Johnny Gets a Free and Non-Surgical Liposuction

I suffered from Gastroenteritis for 5 days last week. This was accompanied by fever and vomiting and diarrhea. It was awful; I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

I am so much better now. Also, I lost weight. I’ve a smaller waistline as a result--back to a size 30-31 with some definition. My officemates were pointing at a chiseled jaw line. Some dig it, some don’t. Although the lean look is great for beach, it’s not something I like to rock.

I’m off to the gym today to go back and pack on the pounds I lost.

How apt that this entry is tagged under word vomit.

To Romeo's Planet and Back Again

It's been what, almost a year since I last traversed Planet Romeo. It started out at G4M -- I was playing DOTA in the internet shop a few blocks away from home when I noticed some dude browsing guys4men. After a few games trying to master Leviathan Tidehunter, I went straight home to check out the website. I was 3 years celibate at that time. My abstention ended a couple of days later.

Good enough for not just a weekend lay, but I'm not complaining if that's all I get.
-- status message from ye ol' profile from the olden times, circa 2009


Cursive's Old Profile
(and it had to be cocky as fuck, of course)


I prefer being serious with someone I really, really like. And since I do not have that right now, I am all about having fun in the interim by absence of choice. I found that it's fairly easy for me to get laid (If you're impeccably straight-acting, and if you've got a brain, a fit body, a nice face and an ample cock, you wouldn't find getting laid very difficult). With the right person I could easily fall back to my serial monogamous default. But I won't settle for anything less than what I deserve even if it takes me a long time. Nobody ever should =)


Now I do hope to meet smart guys who take good care of themselves in a non-obvious kind of way. I am a straight-living guy so I am cautious not to date guys who are out and aren't discreet.


If I had a choice, I wouldn't be gay. But we can choose what kind of gay guy we'd be and I choose to live as a secretly homosexual masculine guy. I enjoy most of what my straight buddies enjoy, and I also don't understand women very much either. I think like a straight guy minus the appetite for cunt. Respetuhan nalang mga chong.


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Unnecessary facts (boring or otherwise)
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Appearance:
Semikal Moreno, square jaw, masculine, good set of teeth, relatively fit and occasionally wears glasses to take a break from contact lenses.


Sporty Side:
Trained in martial arts for a few years (Jeet Kune Do, Capoeira, Tae Kwon Do) and generally athletic. I miss fighting though. I am now working out to hopefully one day look really really good naked. HAHA. I obsessed with NBA in the 90’s. I had a collection of hundreds of David Robinson cards. He was my idol because he led the Spurs whilst being ridiculously good in math, which I suck at. Up to now I’m still keeping my Grant Hill co-rookie of the year card although I felt bad that he beat Jason Kidd to the title. Anfernee + Shaq, Pippen + Jordan. Malone + Stockton. Sigh. Those were the days.


Geeky Side:
Collected Marvel Cards and X-men comic books as a kid. Reads grown-up fantasy books. Overcame an addiction to Diablo (I dread the arrival of Diablo 3) and DOTA (Kael the invoker FTW!), traded and played Magic: The Gathering. I definitely have a healthy geeky side.


Artistic Side:
Draws and paints really well with a few awards under my belt as an adolescent, had a short but successful graphic design gig, some background in music (played in a band), some dance training (classical and hip-hop).


Miscellaneous superfluous information:
I was fortunate enough to have been able to study in some of the best schools from Kinder until College. I had a traditional and conservative Catholic upbringing. I could carry myself well either in a finer cosmopolitan setting or on the sidewalk, crouching and humbly drinking beer sa kanto hanggang sa mapagsabihan na ng tanod pag masyado nang maingay. LOL.

G4M is where I met my good friend K. We are now each other's fag hags. He showed me what Malate was like, and I would't go inside the bars unless I was wearing some sort of baseball cap or a jacket's hood. I felt like Aragorn the rogue -- surveying, calculating and observing a foreign land that's also supposedly my natural habitat.

The G4M forums are where I leaned about Wensha. Then I'd go there to get a massage, eat buffet, read a book and occassionally meet boys. I met an Enkanto there--through a steamroom dance that involved glancing and looking away, catching each other's glances, a smile, and a beer offer. He introduced me to his other enkanto friends a few weeks later. I didn't know they were bloggers. Wensha Enkanto eventually introduced me to a cool guy who's now my sidekick:

I prefer being serious with someone I really, really like...With the right person I could easily fall back to my serial monogamous default. But I won't settle for anything less than what I deserve even if it takes me a long time. Nobody ever should.

PlanetRomeo is first and foremost a hook-up site. But so much good can come out of it and such as it was for me, although I never use it anymore and I don't ever want a renewed need to do so. I don't need to hook up and I now have a healthy number of faerie friends who keep me sane and grounded. I now look back with nothing but fond memories and a genuine appreciation that I belong to the internet generation.

