man of the moon

“i don’t think i can be your boyfriend. but that does not mean i don’t love you.”

so said tong to mew in the last scenes of the movie ‘love of siam’.

last wednesday jp and i met in gay-teway to catch the last day of cinemanila. we wanted to catch this movie. i’ll leave the reviewing to the critics. let me just say, it proved to be a good move since it was a beautiful film.



after the movie, jp and i had dinner (he had a craving for sisig) and i told him that the line above caused me to pause because this was almost exactly the same line my now good friend j said to me when i proposed to him years ago.

why did i propose to him? the story is quite simple. we were student activists together. we became friends. we spent time together. we started being physical. not in a sexual way. just in a slightly more- -than-buddies way. i was gullible. i fell for him. i proposed the same day he committed to a relationship to a girl.

on the night i proposed, he asked me, “why now?”

i answered, “you’re with m (this girl), would it have mattered?”

he paused and quietly said, “it might have. i don’t know.” and we were silent for a long time.

but that was years ago. his girl m is now closer to me than j is. actually since then, i became their marriage counsellor. m runs to me whenever they have difficulties and so does j. they both have acted as life rafts, keeping me afloat in the many times i feel like i’m sinking. we also have celebrated life’s little victories. we are witnesses to each others’ lives.

to tell you the truth, it was m who told me that j still loves me up to now. in one drinking session with m’s lesbian friends, someone commented that it seems hard to believe that men – being what they are - can love each other. to which j replied, ‘it is not hard to believe. i love kiel. and he loves me.’ or something to that effect. the details are not clear because i was a little uncomfortable listening to a wife, telling me her husband acknowledges his love for me in front of her friends. no matter how close we are. seriously.

the happy thing is we belong to a group of friends (that includes gibo) – a gang - who are more family than friends. being a group that verges on intellectual snobbery, we joke all the time that j is only intelligent when there’s a full moon.

he may not be intelligent. but j has taught me a very important thing:

that love is not always as it is cut out to be. and because it breaks out of the mould, it doesn’t make it less of a love.

tomorrow, j is celebrating his birthday. jp and i are going.

and since i realise i don’t appreciate him enough. this post is just to thank him for the person that he is. for his friendship. for his love.

my deepest gratitude, my man of the moon.