A little backgrounder on that night: The reason why we wanted to go out for drinks was we wanted to take Jon (lead developer for one of the projects we’re working on whom, we have taken to passionately call “The beast from upstairs”) out to sort of get a feel of what Manila’s night life is like (something which we probably failed miserably at. For one, the bars at the Ortigas Home Depot complex is hardly representative of Manila’s nightlife and neither is a party of eight all-male, sweaty, socially inept web types)

I have written enough about the pattern my drinking nights usually take (relative humdrumness -> Dancing and singing (and crying in some occasions) -> somberness -> picking up into a crescendo of pure mayhem and inappropriateness) so I’m going to spare you from the boredom of reading about how the night progressed this time.

The turning point of the night came when a San Miguel Promo girl offered to give us a free shirt if we ordered 18 more bottles of beer. At that point, we were already feeling good and loaded but stupid John offered to pay for all 18 bottles if I agree to wear a small San Miguel ladies’ shirt for an hour–an offer which, in my state of relative inebriation, is impossible to refuse.

So yeah, Jon paid for 18 bottles of beer and, even though it was a fucking struggle, I managed to fit into a size S San Miguel Beer ladies shirt. People got their beers and had big laughs watching a 200-lb guy try to fit into a small ladies’ shirt. Everyone’s happy.

The fact that I had to wear a fucking tiny shirt for an hour is, in itself, funny. But check this out: About 45 minutes into the entire thing, I felt the need to take a leak.

Now, this bar is notorious for the long lines of people waiting to use the restrooms. The place had two restrooms: one for men and another for women–which is kind of retarded considering the place packs around 200 people at any given time. The men’s restroom also only has one toilet which means only one person can use it at a time.

I found myself 6th in the line of guys waiting to use the men’s restroom. There was, surprisingly enough, no line to use the women’s restroom (This is something that baffles me to no end. Is there some sort of special sac somewhere inside a woman’s vagoo that enables them to hold in more urine than men? Because I swear, I take a leak an average of eight times in a four hour period when I’m drinking and, from what I observed, women do like two? How the fuck?).

Emboldened by a feeling of false awesomeness thanks to eight bottles of beer, I said “Fuck it, I’m going to use the women’s restroom. The fuck you looking at? You wanna start something? Dick.”

So yeah, I was in the women’s restroom swaying back and forth out of sheer drunkenness and whistling while I was doing my thing when all of a sudden, the door, which I apparently forgot to lock, swung open.

I was all like “What the fuck”, turned around to see who opened the door and why hello there, chinese-looking girl who looks like you’re 16!

And here’s a bonus tip for anyone who has any intentions of building restrooms in the near future: Do NOT, and I say again, DO NOT put huge ass mirrors in front of the restroom door and directly behind toilet seats because really, once in a while, a really drunk guy wearing a small ladies’ shirt will  decide to go in and use the ladies bathroom because there’s a long fucking line of people waiting to use the men’s bathroom; he will forget to lock the door and a young girl will walk in and immediately see the huge ass mirror where the penis of the aforementioned drunk guy is reflected in all its shriveled glory. So fuck you toilet creator at Bargos in the Ortigas Home Depot complex, fuck you and your friends!

There were a good 5 seconds of not knowing what to do between the girl and myself. On my part, do I pull up my pants midstream to cover up and end up with pee all over my pants or do I wink and say hi? On her part, does she look away and close the door or continue to look at the magnificent dwarven penis she accidentally walked in on?

The girl ended up closing the door and after I was done with my deal I walked out of the restroom and apologized to the girl (who was now in line with like 7 of her friends) saying that I badly needed to go and shit.

She didn’t respond on account of her laughing the fuck all over the place. But then again, I’d probably end up laughing too if I was a young girl and I walked in on a guy–wearing a small girl’s shirt– taking a piss with a small hairy thing that resembles Mufasa from the lion king.

Anyway, in one of my rest room sorties in between bottles, I found myself in a line which is about five people deep. At the end of the hallway where the restrooms were was an area where people who just finished their business in the rest rooms went straight to wash their hands.

So I waited.

And waited.

A couple of minutes later a really hot girl came out of the ladies’ restroom, went by me and proceeded to wash her hands. Now, this is where it gets interesting: The dude standing in line in front of me (who looked like a total douche–tattoos, piercings and all) went ahead and chewed the rag with the girl.

I didn’t really catch everything they were talking about as I was pretty buzzed myself but what I do remember is that after what only seemed like four sentences, the guy managed to elevate his deal from friendly banter to masterful flirting replete with him subtly brushing his hand against the girl’s arm and smoothly leaning in towards her; a move which, at one point, effectively put his face within millimeters of the girl’s.

