It is how the gentle people do it. When someone you met is about to cross the line, ask a confidant to bail you out by calling you and command you to get out. For me, it's the most subtle way of telling someone, "you're not my bet." without telling him straight on his face or resorting to doing a one-way eye-ball, which is the bane of all meet-ups.
---
So we were there in his room. It was dark and the only light that illuminate our surroundings come from a table lamp nestled on his study table. Songs of Christian Bautista and the other balladeers play on the DVD, while half-empty bottles of Red Horse rests on our feet.
I was seated a space away from him in a long monoblock chair. He tried to get closer but I brushed him off by moving further away from him, while looking at the cigarette smoke shapes floating above us. We talked about things related to being a PLU. I found out that he is just a newbie in the chatroom and that, he twice invited guests in his place before me.
Several times, he asked some sexual questions, which I wearily answered despite the feeling that he wanted something to happen between us. Even if I am inclined to save the meeting by insisting on the value of friendship above the hook-up, the room setting he created blatantly spelled that he wanted even more - which I perfectly understand that it was supposed to happen, even if he never mentioned it.
Just before things get more intense due to the influence of Red Horse, I sent distress beacons to three friends that I trust enough to reveal my darkest monsters. "Dude, please call me. Pretend that you are my boss. This is an emergency," I wrote in the text.
Minutes have passed and there were still no response. With all the skills I learned in communicating, I overturned the sexual topics and focused instead to the trivialities of our lives. It worked long enough for someone to finally respond to my beacon.
I held on to avoid a dead air between us. Soon, my phone rang and it was from an anonymous number. If it was a deux-ex machina moment, then I should consider myself blessed. So I answered the phone despite being unaware of who the person speaking on the other line is.
What's important to me is to get out without making the other person feel that I turned him down and his intentions.
"Hello sir. Kailangan niyo na akong bumalik sa office? Hindi pa rin ba ayos ang problema? I'm on my way sir."
With just one call, I got my freedom back.
I immediately drunk the beer on my bottle and then sincerely thanked my host for adopting me for the evening. Despite the disappointing look and sarcastic smile on his face expressing a failure of intentions, he let me go without any more protest. After all, he doesn't have anything to hold to. In our chat conversation before the meet-up, I never mentioned hook-up as part of my reasons for hanging out in his place.
When I left his apartment, I immediately called the anonymous caller to personally thank him.
It was Macoy.
His intervention not only saved my ass from committing a blunder I would regret in the end, he also made me feel that despite being solitary and lonesome these past few days, I could still lean on to people, just when things get tough.
And the world I used to know is closing down around me.
---
So we were there in his room. It was dark and the only light that illuminate our surroundings come from a table lamp nestled on his study table. Songs of Christian Bautista and the other balladeers play on the DVD, while half-empty bottles of Red Horse rests on our feet.
I was seated a space away from him in a long monoblock chair. He tried to get closer but I brushed him off by moving further away from him, while looking at the cigarette smoke shapes floating above us. We talked about things related to being a PLU. I found out that he is just a newbie in the chatroom and that, he twice invited guests in his place before me.
Several times, he asked some sexual questions, which I wearily answered despite the feeling that he wanted something to happen between us. Even if I am inclined to save the meeting by insisting on the value of friendship above the hook-up, the room setting he created blatantly spelled that he wanted even more - which I perfectly understand that it was supposed to happen, even if he never mentioned it.
Just before things get more intense due to the influence of Red Horse, I sent distress beacons to three friends that I trust enough to reveal my darkest monsters. "Dude, please call me. Pretend that you are my boss. This is an emergency," I wrote in the text.
Minutes have passed and there were still no response. With all the skills I learned in communicating, I overturned the sexual topics and focused instead to the trivialities of our lives. It worked long enough for someone to finally respond to my beacon.
I held on to avoid a dead air between us. Soon, my phone rang and it was from an anonymous number. If it was a deux-ex machina moment, then I should consider myself blessed. So I answered the phone despite being unaware of who the person speaking on the other line is.
What's important to me is to get out without making the other person feel that I turned him down and his intentions.
"Hello sir. Kailangan niyo na akong bumalik sa office? Hindi pa rin ba ayos ang problema? I'm on my way sir."
With just one call, I got my freedom back.
I immediately drunk the beer on my bottle and then sincerely thanked my host for adopting me for the evening. Despite the disappointing look and sarcastic smile on his face expressing a failure of intentions, he let me go without any more protest. After all, he doesn't have anything to hold to. In our chat conversation before the meet-up, I never mentioned hook-up as part of my reasons for hanging out in his place.
When I left his apartment, I immediately called the anonymous caller to personally thank him.
It was Macoy.
His intervention not only saved my ass from committing a blunder I would regret in the end, he also made me feel that despite being solitary and lonesome these past few days, I could still lean on to people, just when things get tough.
And the world I used to know is closing down around me.
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