from the book Twisted

Better to be the dumper than the dumpee.

--Bridget Fonda, Singles

This would make sense if I were stupid, ugly, or boring. I am most emphatically not stupid--I'm not humble either, but I am not stupid. I am not ugly, despite the photographic evidence; I can only surmise that the day this photograph was taken, Nico's camera was possessed by an evil spirit. I am not boring, because if I were and you're reading this of your own volition, then you're a dummy. You wouldn't want to be called a dummy, would you?

Okay, I am none of the above. Then why am I sitting alone in my flat on a Saturday night, watching television with the volume off, and listening to Chet Baker? Chet Baker, the brilliant, spectacularly troubled flugelhorn player and singer who leapt out of an upper-storey window? Why (am I sitting alone, etc., not why Chet jumped)?

I am reminded of that scene in Say Anything where John Cusack just got dumped by Ione Skye. He visits all the places they'd gone to, including the gas station, where a bunch of guys give him relationship advice: "Go out with someone who looks just like her, and then you dump her."

John Cusack goes, "If you know so much about women, how come you're hanging around a Gas 'N Sip on a Saturday night with no dates?"

Dead silence as the guys think of an answer.

"By choice!" someone finally says.

In the end John Cusacj goes to Ione Skye's house and stands outside her window holding up a boom box blaring "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel. That scene kills me. Part of me retches at it, but it kills me. There's an idea: maybe I should stand outside whatsisface's with a boom box, only it wouldn't be playing "In Your Eyes." More likely, "Fool" by the Rollins Band. I'd probably get arrested.

No I have not been dumped, in case you're wondering. Ignored, but not dumped.

Whatever happened to Pat Benatar, that opera-trained rock vocalist? Where is she now? Remember that corny song of hers, "Love is a Battlefield?" It had a hyperliteral video, with badly dressed women and men slugging it out. I mentioned this relic from the eighties because once again, I have recieved incontrovertible proof that love is a battlefield. On one side the chaser, and over there, the chased (It is not an accident the latter is pronounced as "chaste.") So there you are on opposing sides, plotting each other's downfall. Arguably the object of the chase is for both sides to be happy, but before you can achieve that you have to make each other miserable. Like this "Hmm, I think I'll call him. No wait I called him last time. He should call me, it's only fair. Why should I be the fool all the time? Come to think of it, why hasn't he been showing up? How dare he ignore me. How dare that schmuck think I'm actually sitting around waiting for him to put in an appearance.

"Wait a minute: I am sitting around waiting for him to put in an appearance. but he doesn't know that. Besides, I'm doing this by choice. Yeah, that's it, by choice. I could go out this very minute. I could hang out with my friends. But I'm staying home because I want to. I'm miserable because I want to be! By staying home alone on a weekend, I am actually exercising my free will!"

Ohmigod, I'm beginning to sound like that cartoon Cathy. Come to think of it, that Guisewite woman has been plagiarizing my life for years.

The obvious solution to this self-imposed anguish is for everyone concerned to come right out and tell the truth. I really like you, I think this relationship presents excellent possibilities to the human gene pool, and I would like to gather sufficient data to generate a conclusion. Translation: Hey, I like you, let's hang out more.

Or if you didn't quite reciprocate, say I demand that you desist from this tiresome pursuit, or I will be forced to get a court order barring you from approaching me. Translation: Gitouttamyface.

This would really cut the angst stuff, right? Sure, rejection stings, but the earlier you get it, the sooner you recover from it. In the end this is far more humane than keeping someone hanging by the thumbs over shark-infested waters, waiting to be hauled up or cut down. Meanwhile the rope is getting frayed, and the sharks are getting hungrier.

Unfortunately, there are certain rules which must be observed in this war. An admission is tantamount to surrender. Honesty and directness are verboten: it's like announcing, Hey, my borders are defenseless, it's looting and pillaging time! The acceptable way is to bomb the hell out of the enemy. The enemy must be broken! Hey wait, weren't you supposed to like each other? Uh, yeah--first we bomb each other into smithereens, then we live happily ever after.

So here I sit like a piece of lint on my couch. I feel like quitting this nonsense, if you really want to know, but I hate losing. I will not be broken.

Even if I quit, it's not as if there were a severe man shortage out there. Just the other day a strange woman who read fortunes glared at me and said in Tagalog, "Someone is in love with you."

I said, "Who?"
She said, "He's cute."
I said, "Hmm."
She said, "You don't see him."
I said, "Uh-huh, tell me about it."
She said, "He's immortal." As in a spirit.
"Uh-oh." Just my luck: he's cute, but invisible.

I console myself with the words addressed to my friend Joya: "You think you've got problems? Look at Princess Di. She's got everything but she's unhappy."

At least Prince Charles isn't seeing Camilla behind my back.

That doesn't make me feel any better.

From the ashes of my failure shall I rise the empire of my success.

--Words painted on the mudguard of a passenger jeepney. I am not making this up.