friend. I grew up in an all-girls school and, as fate would have it, met this guy at the height of my pre-teen hormonal explosion. My cousin invited him over to our house one day (we lived together for at least 8 of our formative years) and that was that.
He was an entire grade older than me and as we sat on the sofa, the TV playing a movie I don't even remember, all I could think of was how I had never been in such close proximity to a boy I wasn't related to before. There was nothing romantic, there was no reason, there was no logic. There was just a boy and a boy-deprived girl. The attraction was inevitable.
I knew so little about him then and the little that I've kept in my head 'til today are tiny, inconsequential fragments. I know that he used to rap. I know that he later on moved to a different provincial state in the Philippines. I know that he eventually flew off to the States and, from there, assumed a strange Marilyn Manson type of persona.
I have never talked about him because I never wanted my cousin to know the truth. And even though it wasn't a full-on love affair (in fact, it wasn't anything at all!), the humiliation of letting my cousin know that, at one point, I found his best friend adorable even though I had absolutely no grounds to think so at all, shame me beyond words.
Because, while I did like him by default (ie: there were no other options available), I will admit that it was a hungry, embarrassing, I-remember-Coco-Lee-songs-when-I-think-of-you-slash-I'll-write-poems-for-you kind of crush that I'd honestly rather forget. (Apparently, on the rare instances that I do get a crush on somebody, I have a tendency to get a wee bit obsessive.)
I wonder where he is today.
(to be cont'd.)