maybe if i wrote your name like this then it'd take a while for you to find this (if you ever do). i find comfort in knowing there's always a small chance of this making its way into your (metaphorical) doorstep, but it'd be a long while before it does. with that in mind, i'll be specific so you'll know its you i'm talking about. as of writing, you're an aspiring English teacher at eduk, but you want to teach in taguig or some place where teachers are paid closer to their worth. you're a past vice president of tabletop and now one of our pub mascots. you see turtles as your brand even though you've never had one. you love teaching others how to teach games even if saying the same bit drives you insane. you're nosy and you love meddling. you're mean at times but not really. you care about people even when they disappoint you. there's more about you than i can ever say here but i've already said enough for you to know it's actually you i'm talking about. im writing this because i don't know how to talk to people well. i don't know where else i can say that i want us to be friends so badly but ive never known how friends work. if i knew, i would've just talked to you and i would've known what to do instead of writing here. you've been approaching me and like a starved dog i hound at the small crumbs you're willing to offer, to the point that i thought i liked you romantically. maybe i did start off infatuated because of the attention, but i realize that that's exactly my problem. i'm not actually romantically attracted to you, i just can't differentiate my desire to have friends with romantic attraction. im not one for friends, you see. i just never learned how. all my life ive treated my relationships as transactional that i don't know how friends work. i dont know if it started from my emotionally constipated family or am i just fucked up. i wish i knew how friendship works. i badly wish that i do. so see, that's why im writing this. i can't dump this all on you when you already keep people at an arms length. i want to be part of your circle so bad and you talking to me like we're friends is giving me hope and it scares me. i want so badly to ask 'are we friends?' but i know ill never get a serious answer and ill scare you off. i know friendship doesn't happen just because you asked for it. at least, not when you're in college already. and i don't want to fuck this up. not you, and not chesca. i keep walking on eggshells because im scared that im assuming things again. ive done it in the past multiple times, and it hurt to know that people never saw me as their friend even though i thought we were close. watching people leave is also hard. im grateful for all your kind words. every time you approach me i get tempted to lean into your space and feel your warmth. i sound like a creep. im disgusted by how touch-starved i am and how i miss having tactile 'friends' (i dont see them anymore). one time you told me you'll bring flowers to my final theatre show even though i said i will probably act badly. nobody has ever said that to me. nobody. (i crave flowers like i crave life.) you said it so off-handedly that i knew you were just the type of person to do that. except you don't know how your words rocked my world so much that all i can do is say yes. yes, i'll invite you. i know its highly likely that you won't be there and there won't be flowers, but you saying that was enough for me. the idea that you thought i was deserving of flowers even though you didn't know me well yet was such a kindness that i just don't know what to do with. that's why im writing this. i wish you won't get sick of me. i wish we had time. i wish i have more time with you and chesca that i can finally make friends 'for life' before i graduate. i wish you can consider me as one of 'that type of friend' you can drag to a concert spontaneously and not just a workmate or your last option when there's nobody else to talk to. i wish you'd think of me when arranging a dinner with friends. i wish we could eat meals together. i wish you won't get tired of my 'lack of whimsy.' it's not that i lacked whimsy. it's just that i forget how to share it with other people without thinking of whether they'd like what i had to give. my whimsy has always been just me (and my partner, occasionally). i wish someday i get to be part of yours. - not a leo