Again, I couldn’t hear exactly what the were saying to each other but I did catch the guy saying “your hands are wet” at one point before grabbing a paper towel and going in for the kill with “Let me wipe them for you”

A few seconds later I was watching them gracefully duck into the men’s restroom emerging a few minutes later looking all disheveled and shit. Both of them made no conscious effort to conceal any of this on their way out aside from slightly bowing their heads and walking from the restroom straight back to their tables.

I’ve seen this sort of thing happen in the movies before and back then, I thought that if I ever witnessed it happen right in front of me, my reaction would probably go like “Look! Everyone! That dude is either boning that chick in the restroom! Or at least making out with her! But I really think they’re fucking and shit!” or “Man, I’d totally pay 2,000 bucks right now for some action. Maybe I should call my friend Ricky and see if he could spare me some cash so I could hit the strip club”

Instead, my reaction was more along the lines of revulsion and profound disapproval–so much that I wanted to walk over to the girl’s table and say something to the effect of “What you did back there was really mature, I bet your parents would be proud to know that you spent a week night giving a dude you probably don’t even know a handjob. By the way, I’m Mike and I just wanted to ask what you think about checks and promisory notes.”

Up to this day, I honestly don’t know why I felt disgusted. Maybe it’s because I had to wait an additional 5 minutes or so to take a leak? Or maybe it’s because I am saddened by where most young people’s moral compasses point?

Or maybe it’s simply because I’m getting old and, for some reason, I don’t find doing anything lascivious inside a public restroom “cool”.

But what it is, most likely, is that I’m extremely jealous. Yes, I believe that’s it. I mean, all over the metro, young people are having adventurous sex and that night, I ended up almost throwing my laptop over our balcony because it refused to play old, scratched porn VCDs I’ve had since high school.

tss. Rising Internet Star my ass.

The usual place I do all of these is a Caltex Star Mart on C5 (Yes; if you really want to catch me, I mean to collect on my debts to you or what not, I’m the grumpy guy who usually grabs a C2 Green and pesters the attendant to put “more motherfucking mustard” on my German frank around 11am everyday) And, almost every day, I usually see a girl on one of the little coffee tables they have on the store with her laptop in front of her sipping a small cup of latte.

If I were to wager a guess, I’d say she’s around 24 years old. She’s around 5′3″ tall, always wears those corporate-y black stretchy pants; she sort of looks like that whore bitch girlfriend character from Cloverfield only a little more chubby.

Upon seeing her the first time a couple of weeks ago, I immediately found her attractive–but not attractive enough to be my type. If you’ve been reading this blog long enough, you’d know that I’m not into strong-featured, model-looking, corporate-type white girls. I’m more into wash and wear, mocha-colored chicks like this one.

Besides, who the hell spends her mornings in gasoline station convenience stores to “be seen” with her Macbook pro and her cheap latte? eww.

However, when you see the same, moderately attractive girl almost every day on your way to work, you develop this familiarness and come to expect some sort of corteous amity with her.

So, a week ago, after almost a week and a half of regularly seeing this girl on my way to work, I decided to try and give her a smile and a nod in greeting. I mean, afterall, we’ve been exchanging quick, awkward eye contact for quite a while now so I thought smiling and nodding would be the next logical step. Again, just so we are clear here (and by ‘we’ I actually mean ‘my girlfriend and I’), although I find this girl attractive and would definitely give her some wild penis love action (She’s female. She’s alive–the only criteria I have in terms of choosing my sexual partners) under different circumstances, I would never come up to her to flirt or anything. She is just not my type and by smiling and nodding, I was just trying to be friendly.

So went ahead and gave her my best “I’m not a sexual predator (I just look it) and I really just want to say Good day to you” smile and a nod. She looked up, established eye contact with me like she usually does, only this time it was more awkward and shorter.

It’s cool. Maybe she just wasn’t in the best of moods.

The day after that, I saw her again and as I approached the cold beverages section where the table she usually occupies is close to–warm smile and nod ready to fire–she did not even look up at me. It’s all good. Maybe she was busy.

This week, I’ve seen her twice and never did she look up at me and made eye contact like she used to–ever since I tried to smile and nod at her.

Fine.

Darling, I apologize. Trust me when I say that I will no longer show any signs of amiability towards you. What I will do instead is to hiss at you whenever I grab my bottled iced tea and who knows, because you’ve offended me, I might even spit at your shoes.

I’m sorry that I’ve made you feel awkward by being friendly and I’m sorry that my smile is enough to make you feel some kind of muted dread and fear that I might actually come up and talk to you.

Guess what though? Tomorrow, I will come up to you and tell you that I was smiling and nodding at you because some people actually like being friendly and not because I constantly use you as masturbatory fodder and I “accidentally” saw your mobile number on the brown notebook you always keep open on your table.

You fucking harpy.

(Also, I masturbated to you once. And the number I saw? Not sure if that’s even yours)