"YOU have got to be kidding me,” said my friend as we were walking the busy streets of Divisoria last Friday night. We were on our way to this burger joint near Xavier University, the one that challenges you to consume a huge meal in under 15 minutes to get it free, when I told her what I wanted to do on Sunday.
“I’m serious,” I replied, “I really want to just lock myself in my room, switch off my phone and laptop, and not see anybody. I’ll probably read a book and gorge myself on junk food.” She laughed and said, “That wouldn’t work. Your room’s quite close to your next-door neighbor’s house and I remember that they play their radio with the volume way up high. I’m sure the disk jockeys will keep on reminding everybody listening what day it is and you’d still hear the sappy greetings.”
I groaned. I didn’t even factor in voices from the radio or TV drifting into my room. If only I could sleep the day away, I would. I deliberated briefly with the idea of filching a couple of my mom’s sleeping pills before abandoning the thought altogether. I usually end up with a killer headache after waking up from a pill induced sleep plus I get spacey the rest of the day. I don’t think it’s worth it just to make one whole day disappear.
We reached our destination and grabbed a table. “It’s not that bad, you know,” she said as we sat down. I gave her a dirty look, “Yeah, you wouldn’t mind. I’m sure you’re looking forward to all the sappy crap. You’ve got a boyfriend, after all.”
Yes, dear folks, I am single and that’s exactly why I would like this Sunday to disappear.
If you’ve already got your brain addled today by all the talk of love and still don’t understand why, I’ll even spell it out for you: I’m single and today is Valentine’s Day, the worst day to be alive for all us, single folks.
“With all the cupids, the hearts, the teddy bears and roses, the couples canoodling, I can just puke right here,” I told her. My friend patted my hand, a fake look of concern on her face. “You don’t have to be in a relationship to enjoy Valentines. It’s not just about romantic love, you know. I’m sure there are a lot of ‘single’ things you can do. Masturdate, perhaps?” It took all of my will power not to jump across the table and kill her right that instant. “Seriously, that’s the best advice you can give?” Masturdating, a term coined on the show Late Night with Conan O’Brien, is obviously a pun which means to go out on a date with one’s self.
I know that some single folks out there are happy to be in their current status and would probably even enjoy treating their single selves on a night out but I just couldn’t imagine myself doing it. I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting in a restaurant by my lonesome and being surrounded by couples whispering sweet nothings to each other and who would probably be sending pitying looks my way. The idea sent a shudder through my body.
I threatened my friend with bodily harm if she continued to rub salt on my open wounds and told her I’d probably stick to my plan of locking myself in my room only this time I’d also bring a pack of cotton balls to plug my ears with. I didn’t want to continue lamenting on my single blessedness so I changed the topic and shared with her how I thought that the words ‘I love you’ are so over used in this day and age that they don’t mean anything anymore.
This got her thinking and she said that I may have a point. Over the course of our dinner, we discussed how people nowadays tend to say ‘I love you’ to practically anybody for all and any reason without really meaning the words at all, “Oh my gosh ate tindera! I so like your banana que! I love you na talaga!” Or how people use these three words to get what they want, “I love you lagi, promise. Hubo na!”
“Those three words are so easy to say,” I told my friend, “It practically just falls out of your mouth when you say it. That’s probably why people seem to carelessly throw those words around. It now has lost its weight, its substance. It has lost its meaning. When somebody, lover or otherwise, tell me they loved me, I now have to think twice. ‘Do they really mean it? Or did those words just fall out of their mouth like verbal diarrhea?’”
I asked her if she believes her boyfriend of two months when he tells her that he loves her. She thought about it for a long time and finally answered that she has to, “I mean, what’s the point of being in the relationship if I doubt his love?” I laughed and told her she was being quite naïve, “Men will say anything to get into a lady’s pants.” She poked me hard and retorted, “If I’m naïve, you’re being a cynic. Single man gud ka mao gusto nimo tanan tao bitter pareho nimo.” I told her that I wasn’t bitter, just being realistic, while in my head I was stabbing her with the fork I held.
We both agreed though that these three words, a verb stuck in between two pronouns, are a little bit over used. So we decided to salvage our friendship and share the last cigarette we had between us.
After dinner, we traced back our steps to Divisoria to grab a cab. We were talking about what would be a good alternative to use instead of saying I love you when she suddenly stopped in her tracks and said, “Oh! I forgot to tell you, my boyfriend’s cousin is coming over to visit this weekend diay. Taga Bukidnon siya and we might hangout. Uban ka?”
I asked her which cousin is she referring to as I distinctly remember that her boyfriend has quite a large family. “Katong imong crush gud,” she said. With a mischievous grin on my face, I quipped, “Hala, mao ba? Sige, uban ko.
Thanks for inviting me, personal pronoun verb personal pronoun!” She laughed out loud and retorted, “Personal pronoun verb personal pronoun, adverb!”