I have a friend, Julean, who fucked their friend’s ex. Whether it was on purpose or by mistake, I’ll never know. Of course, they aren’t friends anymore. There probably are more taboo things in the world, like murder. Some sins are always worse than others. I guess you could really be in love with that sort of danger.
What’s funny about Metro Manila—not that it's the only place in the world—is that everyone’s caught up in the same tragic food web, and it always comes down to the fact whether you’re collateral damage or you just happened to be at the scene of the crime. I, for one, just happened to be friends with Julean since high school. Their now-ex-friend, however, I crossed paths with during my brief stint at an agency, and I feel as though there’s some kind of punchline in that.
People come up with all sorts of names for it, this food web. Once, I went to Los Baños, Laguna for Halloween, and I partied with a bunch of UPLB students. Between 3 a.m. and badly wanting to go back home to my studio unit in Makati, I caught wind of these two guys arguing (I can never tell at first glance whether two boys are best friends or dating). Parties are always so messy and tense when it’s not Donna Summer playing, or when the speakers are just awful. From what I could piece together, one of them tongue-kissed the other’s ex on the dance floor. And they were just behind me, one of them bawling their eyes out. Red-handed tears. I mean, how could anyone do something like that? Alcohol should never be an excuse for bad behavior.
Anyway, that’s not the point of this story. The point was that I was talking to this girl, and I remember her so dearly because she promised that we would go out for coffee the next morning around campus. But we never did because she woke up late and I had to entertain myself then. Maybe next time. But that night, she told me specifically about UPLB’s food web, how it’s deeply distinct from UPD, and all the other UP campuses. At the center of the food web is “Mother Spider,” but she calls them “Buko Pie.” Natikman na ng lahat.
The gay dating pool is gruesomely small, and it’s even smaller in sleepy towns like Los Baños. I can never really blame a guy if their sex life is someone’s entire apartment building. Though, I can imagine that it gets extremely awkward, bumping into someone who’s been inside you, and just around the corner, someone who you have been inside in. That’s a reprisal role I never want. But sometimes you just have to act like adults and get over it.
Although, I keep thinking about Buko Pie: If everyone’s already fucked each other, and nobody wants to fuck the people who’s already been fucked, where does that leave us? Abstinence?
I can totally see the allure of a Person Who Isn’t Known By Anyone Else. It feels like you’ve hit the jackpot when you meet someone with virtually no mutual followers or hookups. That’s true love. That’s the One. Everyone wants to be some sort of Neil Armstrong, first man to walk on the moon.
Maybe having mutual-somethings takes away the element of surprise. Everyone always hears something about someone. So I can never imagine living with that kind of doom hovering around, and it’s just unfair to just hear one side of the story. You’d rather experience the whole ordeal of someone becoming bored of you after hooking up firsthand without your friends telling you I told you so; I think it builds character. You only suffer once if you never knew the heartbreak was coming in the first place. Nobody should get chastised for making bad decisions.
Once, I went on a date with this guy, M. We were in Binondo, sitting down for coffee (or cake? I can’t really remember) and we went through each other’s Instagram mutuals as you would when you’re just newly romantically involved with someone. It’s my favorite first date activity, to do these background checks on each other. Certainly, it would have felt like we were going too fast, but that’s just standard protocol. Both of us secretly wished the other was someone new.
I recognized some names, well, usernames. They were mostly people from my college, some of which I would consider mild acquaintances and friends. The important thing was that I’ve never been inside any of them and none of them had been inside me. I pointed to one name: we worked together on a film. And another: orgmate.
“We’re mutuals,” M. told me.
And technically, that was true. Although, I would find out much later that he’s fucked some of them. I suppose it’s not really appropriate to say to a first date that you’ve fucked some of his friends before—I don’t know what I’m thinking. You should never kiss and tell (but maybe you could kiss and write).
So then, he was telling me about his non-negotiables if I really wanted to fall in love with him. It was so noble. I obviously had to know what I was getting into. Everyone has these sorts of rules in dating, and sometimes when the ask is too much you almost wish they’d channeled this appetite for risk management into day trading then probably we wouldn’t have had to split the bill. He told me he wouldn’t fuck, let alone date, anyone who’s been involved with any of his friends. He said this with the solemnity of a man outlining his food restrictions for the tech rider, “I don’t want anyone’s leftovers.” And I remember thinking, I hope I wasn’t friends with his friends.
I mean, maybe that’s bro code, girl code, or whatever. I could see where he was coming from. But there’s too much ceremony in calling anyone a leftover. Even if friends were out of the equation, there are people like that who’d rather die than kiss Someone Who’s Been Around. The obsession with purity will be the end of love. Not too long ago, I heard about this guitarist (or bassist?) who got put off at the fact that my friend had hooked up with other people before. And mind you, they met on Bumble. If it’s not an ego thing then I absolutely have no idea what it is.
People think you’re fun and the life of the party when you own up to your sexuality; they get so bewildered by the fact that you’re adventurous, that you’re putting yourself out there. But the minute they get up close and personal with you, they think you’re damaged goods. It’s like you’re Schrödinger’s slut. Being sexy is only a quantum state and the outcome depends on who you sleep with. At least the pleasure of sex comes in the form of objective truth. Becoming fun and the life of the party is only good in theory but bad in practice, like trickle-down economics.
People like to pretend they have a principled objection to these things. Sometimes you can’t really help the circumstances. People never have it in them to say what they think, and they’ll always preach about a grand narrative on self-control, self-pity, self-respect or any other self-immolation. Maybe nobody wants leftovers because they’d rather be the first bite.
Being first is special after all. First dance, first kiss, first everything. Nobody remembers the second astronaut, or the third, or the fourth, unless you’re really keeping score. I couldn’t tell you who they are without Googling them.
That's just the truth of being in a city, at the center of the universe: it's where all the action is, more often that not in unprecedented amounts. Sometimes I get so shocked by just by how readily-available anything and anyone is. So you can't expect that everyone else hasn't gotten in on it as well. That's just selfish to even think about.
You know, when you come to think of it, it’s no surprise everyone’s tasted Buko Pie already. It probably is that good in the first place. Though, getting tired of Buko Pie is another concern in itself. Then it does make you wonder what else is for dessert tomorrow.
I can never trust anything that claims to be undiscovered. If you had to choose, would you pay 700 pesos to watch a blockbuster or a film nobody’s heard of before? I mean, if you really wanted to have a good time.
