of bestfriends

and so, i set my mind that before i sleep, i will watch antique, again, the one i just wrote about some moments ago. and yet, here i am writing again. for that is how it is with people that muses visit. one must create when the time is right.

as in my previous post, i do not only look for gay films, i have also frequented a website that has a collection of gay stories, with almost all about the many but similar intimate experiences of gay men. i usually choose the stories wherein the narrator was lucky to get a person he is attracted to, somehow, it gives me hope that there are people out there that are open to such intimate experiences such as that, despite the fact that the stories maybe just fiction. there are also some stories that tell of how some men are inclined to enter these intimacies due to desperation.

i am not a stranger to these kind of stories. however, it wasn't this kind of story that inspired me to write. it was the type of stories wherein bestfriends develop feelings for each other, or the straight friend falls for the gay friend that initially loves the straight one and they end up with each other.

i have noticed that with some independent films, even though the straight character develops such feelings for his gay friend, they still do not end up with each other, it's like, a rule that gay men should never be essentially happy, and that a man is made only for a woman, that is why in the end, the straight guy ends up with a girl and he parts ways with his gay friend. i have seen this from sikil, ang lalaki sa parola and kambyo. i remember the first independent film i saw, ang pagdadalaga ni maximo oliveros, and how i felt that i was seeing my life, or what my life should have been; i saw myself in maxi. i had also hoped that he and kuya victor would somehow end up with each other, but as most tragic gay characters, maxi walks away, without even a glance at his beloved.

so the question is, how come gay men end up so lonely in the end with these films? how come in some stories about bestfriends, they end up happy?

again i allude to gay men's experiences because even though i am a woman, sadly, in the filipino setting, my experiences mirror what gay men experienced. i share the experiences with gay men when i was still young. the reason for this is because in our setting and culture, we do not automatically realize that we are transgendered or are transsexuals. we know we are different. almost all of my friends have felt and experienced relating to a gay man early in life. maybe the reason why some if not most filipinos cannot fully grasp the idea of being transgendered and transsexual is because we do not have a complete idea of the gender role of gay men. we hear about the parlorista type of gay man, the effeminate and flamboyant cross-dresser. we hear about gay men that grow their hair long and pluck their eye brows and use mountains of foundation. we hear about gay men that say they feel like women and yet have big burly muscles. and these are some of the stereotyped filipino gay men. perhaps, these gay men themselves are not aware they might be transgendered. and since they themselves identify as gay men, the larger society transmutes this self-identity to trans-girls like myself. they automatically equate me to other gay men, despite the fact that i introduced myself as a woman, behave as a woman, speak like a woman, and well, just be a woman to them.

and so, going back to my question, how come the protagonist, whether he be a gay man or a transgendered woman in the making, end up lonely? of course, one would argue that if one truly loves a person, one would set the person free, or for people that need to put these romantic, unrequited lovers down, magpaparaya because the person these lovers devote their lives to were never theirs in the first place. why is a filipino gay man/transwoman's story always have this ending? are we not allowed our happy ending with our prince charming?

but of course, not all stories end up as tragedies. there are those that tell of a trans-girl meeting the man of her dreams, he might be from another country, a different generation, or speaks in a different tongue, or he might be the trans-girl's bestfriend that realized that he actually loved his bestfriend, and takes her for what and what she may not be. and these stories give me hope, hope that i too someday would end up with a happy ending of my own. that i would meet a person that i am attracted to, and he would take me as i am and see me as what i am truly am, a girl.

incidentally, i too had a bestfriend of my own. i have tried time and again to reach him, sometimes i have been successful, other times not, and even though i know he did feel something for me, just like in those stories, sadly, we did not have that happy ending. but i am still hoping. maybe never in this lifetime, so see you in the next, dave.