"He came to see her, but her boyfriend was there, so he came after me instead"
"Funny that he’s kissing her because he’s been chasing after you all day"
"If he likes her why did he even bother kissing me? I know that if she wasn’t here he’d be with me right now"
"The next night my flatmate asked me 'So… what happened between you and him?' and I was like 'Yeah he's such a nice guy!' and then he was like 'He has a girlfriend you know. So maybe he's not that nice' "
Maybe that’s what people do, rank people. They take what they can get depending on whether their top preferences are (a) there at the present moment, (b) in the country or (c) with their partner.
I’m at the stage where a lot of people my age have had, or still are in long-term relationships. Being 21, a good number of these couples started out as high-school sweethearts. They’re either married, or talking about getting married. They’re either planning to have babies together, have already done so or are currently expecting.
And me? After almost five and a half years, I’m starting from zero. As I started picturing my life without him, I realised that he and I will forever be subjected to judgement by anyone who ever knew us on a scale of Brad Pitt VS Jennifer Aniston.
I was one of those people who thought it only happened in Hollywood, until I witnessed it for myself at a party recently. He walked into the room with his new partner, and heads turned towards Maria* who was standing at the other side of the room. "I feel so sorry for her," people said.
One person ends up marrying the next person they find, raising a beautiful family in a beautiful house.
The other one will have strings of failed relationships, usually with assholes, oftentimes into their thirties, and sometimes into their infertility. They’re the one people look at and think 'poor thing.' They’re the one people feel sorry for, the one people worry about. "Do you think she’ll ever find anyone else?" I don’t know.
But amidst everyone's assumptions, whose to say she's the unhappier one? People can be in a relationship and be unhappy too. No one ever congratulates you for being single and independent. No one admires people who have the strength to admit that they're not ready to settle down.
The only thing that ended with Osama Bin Laden's death is just that - his life. He wasn't the last Islamic extremist.
It's like saying Christianity would end if the Pope were to be murdered. We'd just get another one.
"(The celebrations) are just like the so-called reports by American television of Muslims celebrating after September 11, this is just as bad" - Kuranda Seyit, director of the Forum on Australia's Islamic Relations
The first time it happened I was young, and all he had to do was put his arm around my waist. I felt dizzy in my stomach, but a nice kind of dizzy. Until then I never really knew what it meant to have butterflies in your stomach.
To this day, I still don’t know how to describe it with justice. It feels like melting. It’s like a feelings type of orgasm.
“Kiss me” “No” “Just kiss me, and if you don’t feel anything, I’ll leave you alone” So we kissed, and I didn’t feel anything. I didn’t get the butterflies.
I’ve dated a few guys in my life, and the butterflies came with some, not with others. Since then, I’ve taken them as a physiological response to my subconscious. i.e. That despite what I tell myself, if I get the butterflies it’s because deep down inside I really (really, really, really) like him.
But that’s just me. It appears that people also get the butterflies in their stomach when they feel nervous.
“I get it more when I am nervous. Like before a big sports game. When I used to swim competitively I used to get it all the time.”
So whether you get them in the company of someone you like or during moments of nervousness – both reactions are a form of stress. When we’re stressed blood is redistributed towards our most important organs like the heart and muscles so as to give them more oxygen. But in order to do so, blood needs to move away from the less important organs like the stomach, and this is what gives off that butterfly feeling.
For those who don’t know, I’m single again for the first time in more than five years. I’m scared that all the failed relationships behind me, combined with the scientific knowledge of what butterflies actually are might cause me never to feel them again.
Facebook wants to know how many languages I speak, but I don’t know how to answer that.
I was born in Australia but both my parents are from the Philippines, so Tagalog was my first language.
But then I went to preschool and after three months, I’ve been speaking English ever since.
I can still understand Tagalog but can only reply in English.
I can also understand Ilocano which is a dialect of the province in the Philippines where my mum is from. I can also only reply to that in English.
With that said, I can’t distinguish between Tagalog and Ilocano. I just know I’m hearing one or the other.
I studied Spanish for two years in university and am now living in Spain. I know enough to get around, but God rest my soul if someone tried to have a deep and meaningful conversation with me any time soon.
Also, Spain colonised The Philippines, so there are some similarities between Spanish and Tagalog. Like ‘puta,’ jaja.
A friend and I were catching up, and she started telling me about the guys she’s kissed. Some were good, and some were bad… really bad. All her reasons were attributable to him. What he did, and what he didn’t do.
And then we thought, to what extent are we responsible for such bad kisses? Do they kiss badly because of something we’re doing wrong?
So I started asking around.
A friend of mine has a theory that kissing is much like dancing. Guy leads, girl follows. Using this logic, girls have a style that they like, as opposed to a style that they impose.
