I get so distracted by you. In a wonderful way.
Adventures With The 23,667th Most Interesting Man On The Planet
Archives for category: Relationships
Once upon a time, there lived a little Superstar.
He was not a particularly handsome or talented or wealthy Superstar. In fact, as far as Superstars go, he probably fell on the lower end of the spectrum – cute enough but not heart-stoppingly so, amusing enough but not outright funny, pleasant enough but not distinguishedly sweet. He was an intersection of kind-of’s and sort-of’s, a nondescript middle ground halfway down the highway to superlative.
He was gifted with one special gift though: an ego as robust and swollen as a ripe watermelon slightly past its prime. He carried himself with a swagger, determined to achieve through sheer force of character what he could not achieve through more overt physical charms. That was all he had, after all, but it was something he carried in spades: a shamelessly invincible sense of self-worth that allowed him to steamroll people into believing he was, in fact, Super.
What people did not realize though was that hidden behind the bluster and bravado of his Superstar nom-de-plume, was the soul of a tiny, scared, insecure little boy, closer to the emotional fortitude of a 6-year-old than his 29 year-old physique, with strapping 18-inch biceps and scruffy biker’s goatee, would suggest.
He was scared.
He was fake.
And he was lonely.
And then, one day, this Superstar met a Girl.
This girl had eyes that seemed to be woven of liquid smoke, deeply entrancing and heavy with both mystery and promise. She had a way of gazing into the eyes of the Superstar, and stripping away the layers of swagger and bluster he had painstakingly forged for himself through years of shame and insecurity.
“Be true to yourself, Superstar,” she would whisper. “Be the man you know yourself to sincerely be.”
And just like that, she stirred a yearning within the trembling fraud Superstar. “I will be honest,” he whispered back. “For you, I will be true.”
And into the sunlight, the Superstar stepped forth. “It’s better to be true-per than Super,” he chuckled to himself, shaking his head slyly over his clumsy pun. Away came the swagger. Away dropped the fraud. Away fell the desire to impress with facade.
And the Superstar swore to the Girl With The Eyes of Liquid Smoke that he would no longer be selfish and self-centered and aloof and withdrawn. He would look outwards with her, accept the beauty of a world embroidered with love, and embrace a life of Spice Girls-inspired “2 Become 1″-ness.
And he knew that beside her was where he wanted to be. Beside her was where he was the happiest. Beside her was where he could learn to be brave and strong and true.
Beside her was where he was made to be.
Beside the Girl With The Eyes of Liquid Smoke.
One of the most crushing things about this weekend was the realization that when it comes to taking DSLR photos, I completely, utterly suck.
Just how bad?
The single decent shot I took came completely by accident, when I hit the shutter button while attempting to discreetly pick my nose, before I even got to aim. Irritating! The resultant shot looked like something chic and posh and very urban.. like the 2011 Spring/Summer catalog of Bunny Jeans, or quite possible the latest print spread by Freego in Women’s Home Companion magazine..
I did, however, manage to reassure myself that I possess a singularly awesome talent that remains unrivaled in at least 48 American states, and 83% of Northern Luzon precincts – I can weigh an ungodly 230-lbs, yet put on a horizontally-striped shirt and still look as sleek and svelte and agile as if I weighed just 218..
Yes. I truly am a Superstar..
*****
All shots taken at Oh My Gulay, 5/F La Azotea Building, Session Road, Baguio City. All clothing and accessories, unless otherwise indicated, are models’ own, and are assuredly obscenely expensive.
My fatal flaw is that I have no filter. Acquaintances I barely know, people I have only met in passing, will light up when I run into them in the mall – “Oh, I love your tweets! Your blog entries! Your status updates,” they’ll say. “You’re hilarious! You’re crazy!”
I guess this is the offshoot of me being such a socially-inept, awkward nerd. I’m an affirmation whore, with an incredible need to be accepted, and the simplest, fastest way I think I can get people to like me is by making them laugh with crude crassness.
