an excercise in recollection
An old friend from way, way back just added me on facebook. He sent the usual hi-hello-how-are-you messages, to which I responded with the appropriate replies. And then: “Heard you let J make amends. The fucking prick. I hope he dies soon.”
Ah, B, the memories you bring with you. Let’s indulge my need for a flashback, shall we?
My Manila is a very small world. Like all my friends, I led a sheltered, charmed existence, and grew up thinking that the world was there for the having. But perhaps that was to be expected, surrounded as I was by children of privilege. I attended one of the most well-known (and yes, I do say this definitively) private schools for girls in the country. The outgoing president (not to mention other prominent politicians) went to my high school. Reigning socialites went to my high school. Songs referenced the girls of my school. Hell, our colegiala accents are still a running joke in popular culture.
Okay, I’ll say it. We were snobs. I still am, I suppose. Even now, when in Manila, I will admit to judging a person by the way he speaks. My friends over there are still a relatively homogenous group of people who studied at similarly “prestigious” academic institutions. And nobody new really comes in, unless they were imported from some other part of the globe. Because even if you pass the “diction test”, we will still probably ask you where you went to school. And click, click go our brains. It’s one of the easiest ways to tell where you are in the social hierarchy. If you’re one of us or not. (And people, you know I’m right. Who really has barok friends amongst us? Or friends who went to, say, Dapdap Elementary School? Yeah, didn’t think so.)
So I reiterate, my Manila is a very small world.
It’s the kind of world, especially back then, where reputations and images were kept well-guarded. We came from fairly conservative catholic upbringings and had very firm ideas on social propriety. It all sounds very quaint and old-fashioned now, but we were young and pampered and we didn’t know any better.
So J. I met him in my late teens. In a way, he really was a force of nature. He confidently weaseled his way into our circle, until at times, he seemed to be the center around whom we’d conglomerate. He became a really good friend. We were tight. (I mean, hell, I even went on a drug run with him to one of Manila’s lawless slums. And we all know that’s not something I would take lightly. I do value my life.)
Until of course, everything went to shit. It turns out, he had been telling the whole damn world (small though it may have been) that he had been sleeping with me (and a few other girls in our group) behind his girlfriend’s back. He recounted all these alleged sexual escapades to pretty much everyone he knew - in sordid, graphic detail. I think the words “she’ll even try rape” may have been used in reference to me. And our apparent closeness just lent credence to all the crap that spewed forth from his mouth.
In a staunchly Catholic and Asian country where social image and reputations and face actually mean something, and with my world being as small as it was, this was the stuff of nightmares. News of these “escapades” reached all sorts of ears (as far away as La Salle and CRC and Alabang, wtf?). They traveled across universities and enclaves, until they found their way back to me, plumped up and even more sordid, if that were even possible. Chaos ensued. Sides were taken. Lines were drawn. Threats were made (and I mean scary, dangerous, life-changing threats). Relationships cracked. Friendships fell apart. Oh the drama.
That was not the first — or the last — of the rumors I heard about myself. (My favorite is the druglord thing. So imaginative!) But it was the one that hurt. My good friends stood by me, of course, that goes without saying. And I’ve been told that the so-called friends I lost may not have been friends worth having in the first place, but I still doubt that sometimes. Some of them were good people, really.
Needless to say, I didn’t come away unscathed. I lost potential connections. I lost the interest of interesting boys. For a short while, I lost a tiny bit of my swagger. It was a surreal feeling to know that you are constantly being given the once-over, and that people were deciding on your guilt or innocence on nothing more than a whim. I felt tainted. With someone else’s filth.
I remember all this now with a vaguely wistful smile. How deeply we felt the betrayal then. How angry we were. And my god, how vindictive.
And yet, how easily forgiveness came to me, even then. I can’t do grudges, I never could. I’ve always taken the broader, longer view. So I let it all go. I was the only one who forgave him, I think. He’s even on my facebook page now.
Haha, there is no point to this story. I just promised Aisa I’d try to remember.
Originally published on Tumblr, May 2010.