Currently on my Bedside Table


I swear -- everytime I read Neil Gaiman, my dreams become extra vivid and a lot more lucid. He is the true Sandman and dream weaver. He's one of those very few gifted writers that speak the language of dreams rather eloquently. I'm only a couple of chapters into the book already it’s fantastic.

I bought the book for 70 pesos at a garage sale a couple of blocks from my house, right beside a barbecue stand. I was browsing through some unknown authors while waiting for my barbecue to be cooked and I found Neil Gaiman in the pile. It was a gloomy day and the book cover seemed to reflect the clouds like a side mirror. You just can’t go wrong with buddy Neil. He’s a rockstar.
Prior to American Gods, I finished this book:



The first couple of chapters were boring, but it was fine -- the point was to help me fall asleep anyway. After 5 chapters, I found myself sleeping one or two hours past my bedtime. It's highly engaging, it has a unique take on magic and it is also quite fascinating and relateable even when the writing and humor is old English ala-Sherlock Holmes circa 1891.

This next book always gives me nightmares. Or at the very least, I wake up from a dream feeling very confused. It's a weird feeling to feel confused immediately upon waking up. 

Too Gay (?) # 2: Man Scarves

It's fabulous and absolutely inappropriate for Manila weather. The existentialist question of "Gay or European?" becomes answered by the manscarf-in-Manila by default, I think. Is it too gay? Or am I just praning?



I daresay the only acceptable man scarf in the Philippines is the good morning towel.


***



Nothing wrong with it -- props to those who can wErk it. Nothing wrong with dressing gay or too gay; it's an option. I'm just going for a different look, I guess. Straddling the closet and the real world is hard work!

Of Relationships and Flirting

My girl best friend Martha is having a few relationship issues; she’s been with her boyfriend for around 8 years now and she feels like she wants to flirt without feeling guilty. She’s curious what her market value is or if she’s still got it. Sabi ko sa kanya maglakad kami sa Burgos nang malaman nya kung magkano siya haha.

She wants me to take her out dancing in a bar where she can flirt. A gay club will not make her feel guilty, but being ignored by hot guys won’t help her ego either. A straight club is the only option, but where? I’ve absolutely no idea where the best singles bars are. I’ve never looked at bars as a place for me to hook up with a girl. Although a girl did lick my hand in Alchemy a couple of years ago, and another stuck her tongue down my esophagus in Obar Malate. I’m only glad that my dick has not gone anywhere near a female orifice ever. Pekpek eeeeew!

When we go out, I won’t want to hang around too close to her lest the boys will think we’re together. So I told her I could be her bodyguard while she brought other single ladies– nothing attracts the men more than a bevy of girls dancing together. Or so I observed.

The problem is, how will she flirt without feeling guilty? What boundaries should be drawn between what is acceptable and what isn’t?

We thought about the advantages of being able to flirt. The feeling of “only my partner can be attracted to me because he’s got no choice and not because I’m attractive within its social definition” is a common source of insecurity, clinginess, self-minimization and condescending behavior. Admittedly, anyone will feel good to know that they are attractive to other people and in the process be more confident and secure. Confident and secure people build stronger relationships. Jealousy is inevitable and flirtation can only add to that – though a mild and playful sort of jealousy is a reaffirmation of love while challenging the well-balanced individual to make sure that emotions are kept in check.

But this gerund carries too much of the stigma and collective unconscious of all the relationships it has destroyed over the years. I asked my partner his opinion about my friend Martha’s plans to flirt. He was uncomfortable with the idea. It was difficult for him to find any justification for it, and the conversation ended with an abrupt change of topic.

The term “flirting” is just too ambiguous and can be broken down into either its innocuous or dangerous elements. Flirting can be a beck for conversation, an admiration, an IOI* or the beginnings of foreplay. And because the definition is ambiguous, a person in a relationship cannot easily determine where the line should be drawn.

So I’ve asked Martha to drop the word “flirting” altogether—it’s too hot to handle—and emotions, even those that belong to her straight boyfriend, are fragile things. If she wants to simply have animated conversations with male strangers while she’s out with only her girlfriends (of course her girlfriends include yours truly), then call it just that – animated conversations with male strangers and nothing else.

Also, if there’s anything that she wants to do within the realms of “flirting” that she doesn’t want her boyfriend to know, then it would be crossing the line. Some couples deviate their lines way towards the left and swing it with other couples, look for a third to complete a night of ménage-a-trois, or allow each other to let loose around town. Others like a quiet and traditional monogamy. Each couple makes their own rules, and it would be a great idea for her to engage her boyfriend in drawing their own lines together.



 
* IOI or Indicator of Interest. From "The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists" by Neil Strauss 

Too Gay (?) #1: White Shoes, White belt


To pull this off while trying to look and act straight is a lot of work. My sidekick says it's a giveaway. The baklameter goes badingdingdingding!

Discretion doesn't always come easy and item #1 makes it harder to look straight.


