The Angel

I saw it among the recommendations when I checked my Amazon account, a novel about a gay man remembering his life, spanning 50 years of the American gay culture. Although I've read novels with a similar premise, the book still piqued me enough to buy it. I haven't read it yet, because it just arrived today. But it made me think about my experiences. From the moment I slipped quietly and anonymously online up to this time. I've made a lot of mistakes, mostly trial and errors, in trying to get it right on how to be gay, because for the most part, I didn't know how to be one. I looked up (or down, depending on the situation) on those I've met and encountered, the way they act, move and behave; their beliefs, views, whims and even fantasies. But they were all different. There were the players and two-timers, those in committed relationships but looking for something discreetly on the side, those with terrible hangover from past loves, the i'm-really-straight-but-i...

It's not false modesty when I diffuse people's compliments on how I look.  In the gym, it has ranged from "nice lookin' man" to "hot Asian" or "mighty cute" to "the nicest smile this state has ever seen."  Sometimes I'd fake a smile, say thanks, or look at them quizzically.  Because I don't get it. I remember what my friend used to say: kung mabenta ka sa ibang bansa, ibig sabihin pangit ka sa Pinas kasi gusto ng foreigners exotic. I can live better with that rather than a string of compliments that I don't consider real.  I've known myself consciously for a million years, stared reluctantly and begrudgingly at the mirror every waking moment, and I never saw what others did.  I never liked what I saw and I've simplified a lot of things, like shaving my hair regularly, so that I won't have to spend half my life staring at a mirror. I'm comfortable with my skin, but I'm just not my type.  If I were to...

A few weeks ago, a former officemate who was here on vacation called me up with all the urgency of a woman in labor.  Hoy, sino yung latino? Huh? I could not place who he was referring to. Yung sa facebook mo na comment ng comment. Oh.  Wala, neighbor ko. He went on and on, asking about the details, and being so disappointed that there weren't so many, at least none of the salacious ones he wanted me to dish. He's not alone.  Over the course of days, a few others would buzz me in YM or wherever and ask me about the latino.  I wondered, if maybe I should get a recorder for my standard reply.  I was jogging, his dog ran after me, he ran after his dog, I kept shouting, "My balls, my balls," which until now I don't know why those were the words that came out of my mouth.  That was the only time I've ever seen him, although he added me up in Facebook.  But that was it. Although it seems many find it hard to believe, that me with my raging and op...

I've been asked on separate occasions randomly through the years what it is I'm looking for in someone.  Most of the time, typical of my silent nature, I am dumbfounded.  It seems so cliche to seek all the niceties one would want in someone.  Kind, generous, respectful, etc.  And it seems tired to say tall, dark, and handsome, a nice pair of legs, toned body, with a high-enough EQ to match his IQ.  They all seem like a checklist of an idea of a perfect partner.  Something that I've never really given much thought of.  Though it appears to me that people do have a sort of mental checklist of who they would want to be with. Consider a friend, who in fits of dateless nights, would chat me up talking about the guys he had gone out with and why none of them worked out.  Most of the time, none of them had fit with his idea of THE One.  And the ones he had been interested with were, at most, only mildly interested in him.  It becomes a matter...