The other night, I had dinner with my brother, his girlfriend, his 2 friends, and my boyfriend.
It wasn't a formal sit-down or anything. The indignation protest against the illegal arrest of 5 activists in Tacloban City, Leyte had just ended and I was in UP Cebu when my brother texted for me to eat at home because his friend, a culinary graduate, is cooking dinner at the house. It was also just timely that my boyfriend was also coming over that night. He had only met my brother's 2 friends once before, around the early months of our relationship nearly 3 years ago.
We had chicken stir fry, by the way. It was really good and we enjoyed toasted sesame seeds, leftover chocolate lava cake, and leche flan amid all the banter and light conversation.
Later, when my boyfriend and I retreated to my bed (I share a room with my brother and his girlfriend), I explained to him, in relation to our conversation over dinner, that this was what I grew up with: my brother's best friends coming over, them cooking (one of them just lazing around choosing a movie), playing on the PlayStation (back then we had a secondhand PS2; now they play on a PS4), and having sleepovers. I distinctly remember one summer when they stayed at our house for weeks and only going home at times to their respective houses.
Our house then (in Bulacao) wasn't even necessarily a big house. It had two stories, but the upstairs space was mostly taken up by the master's bedroom so they really only had the combined living room and kitchen area to move around in. And even then, they still gravitated towards our house no matter what. And we lived in a different city, too, (i.e. not anywhere near downtown) and distance still wasn't a concern to them.
After explaining all this to my boyfriend, he, as perceptive as he is, said, "Is this why you always want people to come over to your house? Because you grew up seeing that with your brother and his friends?"
I was silent for a moment. It was true. Back in Bulacao, I always tried to invite friends to come over. When we transferred to Lahug, I always presented to hang out at my place after a night of dinner or drinking with my friends. I never related it to seeing my brother's friends a lot growing up, though, because I had long accepted that my brother, as a known "cool kid," would always have the livelier social life than me.
That night, I had come from intense emotional turmoil stemming from a round of arguments with my parents after news broke of the 5 activists—people I know personally and can therefore attest to not being terrorists, criminals, nor armed—getting arrested so I was being pensive and somewhat melancholic when I replied to my boyfriend with "Is it obvious how lonely I am?"
"Noooo, don't say that," he said before hugging me. Well, hugging into me as he basically ground himself into my shoulder.
I hadn't thought about being lonely in a long time.
I grew up convincing myself that I wasn't lonely, as lonely was a feeling. I preferred to anchor how I viewed myself on objective data: I was just alone, but I wasn't lonely. So I never used the word 'lonely' to describe myself. I mean, I had friends and I understood they had lives of their own (in elementary school, this meant they were picked up earlier than me) so I didn't mind then if I ended up alone after a school day. You could say that I got used to it.
I also did things alone. I still do things alone. I work better as a one-woman team. That makes it sound like I'm bad in a group, but up until 2018, I never learned how to properly delegate workload without slight micromanaging. I don't know how no one has cut off my head for that. I learned how to do most things so I would never feel the need to rely on other people and I suppose that's the irony, because I keep getting elected in leadership positions in organizations that need me to rely on other people.
In hindsight, being in leadership positions made people talk to me. I had always looked intimidating to people. Throughout elementary and high school, I was told I had a 'resting bitch face' so people were always scared by me and they didn't mince words telling me this, which I appreciated. And again, weird, because as soon as I entered college, people would tell me I had a baby face and that I was 'so cute.'
Now I wonder what my life would have been like if I didn't have leadership positions, if people didn't see me as a responsible person or groupmate. Would people have talked to me? Would they have made friends with me?
I'm just at that point of my life where I'm finding it hard to believe that there are people who truly enjoy my presence or that there are people who genuinely like to talk to me or hear what I say. That throughout my life, people were just scared of me.
At the height of friendship problems when I was 16, I once tweeted, "Loneliness is a hollow pit in the stomach that cannot be filled." If you ask me if I still feel that way, I'll tell you honestly that yes. I do. I have operated alone for most of my life. As a child, I didn't have friends. We kept transferring, too. And I didn't know how to make friends in new schools at the age of 7. But people talked to me anyway. Ended up getting elected as class secretary from Grade 1 to Grade 10 for some reason. I just don't have a measure of whether they actually like my presence or not and it's probably better that I don't because then I'd spiral and feel bad about myself.
Since being told I was scary or intimidating, I have always tried my best to become a comforting presence. To be a presence people liked to be around. I wanted to make them feel comfortable with me, no matter how long we've known each other. But even now at 21 years old, I still make people anxious and more often than not I end up berating myself for it. Maybe I should just go on and accept that I'll never be as sociable as my older siblings and so I'll never be as likable. (Because of this, I also try my best not to feel bad when my friends go out and they forget to invite me. I try not to mind because I do understand I'm not the most fun person to be around.)
But this is probably overthinking. I have friends. I have many good friends, in fact, who love me and care for me, and even strangers on the internet who I have made friends with have expressed care and concern for me. My siblings, in their oddest ways, have always shown they love me. Even when they move out of country.
I still do nearly everything alone now, especially after graduating and most of my friends either staying at home in the province or having work in the daytime. My 'aloneness' becomes more salient when I encounter emotional turmoil, like that episode 2 days ago, when I realize I have no one to run to. I don't want to keep running to the same person (in this case, my boyfriend) for fear of suffocating them. In the same sense, I don't want to burden my friends.
But these moments are often fleeting and as someone in her early 20s, there's more intense versions of this feeling coming for me.
I hope an entire two decades of loneliness and aloneness has prepared me for it.
Always,
Claire
P.S. This is obviously not the best thing I've written, but I wanted to get it out there. I know I can write about loneliness better than this, but maybe when I do, it wouldn't be on this blog that has become a dump site for word vomit. Forgive me, if anyone still reads this.
P.P.S. There's much to tackle about the illegal arrest of the 5 activists that I could not really incorporate as well as I should have in this blog post. But you can read several statements here: College Editors Guild of the Philippines Cebu (CEGP Cebu) | Altermidya - People's Alternative Media Network | International Association of Women in Radio and Television - Philippines | Rural Missionaries of the Philippines | Karapatan Alliance Philippines | When the Storm Fades | Katipunan ng mga Sangguniang Mag-aaral sa UP (KASAMA sa UP)
These human rights defenders can only ever plead 'guilty' to the crime of serving the people.
