nega nego: no no no

I heart hanging out with gay guys. Gives me fresh insights about life sometimes, and gives perspectives -- and structure -- to thoughts that run amok in my brain.

Was giving a gay guy a hard time last night for feeling so blah about his recent heartbreak. It was raining so fucking hard in QC and a few friends and I were stuck in our usual Friday night beer-hole somewhere in Maginhawa when this gay friend arrived and joined us. Nothing to do but drink, smoke, chill and make fun of each other. It was his turn yesterday. Somewhat. Not that we were brutal or anything but we were just trying to understand why he's still so hung up over this ex of his, his ex of three months. Weird. Oh well, grief is grief.

But from his unraveling of their relationship stories, it just dawned on me that indeed, relationships are nothing more than mere agreement of negotiations. You agree to have negotiations, the negotiations should be mutually beneficial, and the results of those negotiations should always be positive and fulfilling. Yes, the operative word there is "should."

Yes, the catch is, what if negotiations fail? That's when the SWAT team arrives and wreaks havoc. Intervention. Rescue missions. As if being in love and in a relationship supposedly surrounded by love is like an action film starring some buffed dude with a gun, and the conflict gets all crazy and shit and explodes. Hm.

When you engage with someone new, it's like drawing up a contract of sorts, always a new one, and never ever ever rehash old contracts torn before, or resuscitate old guidelines that may have worked in a past contract but *might* not work with this new one. Or better yet, pull out your tried-and-tested terms of reference, that old, reliable TOR you have painstakingly jotted down, built, rehashed, tried, tested, rehashed, and rehashed again anew, each time you wanted to apply it and attach to a new contract with someone.

Yes, folks, falling in love is also kinda like applying for a new job. You get sized up, your "potential employer(s)" sizes you up, and their "current co-workers" (read: friends) also size you up, before you step inside the company. Of course you also do the same thing, as you are also an employer here. Hm, so there's no employee? Well, you take turns. In an ideal world, we are all both dual in nature anyway, in whatever we do, whoever we are. Employer-employee, virgin-vamp, top-bottom, dominant-subordinate, masculine-feminine, good-evil, what have you. We all play these roles; we just take turns. Ideally.

Where do you want to locate yourself?
I guess I'm always in the middle.
(geeking out at the Griffith Observatory
in Los Angeles, California / April 2010)

I guess the bottomline of these negotiations and TOR reviewing is knowing what you want, what you want to get, and where you want to head yourself, also in consideration of the people you want to travel with in this destination called relationships. Just make sure that we don't end up having negative negotiations with those we want to engage with.

And yes, I know what I want: I just want to be happy. That's always a good journey, regardless of destination.

To connect that with a past interaction, a friend just told me that I don't have a problem. Or maybe I have, but my problem is a good one: I have a problem of options. Love you teh. Thanks for pointing that out. :)

Okay I'm good! And yeah, I hope that gay friend will be, too. I know he will anyway. We Pinoy queers bounce back fast these days, I just noticed. I don't know why. But it's good. All good.

Ah, January. Looking back and looking forward. Remind me to still be grounded, okay? In all this.

Check that.