(First posted here.)

I’m cheating. I’m on a date with a girl I met in Humanities. This is not going to work, not really. This thing felt forced, desperate, even, when I’m really just playing this stupid mind game by myself.

“Well, so you know those hot air balloons in Subic?” the girl was saying. She had on a red v-neck and humongous pearls. Cute girl, really. Fun-looking. Cheerleader-type. If we actually bred cheerleaders around here. Obviously popular, knows her way around. Confident in a way that would put all ego-riddled jocks to shame. What the hell do I want from this girl, I don’t really know.

“Yes, what about them?”

“Well, they’re fun. We should go. You should take me.”

Two dates and we’re going steady. Why can’t I get anywhere near this kind of talk with Nirvana? Simple. Easy. I’m no wuss but there are roads we never take whenever we’re together. One day we ended up helping clean up dogs at the university veterinary clinic. Nothing to it. We were on our way home, saw some doctors, stuck up a conversation, spent the day there.

But with stuff that required planning, I balk. I balk famously and stupendously and there’s no explaining why. Or there is some manner of explanation only I can’t get around to looking at face to face.

And it is this: everything means so much.

“When are you planning to go? My feasib’s up and so it’ll be tough to get away from that.”

She rolled her eyes. “This weekend. Look, Dante, I’m a pretty girl. You know I’m a pretty girl. So whatever it is that is on your great big mind right now, you better saddle up or tell me if this whole thing is going nowhere. I don’t like wasting my time, see. There are boys lining up to date me.”

This is hilarious.

“Then you should get back to that, yes?”

This, this is how I earn a very bad reputation with the girls.