Nobody told me school was for picking up chicks

I am thirty and single.

Every time I open the social media accounts I’ve used since I was in High School I notice friends and classmates are either in a relationship, just married, or have kids, and most often the people they’re hooked up with is someone they’ve met in school or during their school days.

First of all: I’m happy for them and the milestones in life they’ve reached. The boys have become dads and uncles, and girls I liked before are flourishing.

Second of all: Why don’t I have that? I practically walked the same hallways and sat in the same classrooms. What in the world did I miss?

Aside from being a venue for students enrolled to receive a standardized education, one of any school’s auxiliary purposes is to serve as a mini social environment where kids (and eventually teens and adults) get to mingle with their peers and form relationships as they co-exist towards the common goal of passing grades and graduating. Make friends, join clubs, have sleepovers if your parents and theirs are mutually liberal enough, and maybe explore other things that the church of mom and dad would forbid especially at a young age.

I remember spending a good significant half of my crybaby years (both pre-school and elementary) relishing the fruits of easy wins as I regularly hit Top 5 in class academics and participated in all sorts of contests (and won a handful, from spelling bees to singing contests). The other half is a fracture of interactions, ranging from being bullied for being a rotund smartass to small-time paper things we used to make outside the context of studying.

But one significant chunk of that is having crushes over girls my age or in the same grade as I am. I was a simple boy who acquired simple tastes from the world I dwell in, so my picks are usually waif-thin cute mestizas who can carry their own two shoulders and have sensibilities that will feel at home outside of the province. Maybe the occasional sunkissed Filipina too if they’re cute and cool enough. My heart gushed at the thought of them as they are and me within their proximity, but nothing beyond that. I observed them like micromanaging prey, enticing to the eyes like trophies, but never developed the thought of going beyond because, heck, I was just a kid who shouldn’t be in relationships. Little did I know these same girls were locking fingers with boys in rooms away from prying eyes of adults, some of them to the point of expulsion for frisky behavior.

I got yoinked out of the province the moment I graduated from elementary school because the folks work in the big city and have grown tired of spending two hours in traffic to take each other to work, which means I get to move schools. Feeling the gushing from my pre-tween heart will disrupt my academic prowess in the next four years, I decided against entering a co-ed institute and chose to go to an all-boys school.

Looking back I feel like this was one of my biggest mistakes, as the lack of girls did not stop my grades from slipping as I found other avenues in my limited social life. I rarely got to interact with ladies around my age, and when I do it felt like hitting the jackpot, yet my behavior towards them never developed past being a fly in the wall back in the province. Even my feelings were still tied to the gals back home, now in their teens and freely posting on Facebook. Heck, we even had prom and the girl I invited as a date for one of them was a family friend from pre-school who I became classmates with in the province. I’m pretty sure at least 70% of the guys in that gymnasium that night are now married, and maybe at least 50% of that got hitched to their dates. I got a lucky break in senior year tho, as I got to hang out with gals in a roleplay group, one of them is already in college and the other I’ve had a short fling as somebody’s rebound for a handful of months (it is over Skype though, which my mom said ‘didn’t count’). Thanks to the magic of technology, I took her to places beyond the comfort of her room and met some of my friends through the webcam lens. We even talked for hours on the bed until we’re too tired. I rarely talk to her nowadays, but when I do I ask for an address to send a postcard from places she never has the luxury to visit.

College should’ve been the perfect time as I finally step foot back to a co-ed arrangement surrounded by a new gaggle of strangers from all walks of life, where boys and girls get to walk in unison with their block mates and join as many social clubs as permissible to time and money, widening their opportunities to get to meet the perfect stranger they can spend a sweet four years with exploring places to have lunch together and cramming hand-in-hand for the finals. Oh how I squandered those four years, my eyes glued to the laptop screen chasing easy glories in social media and near-dead forums, restless nights chasing after strangers’ affection through meaningless posts and code updates instead of studying for any of my subjects. I was practically bitchless and sought no desire to yearn for one, as it was the mid-2010s and objectifying women was definitely officially out of vogue. There’s finally beautiful socially-capable girls in my immediate circle (and with the figure to boot), but I still tempered myself to not approach them because, as I reflected on my fashion sense and figure, I felt out of their league and didn’t muster the right amount of charisma and confidence to pass as someone who isn’t yearning for them carnally. I talked to them, sure, but always at the context of academics and work. I watched as loose-cannon pretend-drunk dudebros scoop chicks up, shooting their shot as I watch from behind the monitor of my glossy black laptop pretending to make video games, sitting at the benches chatting whatever as I pass by the halls on my way home for the last time in the campus.

Another three years of not flunking elsewhere (thank GOD!) and my immediate circle is now much younger. My behavior followed, and so I spent it playing games and hanging out in empty classrooms, learning from the past and slowly distancing myself from the pull of my computer to finally properly socialize. I still felt out-of-league with the ladies though so my approach never developed. However, I felt I got pulled towards them and got to hang out in a normal respectable manner with no sense of malice. In my first days an all-girl group of freshies have adopted me as one of their own and got to hang out with them up to the time we split because our classes didn’t line up. Then much later, I spent a handful of months getting close with a coursemate who got ousted from her friend circle as I try my best to keep her afloat with academics. We spent lunch hours together, shared homework and grouped together in projects, talked about shared interests in sports and anime, even girls. Heck, I even used to wait for her in the lobby as we took rideshares together to her place, and spent hours there doing school stuff and watching anime. It felt like one of those relationships from one of the mangas I used to read, like it was the closest I ever had to a college girlfriend. We never spelled out what we were and never explored any further, but the vibe had always been we were close friends. Unfortunately I graduated a year earlier from her, and that was the end of the road for all that.

It’s harder now that I’m working abroad for a small office of mostly guys. I tried getting into dating apps, but the girls I swipe right to don’t share the same sentiment, and the language barrier has become an easy dealbreaker. I joined a community of Filipino migrants, but the girls my age who are my type are either in a relationship or got married recently to their High School sweethearts.

And as I leave my twentysomethings, I have this creeping feeling that I’ll spend the next decade finding diamonds in the rough. I sure hope I find one soon.