A Good Reason to JUST BE YOURSELF

PART ONE

I have to admit - I find her entertaining in a peculiar sort of way.

Sometimes I think time do change people quite a lot. But then I realised some people probably take their time to admit to themselves who they really are, and they then choose the people they would like to share their real selves with. AND if you don’t happen to be in that selection you get to see what they really wanted to be. This is probably why people loves the internet and social networking so much. They don’t use it to keep in touch with their friends really, but in a profile page they get to be what they want people to think they are. This is OK as long as it doesn’t harm of hurt people.
When I was 14 years old I got hooked on chatting. I discovered the magic of the internet - I was absolutely gobsmacked to say the least. Why not? I was talking to people from different parts of the world! Later I will discover that there are a lot of perverts lurking behind sweet screen names and phoney profiles just waiting for a vulnerable prey to take the bait. The benefit of this discovery is that I knew at a young age which men to take seriously and I can count them on the fingers of one hand.
I have not been all the truthful myself, oh no. In fact my first (non-junk) email account has the number “17” after my name which supposedly there to represent my age. But that was about it. I lied about my age until I was finally 18. Phew!
But I never lied about my hobbies, interests and the things that amused and amazed me. I never lied about the things that made me laugh or made me angry. Nor the things that annoyed me and why they did so much. I see no point in talking to someone if you can’t be yourself. I really LOVE people who can hold a good conversation because I just LOVE good conversations. I like learning about other people and sharing my opinions on matters that I am passionate about. This is probably the reason why I got so fond of chatting on AIM when I was younger. I especially loved it before I had a photograph scanned and posted on my profile. Because up until that point, people and I were just talking - about cultures, political views, animals’ amazing instinct and pretty much anything under the sun. Somehow looks didn’t matter at all.

I forgotten about the virtual world when I started working. On a jeepney home after a long day at work in Picture City Digital the guy sat next to me called “Miss… excuse me, miss”. There were about 8 other people in the jeep so I felt pretty safe, not to mention the fact that my workmate Rowel, volunteered to take me home that evening so I smiled at him and found out he looked pretty harmless. Then he said, “do you mind if I touch your hair?”. I said sure after scanning his hands with my eyes and making sure he had no pair of scissors hidden in the palm of his hands or something. He then asked me if I’d be interested to do some hair modelling for David’s Salon. I may be gullible but I’m not stupid so I just shrugged it off thinking he is taking the piss. I guess he read my mind so he hand me a business card and asked me for a mobile number, I said I didn’t have one even though I did. He was persistent and asked me where he could contact me so I told him he could come see me in the mall where I worked. The next afternoon there he was! And to make the long story short, I said yes to his offer. At one of the events, I met Kaye for the first time. My first impression of her is vague but I remember her being nice and funny. That was when our friendship began.

My heart really went out for her when I found out she was working a 13 hour job for P80 (£1{the minimum wage then was 300 pesos}) at a VCD rental and lived in box of a room of a nearby boarding house. She isn’t from Angeles City that is why she is renting a room in a boarding house as her province is several hours away. We kept in touch and actually went out dancing many times and bonded quite well. When I got a better job in a hotel and found out they were looking for more staff I asked Kaye if she would like to work there as a DJ in the karaoke lounge of the hotel she was hesitant. I made her a CV and tweaked the job experience bit. I was so psyched when she got the job and I made sure I taught her how to work the DJ equipment in the booth (they were pretty basic, my brother worked as a DJ in a record bar) before our boss catch on. Thankfully he didn’t and working there has been one of the best times of my life working with 4 of my best friends in the world (Kaye, Karen and my childhood bezzy, Sarah).

But nothing lasts forever as we all know. Eventually we moved on with time, after the hotel shut down the Karaoke Lounge, Kaye decided to take the offer to work in the girly bar wing of the hotel, Karen and Sarah didn’t - Karen had a baby soon after and Sarah worked as an office administrator in another hotel, and so did I. That’s when we lost touch except Sarah and I.
Three years later we had a bit of a reunion. And you’d think we would be a bit wiser. Well, we weren’t.