Once again, I have to completely break a "friendship" because everything that person does is making me speechless with rage.
Exhibit A: JoelMari. JoelMari is actually back in my life now, but about a year ago, I had to end the friendship because of an escalating series of inexplicable choices he kept making that were making me crazy. As a result, whenever a clueless dude makes me nutz, me and my friends call it "another f---king JoelMari!".
But this story's not about him, it's about someone else. And in order to tell that story, we have to go back a bit, explain a certain phenomenon called "super fans".
Those of you in the helping professions, such as nursing, teaching, child care, etc, are probably nodding along already, but for those of you who work in more white collar-esque jobs, allow me to shed some light on this: out of every group of people you deal with, there will be an oddball who you take pity on and this person's lack of social skills, the thing you felt sorry for, will lead him or her to make your life slowly more and more MISERABLE, a la "The Cable Guy."
These people are what I call "superfans". Most just follow my every move on FB, send me game requests on same, and when I had them in class would be the ones following me with huge Bambi eyes and a slightly open mouth. There is no gender, class, or sexual persuasion that most superfans come from- straight, gay, ?, men, women, you name it, I've had a _____ superfan. Most are harmless, cute, and nerdy, but sometimes you get a corker, and then all bets are off. That corker is Omar.
My last class of trainees before I left Clark included a young man named Omar (a Filipino). Omar is a nice, relatively harmless dude, who is about 5'2" and has a body like a fire hydrant-- his main leisure activity is working out. He has a kind of miniature Muscles from Brussels humorlessness about him, as if the larger his arms got, the smaller his sense of play got. He spent his free time hanging out behind the concession stand at the cafeteria and ringing people out (he doesn't work there and is not friends with the vendors there either). He's not a jerk by any stretch of the imagination, but to put it mildly, I have NOTHING in common with this person. Nothing. Naturally he's become my latest "superfan".
Let me set the stage with a little story about Omar. It's a Friday and the class is scheduled to have a grammar lesson. Since it's a Friday, I decided to mix it up and use George Bushisms as examples. I found 25 golden examples and the class spent the first 15 minutes or so rolling in the aisles over such gems as "Childrens do learn" and "I think it's a shame that more ob-gyns can't practice their love with the women of America" and so on. Even those of the class who's grasp of the subtleties of English wasn't quite so clear were laughing along, buoyed by the general high spirits and giggle fest. Omar is, on the other hand, squinting at the projection screen as if he's trying to read the Rosetta Stone, and all but has one hand shielding his eyes. He's concentrating real, real hard on something, and most tellingly, he's not even "going along" laughing. He's dead serious. As Amanda, my Canadian friend who was also his trainer from another, previous account, puts it "Yeah, that's Omar. Untrainable Blockhead."
Well, by dint of having similar schedules, I would run into Omar once in awhile, and since he seemed nice, I would chat with him. The danger in this situation is that I have so few friends over here that someone who seems the least bit sympathetic winds up getting an earful, and looking back, I can see how my cozy little chats about personal stuff like the dating scene could have created the "wrong" impression. At the time, however, I didn't think much of it, since I had zero attraction to this guy, and I thought it seemed obvious I was treating him like my new Best Gay Friend.
Things went along like this until I left Clark for Manila, and I didn't give it a second thought, to the point where I literally forgot all about him. (This is an unfortunate side effect of living here. I literally meet dozens of new Filipinos a month at work and around, and to those that I meet, I'm as unusual as a meteor shower they'll never forget, to me, they're one of the hundreds of Asians I've met since I've been here. As a result, quite a few people are "Champ" and "Honey" to me. Yes, I'm "THAT girl.") Imagine my surprise when I got a text message about 6 weeks into living here that said "Hi Naomi how's Manila?" After a few attempts to draw out who this was (the fact that he didn't put his name on the initial message should have been my first clue, buttt itttt wasn'tttt), I broke down and was like "uh, who IS THIS?"
"Omar."
I spent the next day wracking my brain and asking my coworkers "Do we know an Omar?" No, no one knew him, except for an expert who worked on a different account who had glancing contact with our department.
In the call center industry, one meets, no exaggeration, hundreds of people a month. You've got your agents, your managers, trainers, big bosses, experts, consultants, clients...and that's in one center alone. Outside of work there's staff, the staff of your friends, fellow ex pats, people who wait on you regularly, etc etc. It's a real shame that I've never felt so alone in my life, in one of the most overpopulated places on Earth, but that's another entry too. Back to Omar. I didn't remember him, and then it came to me: "Ooo, the dingbat who worked behind the concession stand for shits and giggles. Okay."
I later found out, from him, he had memorized my phone number from the "goodbye" email I sent to the whole department. This should have been another clue buttt ittt wasn'tttt.