However, another friend confessed the opposite. "The first time I kissed my current boyfriend, I was so used to how I had kissed my previous one that I went in tongue-first without thinking. He just kept kissing me back sans tongue and very gently - I'm a better kisser now because of learning from him!”
This confirmed another response I received, in which “the first time two people kiss they use what they like, and then its whoever’s style they like the most that will take over. Maybe the other person had never been exposed to the other way of kissing and will change.”
Then again, maybe what makes a kiss good or bad isn’t so much in the technique as it is in the attraction you have for the other person.
“I think everybody just has their own style, what’s bad to me may be great for someone else. And its one of the main ways you know if you're going to be compatible with that person, not necessarily just sexually, but kisses are so important in day to day existence, everything from hello to goodbye to I’m sorry requires a different type of kiss. And they have to be pleasant and reassuring. So if you're kissing someone and its bad to you (if it's not clicking they're probably thinking the same thing) then you should get out of there quick!”
“I honestly think it’s about the chemistry, you may be an amazing kisser to one person but not to another, reason being that you’re not emotionally/sexually stimulated towards that person as they may be to you.”
So there you have it. Everyone has his or her own style. Kissing styles can be received, delivered and changed. Maybe bad kisses happen when two people both want to impose their own styles, with neither person wanting to change, and/or when there's no emotional or sexual attraction for the other person.
And then I wondered, why do we have such a fascination with nice views? People pay exorbitant amounts of money for rooms with a view. How does looking at something from a long distance spur such emotion?
I think it’s the way you kind of disappear from the world. There’s a giddy sense of voyeurism in looking at a city that doesn’t know you’re there. The world becomes a caricature. Cars look like matchbox cars moving slowly, aimlessly. People look like ants: silly, colliding into each other the way they do. They look so stressed, so rushed. And all for what?
From up high our on-ground worries look conquerable, like the winding streets below that have somehow sorted themselves out into neat little blocks.
And it’s funny because even if you’ve seen a beautiful view once or a hundred times before, through no amount of photos will you be able to recapture that same sense of sanity.
(Bridge: Ashanti) If you were me, what would you do? Always a lie, and never the truth. Now as for me, I’m moving on, You’ll always be my baby…
(Chorus: Ashanti) Baby, I just had to let ‘cha go for now, thought I could take it for a while, Maybe I‘ll make it back around. Baby, I just gotta live my life for now, Can’t see me changin’ for a while, Hope I could make it back around.
(Verse 1: Ashanti) Anything that I want I can get it. Boy, you know you turn me on and on That’s why I switch my frame of mind of bein’ there when you call, I’m always on time. I’m looking to spread my wings and party, everything and for everybody, I need my space, my time alone, it’s like our hearts don’t match no more. Still, anything that you want, you could get it. Boy, you know I still got love for you. In court I plea the fifth, my baby (baby…)….
(Chorus: Ashanti) Baby, I just had to let ‘cha go for now, thought I could take it for a while, Maybe I‘ll make it back around. Baby, I just gotta live my life for now, Can’t see me changin’ for a while, Hope I could make it back around.
(Verse 2: Ashanti) When you was cheating, You was probably thinking I won’t sense a thing, But love got funny way of catchin’ up to lies, And your lies can’t look me straight in the eyes. I’m not surprised that you would hurt me baby, but why me baby? Just let me breathe and I’ll fly free babe.
(Bridge: Ashanti) If you were me, what would you do? Always a lie, and never the truth. Now as for me, I’m moving on, You’ll always be my baby…
(Chorus: Ashanti) Baby, I just had to let ‘cha go for now, thought I could take it for a while, Maybe I‘ll make it back around. Baby, I just gotta live my life for now, Can’t see me changin’ for a while, Hope I could make it back around.
(Rap: Verse 3: Ja Rule) Yo, yo… Why in the world would you wanna leave me girl? Is there something I did that you feel is better then what’s here at home? And I know a bitch could do bad on her own. You’re not alone. The way you hurt me baby, shit, why me baby? I be in pain a little, but I know that love is real And as long as it let you go, you feel the need to come back to me baby, Who else would hold you and sex you crazy? R-U-L-E come on back holla at me baby.
(Chorus: Ashanti) Baby, I just had to let ‘cha go for now, thought I could take it for a while, Maybe I‘ll make it back around. Baby, I just gotta live my life for now, Can’t see me changin’ for a while, Hope I could make it back around.
(Chorus: Ashanti) Baby, I just had to let ‘cha go for now, thought I could take it for a while, Maybe I‘ll make it back around. Baby, I just gotta live my life for now, Can’t see me changin’ for a while, Hope I could make it back around.
(Bridge: Ashanti) If you were me, what would you do? Always a lie, and never the truth. Now as for me, I’m moving on, You’ll always be my baby…
