I’ve now realized that I do live in a world different from many people. When I meet up with my friends from high school, they all seem so normal as if they belong in One Tree Hill or something even at their most neurotic moments. For a long time, I have deluded myself that I was just an average Jane with manic-depressive friends with aristocratic proclivities. I now realize that my world is whacked. In high school, we had to deal with mean, rich girls, the unrelenting bullies, the classic snitches, the paramount double agents and, of course, my all-time favorite – the cry babies who cried wolf. Yes, the liars, the wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Where I am now, well, not most of the time really, especially these days (fake scions rock), is just like high school. You have the mean married-to-the-rich girls, the aging bullies, the upstart snitches, the Mallorisque double agents who just want to get their overly made-up faces in every butt-end of every magazine and, yes, the ever dependable liars. I kinda find myself sometimes in this circuit where everyone is rich or wants to be rich. They want to be invited to every f***ing party or every f***ing family dinner within the perimeter of the holy triumvirate of North and South Forbes and Dasmariñas. And some make a stink if they’re not invited. This is a total turnoff, and believe me, I have a pretty high tolerance for loony behavior.
The rich ones are cool because they don’t care, because, hey, they don’t have to. The only people they have to fight with are their siblings, ha ha ha. However, the ones on the slide, oh dear, are the most entertaining and scary. I don’t even know how I got here. I’m really barok and I love dive bars. I hate formal dinners and I don’t speak Spanish, even the cuss words. The only thing I like about this world is the air-kissing; that’s kind of cool. Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of cool people in this microcosm; a lot of them are really just misunderstood. I’m talking about the demented ones, the Norma Desmonds, the Baby Janes.
It’s the kind of world where people play games with one another, all for the sake of peace. Instead of a poker face, they have the eerie socialite grin – it’s the kind of smile that seems square and the eyes are glazed with some sort of anger sauce. I can spot it a mile a way. Although I have not mastered the grin myself, I always seem out of breath (which I am) when I’m thrust into this situation – I say "Hello" like I was exhausted with joy to see them. I’m not pretending; it’s just a convenient reaction I have with fake people that seems to work quite well.
What kind of peace is this, you may ask, that people subject themselves to this sort of farce, a sort of peace where they hope things go away. This is, after all, a world where friends can be as disposable as a tampon. But enemies, they’re just so messy. You know, the miting de avance, exhausting alcohol-fueled backstabbing cocktail parties and square grins. It’s just too much to deal with. I was much prouder of myself when I was younger. Sure, I had fewer friends, but I would kick nuts when I needed to. We were also all much younger, too, with undiagnosed ADHD, so we forgot about these altercations pretty quickly. These days, I find myself with traces of this social virus. You see, I’m at that odd age where I’m no longer young enough to be saved from the insecurity-coated slander of people I don’t even know, or worse my very own friends. I’m not old enough to be above it all: to have children to torture and husbands to manipulate, too busy to bother with the rest of the population in need of some Paxil on an IV (a social anxiety doll for those not in the know). I never understood why people always told me I should not fight back. I more so never understood why I always listened. Yes, you can’t fight all your battles. However, is it also right to take it sitting down especially when your family is also being punk’d?
When it comes to my family and dear friends, I can’t help but be defensive and violent. Maybe, it’s the last good thing I have in me. Are these things you deal with by knitting? You see, my parents are politicians: meaning they never really fight anyone in an in-your-face way; well, maybe except for the time my mom lost it and threw a chair at some yuck mayor who was really corrupt and deserved it at that time. He has reformed since, I hope. Anyway, as I said, they are the paragon of diplomacy, while I’m the paragon of ghetto. For appearances’ sake, I try to restrain my rabid tendencies. When people say awful things about my fabulous family, people try to console me by saying they’re just jealous. Jealous of what? We’re so greatly dysfunctional that it makes the cast of Arrested Development seem wholesome. But I love them, and when a nobody starts throwing things at my fabulous folks, I can’t help but get angry. I’m the only one allowed to diss my family. It’s a rule of nature. It’s also a rule that I defend them from nobodies who make judgments about them through hearsay.
Let me repeat: nobodies. Nobodies. Nobodies. Nobodies. Nobodies. Nobodies. Nobodies. Nobodies. Nobodies. Nobodies. Nobodies. That was very cleansing and petty. I truly enjoyed that. Anyway, these nobodies act like they’re better than everyone else. If they truly are better than me, then they should feed the children in Third World countries or help U2 in wiping out Third World debt, not do a useless and, I must say libelous tell-all (with facts that are as garbled as a press release for freak Tom Cruise) about Third World socialites. Channeling Stephen Glass! These third-rate wannabe novelists need gossipy books to validate their inane lives. They are sooo not Truman Capote; Truman Camote maybe. Why should they have all the fun? I wanna be cheap and childish, too, because my fanny wants to. Are they not so ashamed that they are obsessing about people who don’t even know them? Although I must say, they do write fast. The funny thing is they actually feel cavalier, like they wrote the next great Filipino novel or something. Like I said, demented. Baby Jane.
Things become much more complicated when friends backstab you though. Sometimes, even no matter how wise and strong you are, you succumb to the fantasy that it never happened. You convince yourself that it was the booze, hallucinogenic drugs, the Big Brother thought police that made them do it. But, of course, it comes to the point when you just have to put your foot down. Turning a blind eye to a friend’s misdemeanor or felony is a hatch with no escape… except, of course, war, but the fashionable kind. I hate catfights. With friends, I’ll just ignore them until they disappear. And more often than not, they do. If they’re really delilah and totally out of the corner, I just send them a super mean text like right through the heart. A breach of loyalty warrants that. Then I erase them from my super fabulous Motorola Hot Pink Razr phone (yes, I have one of the two only existing ones in this backstabbing country, and so will you soon!), which only allows fabulous people in the phone book.
I guess being a bitch sometimes is a way of showing self-respect. Taking it like a futile martyr is just plain old. Yes, you don’t have to diss every delilah that comes your way. However, there comes a point when silence becomes cancerous to your being, eating you up until one day you find yourself becoming like them – bitter, sad, pathetic. Very Baby Jane. Again, she is this world’s patron saint.
Sometimes, you try as much to comfort yourself that you’re better than them, that you’re above it all. I know a lot of people like me, a nut. Unfortunately I’m over the growing pains period where I have to please everyone and feel accepted to, as what many self-help gurus say, "feel whole." I accept who I’ve become and don’t feel the need to explain myself to others. I love my real friends and family and, above all, my over-indulged dogs. This is the time one should feel the real kind of peace. But sometimes there’s nothing like saying "Screw you" to the most useless of your enemies. It’s childish, cheap and niggling. But hey, it feels a lot like Christmas! As I always say to all you bitches: fight!