Antisocial Problems

Some nice people were in the pantry talking to me about Game of Thrones and Elf (really, it was about Peter Dinklage). I love movies and I love Game of Thrones but somehow I wanted to leave as soon as I could because I was just afraid of making a fool of myself. I was afraid that there might be an awkward silence for two seconds and it would be all my fault and that somehow would make them hate me. So I gave a weak smile, said I haven’t seen Elf yet and made my way out of the room.

It’s of course irrational. It doesn’t make sense and I know that I might’ve come off as even ruder than if I’d stayed there a bit longer and tried to chat with them, awkward silences and all. But, I don’t know. Somehow, I’ve developed a fear of people. Even of the nice ones whom I see every day. I don’t know why.

Books VS Movies Debate. Seriously?

Because I am a coward (like Samwell Tarly), I am ranting on my blog instead of commenting on my friend’s Facebook page where I saw the comments that upset me in the first place. Oh well, that’s what all this space on the internet is for, isn’t it? So there’s a place for all of us? I just really didn’t want to start an argument, especially since the post was not on my wall and the commenters are people I’ve never met.

Anyway, yesterday, most of us got to watch one of the biggest episodes of the Game of Thrones TV series. It was a very emotional episode and if you’ve invested some feelings on certain characters, the episode will definitely break your heart. I don’t want to put any spoilers here so let’s leave it at that. Anyway, this isn’t about the story of the series but my annoyance at people’s reactions to people’s reactions to it.

My friend, who doesn’t watch the TV series, posted the Facebook status: Am I the only one who doesn’t watch Game of Thrones?

That’s fair. I’ve wanted to post that a number of times on FB, not about Game of Thrones of course but whenever there’s a big event that most people are commenting about but I can’t relate to. For instance, I am completely clueless about basketball, but have a number of Facebook friends who feel that it’s important to post all kinds of game results on their wall. I have nothing against that, really. It’s their wall, they can post whatever on it. And I guess you can say that about comments, too.

I just really don’t understand why there are still some people who say things like this:

“[Reading the book is] better than watching the tv series.”

Dear People of Earth who still don’t get it,

Books and film are different mediums, okay??? What works for books might not work for film and vice-versa. So it’s impossible to say that one thing is “better” than the other.

Maybe you like reading books better than watching TV. If you do, fine. But that’s the reason you should give for preferring the book over the TV show. Or if you think the TV show is actually badly done, then say that it’s bad because the actors are crap or because the dialogue is stupid. Not because “They didn’t include [insert detail here] in the TV show and it was such an important part in the book!”

I was even more upset when that same person commented, “Read the book na lang! so we can laugh at the people’s reactions after watching the show haha”.

One question: WHY? Why would you laugh at people’s reactions after watching the TV show? Emotional turmoil is nothing to laugh at. Nevermind what brought about the turmoil. People are affected differently by different things. Some of us are more affected by literature than others. I don’t understand why that’s funny. Some people have committed suicide after hearing a song that made them sad. Is that something to laugh at? That a certain song can mean so much to one person that he/she decides to hinge his/her life on it? I mean, it’s just a song, right? Maybe you heard it under very different circumstances like, if you heard it while you were in Disneyland. But that person heard it just when he/she was contemplating life and death and it happened to push him/her over the edge. I don’t find that funny at all.

And here’s another comment (though by a different person): “I got over the [insert sad event here] in college. Hahaha.”

He wants to say that he read the book and found out about the story before everyone else did and that, what, makes him a better person somehow? I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware that we were all in a race to see who can find out the most information about this story. What do we get when we win? We get to lord the information we know over people who haven’t read the books/seen the TV series yet? For what? Personal satisfaction? I don’t get it.

Also: A few people also commented on how they “don’t care” about Game of Thrones and I could just feel their eyes rolling at the people who do care. Newsflash, if they really didn’t care, they wouldn’t have felt the need to comment in the first place.

And one last: That friend of mine watches Survivor, a series I never liked but don’t mind that other people like it. She posts a lot of things online that are about Survivor and I’ve never read any of it (except the titles or the initial post, because I can’t avoid seeing them on my news feed/plurk feed) because I’m not that interested in Survivor. But it definitely never occurred to me to make fun of the people who still think that Survivor is the best TV show ever.

As I write this, I’m remembering that I’ve written some anti-Twilight stuff, but that really has to do more with “I’m against bad writers becoming rich and famous while some good ones starve.” than anything else.

Soulmate

I was standing in front of the mirror, straightening my blouse. I was concentrating on the creases so much that I felt how close he was before I saw his reflection next to mine.

I met his eyes in the mirror and he smiled. I made a funny face and he laughed. ”See?” I said. “We look good together. Don’t we look so cute together? We look great together!” I said, looking at our reflections.

Our height difference was just right. Our complexions were just right. I smiled and he smiled and we looked like the happiest couple in the world.

“The truth is,” he said. “I believe you’re my soulmate.”

I looked up at him this time, taking my eyes away from the mirror. “What?”

“You’re my soulmate,” he said. “No one’s understood me as well as you, no one’s accepted me as wholly as you, no one’s made me happier than you.”

“But?” I asked.