Hence the torrents of outrageous oversharing that used to populate my Twitter and Facebook accounts – what kind of underwear I’m wearing for the day, how I like to multi-task by shaving my head and smoking while taking a dump, the new sex tape scandal I’ve downloaded, etc. Things designed to fall askew of conventional social decorum, and provoke a reaction from the reader.
Well, somebody call John Mayer, cos I think I’m the latest, greatest incarnation of the legendary Captain Backfire..
Above all things, I value openness, honesty, and sincerity. I can’t filter myself, because I’m such an emotional person – a classic INFP, by Myers-Briggs standards. I navigate the world by how I feel, by intuition, by how I perceive things. And closing myself off emotionally would mean I couldn’t connect to the world in that way.
And I suppose I’m leaving myself open to getting hurt when I do that. That’s the sort of thing that happens when you lay yourself out so honestly and openly to people – especially the ones you choose to love. You’re always just a little bit more vulnerable to getting your heart broken in those cases, mainly because it isn’t really inside your chest anymore – it’s in their hands, unprotected, and theirs to either cradle or crush.
But you know what?
I would choose to feel that pain one million times, over even trying to live a life without love.
There are some things that are worth being hurt for.
I was never “that guy” growing up.
I suppose that’s one of the things that hits you when you’ve lived your life as a fat, sweaty, socially-inept boy – you’re never comfortable enough in your own skin to go out and hunt down the girl of your dreams. I swear to God I did not speak to a girl my age until I was in second year high school, and even then I wasn’t exactly the Sultan of Sexy.
I worked hard on my body, like hell I did, and even though I was sculpted like an only-slightly-porky Samoan Adonis, I still didn’t know how to sucker woo girls enough to be into me.
Here’s how awkward I was in trying to make conversation – before making a phone call, I needed to draft out a list on yellow pad of several possible topics to pepper the dialogue with: Are you going to the soph night? What do you think of the new Peter Andre CD? Which branch of Blowing Bubbles is your favourite? Which Backstreet Boy gets you wetter, Kevin or Nick?
And on and on and on.
As you can probably imagine, I was not a spectacular hit with the ladies. We’d often hang up after ten minutes. There’s only so much you can do when your responses amount exclusively to “Umm, hehe, cool,” and “Err, haha, yeah.” I think that’s why I found porn so magical. It never rejected me, and only occasionally made me feel bad about myself.
I came across this interesting survey by Axe Body Spray recently. One ginormous headline jumped out at me:
77% of Filipinas wish their men were more unpredictable.
Great, I thought to myself. I’m Mr. I-Script-Out-Every-Conversation. My idea of unpredictable is wearing gray Y-fronts on a date instead of the usual bacon-gartered tighty-whities. I like routine. I like being comfortable, and I like knowing what comes next. That’s probably why I can’t take watching competitive sports live; I hate the suspense of not knowing how things will turn out, and will only watch WWE pro wrestling because I know it’s scripted.
I suppose I do need to rattle my own cage once in a while, and surprise my lady friends a little more often. That’s probably why I love the concept behind the new Axe Twist Deodorant Body Spray – it’s the first ever man-scent that actually evolves the way it smells as the night goes on. In an exclusive one-on-0ne interview that may or may not have occurred between MDJ Superstar and Alexandre Freile, a French perfumer and Axe Twist collaborator, I was told that “[it] bears a scent of fresh citrus and gradually changes to the smell of sandalwood.”
I can smell like both calamansi and sandals in one night? I exclaimed to myself. That’s even better having a library with many books, and an apartment that smells of rich mahogany! Sign me up for that stank, and some sweaty-hot monkey sex!
I found the TV commercial on YouTube. It’s very clever, like all Axe commercials are.
I’m sure you all think Axe is very plebeian. Well, MDJ Superstar hates to brag, but I actually got a flock of nubile underage Cebuana professional models to not only make eye contact with me, but actually stand within an 8-foot radius…
New Axe Twist. It gets you laid, and occasionally even paid.
