Friends

I have 370 friends on Facebook. Technically, that means I could chat with a different person every day and still have a few left over by New Year’s Eve. Yet somehow, my 370 is emphatically obliterated by Jay’s 900. Yes, that Jay from Friendster. Suddenly, my digital social circle feels incredibly tiny.

To shake off the screen time, I went out for a run. The pavement was still slick from an earlier downpour, but a cool wind was draped over the village like a blanket. I took my usual route: a straight sprint to Lola Onie’s house, a loop around the park, and a lap to the gate fronting the Alabang-Zapote road. Do that shit twice, and it’s an easy 8k. With a playlist blasting U2, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and my ultimate guilty pleasure, Sweet Soul Revue, the kilometers usually fly by.

But twenty minutes in, I spotted a friend sitting right outside his garage. In Alabang Hills, this is practically unheard of. Nobody just sits outside. In this era, people get their social fixes indoors, from the privacy of their bedrooms. Facebook be damned, my bro was old school—perched in his garage, facing the world.

I paused for my signature awkward greeting. We were never incredibly close, except for that one fateful summer we teamed up for the village basketball league. Turns out, he was moving to the States for the next few years.

I abandoned my run, sat down, and we just caught up while he fidgeted with his Gameboy. Uprooting your entire life isn’t easy, but he was done with the Philippines. He’d never done well in school, and he had some esteem problems that turned out to be much worse than standard esteem problems.

He’d been living with his partner for the last two years. Despite rocking a solid dad bod, he doesn’t have kids, and they seemed to have a harmonious thing going. But maybe he just needed to get something off his chest. Or maybe it was because I mentioned working at a counseling center. Either way, he suddenly confessed a deep-rooted infatuation with someone else—a girl he met when he was fifteen.

Now, as a psych guy, I didn't know shit about long-term infatuations, so I just said what any professional in my position would say.

"Uhm. okay. yeah. okay"

Then, as I shook his hand to wish him luck, he dropped the real bomb. He was actually splitting up with his partner because he just got caught stalking that same girl from his teenage years.

"Uhm. okay. yeah. okay"

Never underestimate how quickly crazy can creep into the most benign, average Joe.

We barely talk, but the thought of one of my 370 friends leaving permanently still left me with a strange sense of loss. So, yeah. The new goal is to imitate Jay and get myself to 900 friends. That way, losing one deeply infatuated, border-line stalker buddy won’t hurt as bad.