“It’s more than enough for me, that you’re my soulmate and best friend. I’d be too selfish if I wanted you to be more than that,” he reasoned. “I can’t be selfish anymore. I can’t keep you all to myself anymore. Because you deserve so much more than me.”

—

Is it sweet what he said? Or was it just a really creative way of justifying his leaving me?

That Ceiling

There is a story that is always told about me. I call it my Most Embarrassing Moment.

It happened 12 years ago. In 2001. March 2001. Before high school graduation.

We didn’t have any more classes and we went to school simply for graduation practice. We didn’t need to stay in school for a long time for that. We stayed only until lunch time. Afterwards, we could go home, go to the movies, wherever. On that particular day, we decided to go to H’s house. To play video games.

H’s house was still newly renovated then. So he took us on a tour. We went to the kitchen, the garage, the bedrooms, the unfinished attic. It sounds pretty boring, and I guess it was. Until we reached the attic, that is. It was, as I previously mentioned, unfinished. The floor was incomplete. H told us to step on the beams. So we wouldn’t fall. He told us, but I didn’t listen. I put one foot on one of the beams, and one put on what I thought was a floor.

It turned out to be a ceiling panel. I found out the hard way. I found out, because the next time I felt solid ground under my feet, I was on the second floor of the house, and there was a gaping hole above me, where the ceiling panel used to be.

I fell through the ceiling. Of my friend’s house. As in, I destroyed a part of their newly renovated house. And all because I didn’t listen to H when he told us to stand on the beams.

Needless to say, after my friends confirmed that I wasn’t injured or anything, they laughed endlessly. All the way until we were on our way back to our own homes. In fact, they’re still laughing about the incident now.

It happened 12 years ago, but when we talk about it now, it’s still funny. But you must be wondering why I’m bringing it up now. Here’s the thing: That day, there were only five of us who were in H’s house. Me, H who owned the house, J1 and J2, my best friend and her boyfriend at the time, and JDG.

They were the only witnesses to that embarrassing moment. Only four people, and now there’s one less.

JDG passed away yesterday. It was a heart attack, they said. To tell the truth, I’m not that interested in the details. How and why are irrelevant at the moment. What matters to me is that he’s gone. He just turned 29 last March and now he’ll never reach 30.

I still don’t know how to process the information. He was such a good friend. We haven’t seen each other in a long time, but we exchanged some long Facebook messages a while back. And he did greet me on my birthday last year, and he said that he was sorry he couldn’t come. I said it was too bad and that we should just see each other next time. I guess, that can’t happen now.

I don’t know how to write about this. Which brings me to my next point: my next most embarrassing moment. It was just a few hours after the first one. Yes, it was more embarrassing than falling through the ceiling of my friend’s house.

We were in the jeepney, on our way home, and joking about the double-meaning of the verb “fall”. I literally fell that afternoon, but JDG was saying that I also figuratively fell, as in, fell in love, for H. Well, we were in high school at the time and talking about being “in love” was the thing to do.

“You fell. In more ways than one,” JDG said.

And stupidly, or guiltily (because I did like H at the time), I countered with, “That’s right. I fell. And no one catched me.”

I actually said catched. And in front of JDG, too. The most grammatically aware person I knew. And because I’m very pompous about my knowledge of English grammar, it was way more embarrassing than having destroyed someone’s ceiling, when I made that grammar mistake.

“Caught!” JDG said, and J1 and J2 could not have laughed at us any harder.

Here’s the thing: all my memories of JDG and me seem to be of the two of us arguing. Because I dared to challenge his debating, fighting, arguing, and English skills. How arrogant I was, to think I could be better at him at something, anything. Especially the stuff that he was really good at. Now I think he was probably just indulging me, or perhaps he found my ineptitude entertaining. Whatever the reason, he went off to become a successful lawyer, and I’m, well, not a lawyer.

And the disjointed thoughts (and most probably there are also grammar errors) in this blog entry don’t make me feel any more confident. Thinking about it now, I never could’ve beaten him in any debate. But I’m happy that he at least thought me worthy an opponent. Even if it was just for laughs.

I still wish I could write as well as he did. I wish I knew as many words as he did. I also remember him being one of the few people whom I could talk to about books and music and movies. Or, okay, you can basically talk to anyone about those topics, but he was one of the few people who would get the references I would make, and make references I would get.

Perhaps I’m biased and I haven’t met a lot of people, but he really was one of the most brilliant people ever. Intelligent and insightful, he could intellectualize your very human problems without being unsympathetic. He could see things objectively but still be a very concerned friend. And he had a great sense of humor, too.

It might be in bad taste to quote from The Walking Dead, but this was the exact line I remembered as soon as I heard the news. Brilliant as he was.

“[He] was a loss to the world. Hell, [he] ran this place. I just worked here.”
- Edwin Jenner, The Walking Dead (S1E6,TS-19)

He was such a brilliant writer. Some of my friends posted pictures of his letters or screenshots of their last text exchanges with him. I looked for ours and found that it was over two years ago. We were talking about how busy we both were and how we haven’t seen each other in ages. I said that it’d been difficult to see him since he moved, and he said that it’d been difficult to see us since he started his job. So we were talking about all that lost time and he said, the last thing he said was, “Well, we’ll always have H’s ceiling.”

I’d hoped for a more recent memory than that, but at least we do have that. And that we always will have.