***
Nothing wrong with it -- props to those who can werk it.

The Case of the Gym Shoe Thief

I had an excellent workout today. I've been using the Men's Health Iphone Application which has been superb. It's like having a personal trainer but I get to exercise in solitude. It makes me confident to use some exotic routines that I would have otherwise shunned for the basic exercises.

After an hour and a half, as I was getting dressed after a nice warm shower, some barefoot dude was standing looking absolutely troubled. He was talking to the guard and the janitor about the disadvantage of not having slippers sold at the gym. The poor guy had his shoes stolen and couldn't go home.  He left his pair on the floor as he was showering and then *poof*. Who knows how long he's been in the locker room; I left 15 minutes before the gym would close down and he was still there. Probably waiting for the other people to open their lockers so the guards can check, or probably waiting for a friend to rescue him. He should have kept his shoes in the locker. Or had a smellier pair.

The janitor mentioned an American guy who lost his brand new 6K-peso pair of gym shoes just a week ago. Damn it, this gym has been infiltrated by a thief with a shoe fetish.

The gym is Fitness First RSC. It's my least favorite of all the branches -- it's a bit dingy and it smells funky. I don't always go there and apparently I get to add another reason why. I'm already careful but I'll be extra cautious next time; I need my shoes.

I like to stick to my home branch -- it smells nicer, people don't blatantly check other people out, and it's a lot more comfortable. I've also seen stuff lying around that nobody steals. But then again, you really should know why a locker is called a locker in the first place.

One packed weekend: Zara crazara, Enkantos and Angelina Jolie

Friday: 

My friend K told me that Zara was on a crazy sale where the jackets were 1.6k, the trousers were 895 and some nice stuff at less than 500 bucks. I left work early so i can get some dibs on what's left on the racks. It was just like buying stuff from Bench and in all good timing -- I was poised to purchase trousers for work anyway. That's because I got a hosting gig in a couple of weeks. Also, I'm stymied by at least 7 slacks that I couldn't wear anymore, thanks to an inch of gut that came out of nowhere. Wearing them felt like fitting my waist into a closed pistachio. For the amount I'd pay for a regular-priced jacket, I walked away with 3 pairs of trousers for work, a suit jacket (that went down to 1.6K from 9K) and an excellent LBBD -- the little black button down shirt that every dude needs. All the while I was careful about making sure I got stuff that still made me look like a straight guy. First question I asked K and sidekick whenever I checked something out was, "Mukha ba kong bakla pag suot ko to?" I just needed clothes that fit well, sans the frill. Meanwhile, K was checking out cute customers and asking me, "Bakla rin kaya yun? Ang kyot pota!"

After sidekick left us so I can take a work call in the mall while he went home to rest, I hung out with K so I can wing for him in his EB with what he called a cute yuppie who turned out to be a twink that wasn't his type. All I needed to do was be there looking pissed to help him escape. Last week I almost winged for his meetup with a pair of guys who post-coitusly revealed themselves to him as:

K: "Homaygad d 2 guys I slpt with? They told me theyr cousins! And they fcked each othr! What the hell!"
Me: "Fumefetish ka nanaman ah."
K: "I know, right? Sana man lang sinabi nila sakin bago kami nagseks para mas effective! Mga bruhang yon."

Saturday:

I hung out with sidekick in the morning and went to Divisoria. He finds Manila very charming and his adjective for it is "organic." Ternie translates that as messy and dirty, that sweetheart. We bought a few yards so he can have a few shirts tailored. I was hoping to find a good purchase but I didn't find any. I got rhinitis instead. However, I'm glad that sidekick got some really cool fabric; I'm waiting for his finished product before I dive into bespoking too.

Later in the evening, we went drinking and singing in Music21 with the enkantos. There was no shortage of beer, laughter and landi. I brought K and he was having fun with the rest. Dami may crush sa kanya dun kaya everybody happy. Sidekick and I felt free to hug and kiss the entire night which I'm sure annoyed the hell out of everyone at some point.

Sunday:

We rushed to meet K in Trinoma to watch Salt; he paid for the movie after ditching a movie night with us for a dude a few weeks ago. He slept the entire film though -- first is because he's seen it, and 2nd is because he's tired and came from a cock. Angelina was amazing. Sidekick says the movie is formulaic of Jolie films --with a heroine who beats up guys thrice her size while carrying a soft spot, and then concludes with a good twist in the end. I thought she was rad. I think I said "damn, girl" around 4 times during the film.

The movie was followed by a nice dinner with Jan and Ternie at the Technohub in Commonwealth. The service was crappy but Kanin Club Retaurant had yummy food. By this time I've been coughing and sniffling but I wasn't going to let that ruin the evening; it was great catching up with Jan whom I haven't seen in ages. Terni, as always, was a darling busilak and mayumi. And sidekick's always great to have around. We've been together 9 months and it's only been getting better each day.