| Thursday, June 21, 2007 |
| Choose Your Own Adventure |
CHAPTER 1
You have a high school classmate (A). You hang out with her and two other girls (B & C) on the first quarter of your first year in a new school. You are very happy with the company - your first quarter isn't going to be so awkward after all.
CHAPTER 2
A few months go by. You always spend lunch with AB & C. But you find yourself traveling home alone, because AB & C live near your school, while you live three rides away. You travel alone, until you meet Classmates DE & F whose homebound travel is the same direction as yours. Suddenly you're not so lonely anymore after classes. DE & F eventually become your lunch buddies as well, as AB & C gravitate towards other friends. Soon, you stop hanging out with A & B. But C is always there, even after you are split into different sections. You keep a notebook/joint diary where you and C tell each other how your day went etc. and would often chat for hours on the phone.
CHAPTER 3
College comes and you still keep contact with C at least once or twice a year. With A & B, it is different. Whatever ties you had with them that first quarter is gone. You forget that you were even a group at one point - just that you hung out once. You seldom bump into them, even though they live in the area where your college is. Then two years out of college, A unexpectedly invites you to a baby shower - she is pregnant - and she makes you a Godmother. You find it weird, but you go anyway, because you think it is impolite to reject invitations. The baby shower is anything but not awkward for you. You don’t know where to begin - there are no stories to recount, no memories to go back to. You realize you don't know a thing about A! Some of your old high school classmates are there - even C is there. But you have not seen or spoken with them in such a long time, too, that its taking you a while to adjust seeing them again. But you try enjoy the small reunion anyway, and promise to keep in touch.
CHAPTER 4
Surprisingly, A does keep in touch thereafter, checking on how you are, updating you with how the baby is. One time, she is in need of financial assistance and you help her out because you missed her baby's first birthday party, turning debt into a gift. You don't find it weird anymore - you start to freak out. It doesn't help that A would ocassionally (READ: everytime you and A talk again after a long period of silence) drop hints of gifts for the baby, or worse - presume that you will give her baby a gift, and then ask you to convert this gift into cash. You freak out some more. You freak out because everytime you and A talk, you feel obliged by virtue of being a Godmother and instant kumare, to give something when you don't feel anything for her or her baby. You freak out so much, you stop answering her texts, calls and emails. You subsequently feel guilty because you really can't remember whether you and A were ever really close, and if you are wrong about thinking this way. You stay away in the meantime.
CHAPTER 5
You lose your phone and though saddened by the loss for many reasons, you also welcome the few months of being unreachable by people you want to take a break from. After a few months of peace and sporadic bouts of guilt, you decide to revive your friendship with A, by finally answering her email. You exchange numbers again, and she checks on how you are. You also check on her baby, carefully choosing your words so as not to sound distant, and yet not opening yourself to an invitation you'll find yourself obliged to say a half-hearted yes to. But not even five minutes into the conversation, she jokingly drops a hint again about you giving her baby gifts since you 'stood them up' on her baby's first birthday celebration. Months of debating and self-control goes haywire and your head explodes in anger. You don't answer anymore for the rest of the night while you let your anger dissipate.
YOU:
1) Drop off the face of the earth, never to be seen or heard of again. Go to page 6.
2) Go on a soul-searching mission and search your soul for your possible lost friendship with A. If you find it, bite your tongue and give her baby a gift. Go to page 15. If you don't find it, follow Option 1.
3) Be mature and tell her that you don't feel comfortable being put in those kinds of situations. (If you want to give a gift, its because you want to, not because somebody, especially somebody you don't feel any level of closeness to, told you so. Hello? even your closest friends don't insinuate that you give them gifts.) And then risk being called a bits*ch* for taking her seriously. She was just joking lang naman, haller. Go to page 22. If she calls you a bits*ch*, follow Option 1.
4) Start reaching out to A until you feel the closeness you are looking for. And then don't complain anymore everytime she asks for a gift. This will only happen at least once or twice a year, anyway. Go to page 27. If this doesn't work out, or if requests for gifts escalate from twice to thrice in a year, follow Option 1.
5) Follow Option 1. |
posted by Tami @ 1:38 PM
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