This is where I should have nipped it in the bud. I don't know him. I don't WANT to really get to know him. He's just one of the hundreds of people I'll be fake nice to so as not to be perceived as bitch and then forget about 3 days later. (Ugh, that's so awful. But I'll tell you what, I really feel for celebrities now. It's a fucking hard knock life if you're at all sensitive. You have to be fake 24/7, or as my dear friend Chris Long would put it: "48/7") But I was lonely and feeling rejected by my at- the- time crush so I allowed it to blossom into what they call over here "textmates"--- people who have a quasi friendship over the phone only. This was a mistake, in hindsight. (And me reading Stephen King, I couldn't recognize a Christine when I saw one? Damn.)
It got up to 10 texts a day or more from him, all really mundane stuff, like "I just ate a banana for breakfast". Homeboy was tweeting his life to an unwilling audience of one-- me. I attempted to sort this out into something workable, by inviting him to visit me (he's from the area originally) and went so far as to set a tentative date. In the meantime, the texting was getting worse, a fungal infection that was giving me palpitations every time the phone would light up, and one of those little pink timebombs would appear "Hi, just got to work!" I would feel my throat start to close. I was raised to believe it's the HEIGHT of rudeness to ignore people ("How you treat the least among you is how you treat me"--- Jesus), so I was torn. How should I treat this? Do I have to answer, thus prompting another dinky doo text, thus strengthening the already choking ties of this doom loop? What the fuck is going on and how can I make it stop?
Finally I sent him an email that I kept as businesslike as possible, detailing that this was inappropriate and making me uncomfortable. I used an example of a particularly ennervating text exchange (below) and how it's so frustrating to try to have a full fledged conversation over text, or try to get to know one another:
Me: "So just let me know [when and if you're coming here] and I'll make some plans"
Him: "May I know what those plans will be?" (This is what we're dealing with here, people)
Me: "Well, I was thinking Tagatay (leisure spa area about an hour away)
Him: "Wow, that's so far away!"
Me: "Omar, I'm done discussing this over text. Either you're coming or you're not. Let's make plans when you get here, okay?"
The bottom line here is that I let a "relationship" go to a place I didn't want for my own selfish reasons, I underestimated cultural, personality, and educational differences and how they would affect our interactions, and I went "girly" and let things go, hoping they would somehow, someway, someday, work themselves out.
They didn't.
This weekend I got a text from him, saying "Hey, my off is Friday to Sunday". Well, fine, maybe we can salvage this. So I texted him "Great, hop on a bus and I'll meet you at Araneta, I want to go to Cubao anyway."
Response? Nothing for almost 24 hours. Then THIS:
"Hey, sorry for the late reply. I had an emergency. My mom was confined but she's okay." ("Confined" is what it's called when you're checked in overnight or longer in the hospital).
I immediately went apeshit.
I knew, I just knew, that he was lying. (I still believe it's probably only about 70% true.) I've been through this many, many times with Filipinos. It's not considered "wrong" to outright lie to achieve your ends: to get money, to get out of obligations, to avoid hurting feelings, to avoid consequences, to make your situation more palatable, etc. One example would be my ex "I 'always' go to Flying V bar." He had been there once. Lying, distorting the truth, exaggerating, lying by omission, fudging the facts, and telling little white lies....all acceptable. But not to me, they aren't. It's disrespect. It's not only one lie, it makes a lie of the whole friendship.
And this "emergency" that convienantly came at a time when he was being asked to do something that cost money, time, and effort, and might take him out of his comfort zone? Time to lie. Or at the very least, time to exagerate the truth to gain some time, sympathy, and breathing space.
I sent him several acidly mean (in retrospect), heartless texts to "cut the bullshit" and "grow up" and how tired I was of "lying, games, and bullshit."
He sent me back breathlessly outraged innocent texts "My mom really is in the hospital, she had a mild stroke!" I must say, if all the accidents and medical emergencies that I've heard of here are really true, the Filipino people are the weakest, frailest, illest, most accident prone people ON EARTH. By which I mean to say BULLSHIT. HORSEAPPLES. BOWLPUCKY.
He later texted me "I'm sorry, I'll make it up to you. Just imagine me there having fun with you." I can't adequately explain how angry, lonely, sad, desperate, and ill this text made me. Why was I even entertaining a visit from this half wit? Why was I even trying to teach this person how to act socially? Why am I, at age 33, still running Naomi's Finishing School for Idiot Boys?
This was the last straw. I mean, in what universe is this an appropriate response? What kind of lunatic planet is this guy hailing from? Another culture, one that I'll never understand, and don't want to be part of, that's where. God bless you child, but please leave me out of it.
It had a sad ending, with me backing off a bit, saying "Look, Omar, you seem like a nice person, and I'm sorry for blowing up at you, but the things you're doing, like 10 texts a day, and a no call no show on our plans, are just not okay with me. They're rude, weird and offensive. It's just not going to work. Please don't text me anymore."
This type of thing, more than any other problem here, has made me miss the US. The US is chock a block full of jerks, losers, and socially backwards people. But at least I can see them coming and give them a wide berth. Here? I keep falling for the "give him a chance, those things that he's doing that are upsetting you--- it's all in your head, it's just cultural differences, be more open minded!" thing. Not anymore.
I hope.
Trust your first impressions. And remember Men are the same everywhere, minus small cultural differences.
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