on friendship
this was a post originally published in my now defunct substack newsletter, an ambiguous case.
the concept of platonic love was something i first learned through a tumblr post. back in 2013-2015, in the peak of my engagement with the kpop fandom. i can no longer find the exact post but i think the photo below expresses the same sentiment.
i remember reading that post, it took me back to the times i spent afternoons at my friend’s condo. wherein, i would just have a nice time spending time with her as she introduces me to the music she loves compiled in a playlist in Itunes. she would arrange days for us to watch the latest episode of Hannibal, preparing a dish for me that was featured in the show. she was the person who got me into Tumblr in the first place, luring me into the kpop lore of EXO and pretty girl groups. i recall whenever i talked about her with my college friends, i would say that she’s the person I’d want to age with.
my friend, nicole told me this was none other than romance, that she is supposedly the One. many of us, including myself, believed that was the only way to have a deep emotional bond or love about someone. it had to be Love, most would say. but this does then suggest that only romantic love can be validated. that friendship was just Friendship.
this very notion is what broke us apart. my then girlfriend was not eager about our relationship. i resorted to distance, i no longer dropped by her condo or replied to her messages. i remember one of our last hang outs together, we were sitting in a coffee shop, she was sketching something on a torn piece of paper like always. she gave this to me including music she recently listened to. peach pit was her favorite from the list.
we we’re never really okay after that. i remember she told me that i can no longer consider her my best friend, how she couldn’t believe me anymore when i said i loved her. i was in a grab share going home when she told me. when the driver dropped off the other passenger, i started to cry in the passenger seat. (the driver got 5 stars and a tip).
distance became my love language. i learned that absorption of others was the only means i can do to connect. i listened to their stories, secrets, sensibilities. i learned to observe and take note in every drunken session where the opm songs and buckets of smirnoff drown out sober interactions. i become a mere funny anecdote repeated to the same song. and maybe later on i’ll start to forget. knowing that they’ll never remember me in return. because who was i to ask for more in these contexts?
though, i’ll never forget that one drunken night. lasting till 4 am, julyan and french and i decide to settle at a random restobar to sober up. it was julyan’s birthday, we decided to make most of the night. it’s been a month since we all graduated and the three of us were starting to get started on the post graduate life. french entering law school, julyan and i starting our first jobs. french tells us that we need to celebrate as much as the night gives us, for we will never be able to return to this again. she didn’t tell me what this was, but i just knew it was something i wanted to think about still years later. and she was right, we never returned to that same night ever again, i haven’t seen them again in three years.
in What’s our communal equivalent of rubbing each other’s feet?, parker palmer asks us to think about our ways of communal connection given the barriers of the COVID-19 pandemic:
“There’s just something about that bodily care from a trusted person…there’s something about that kind of touch that reconnects you with human community where you’re in a state of where there’s no possible way to reconnect”
i was stuck in another country during the early days of the pandemic. the only means of physical interaction i had were with the cashier in the grocery store, and occasionally my landlady whenever a fuse broke out or when the wifi was not working. from the other side of the world were my friends messaging me frequently. kuya roy would talk about coping through the tunes of frank ocean’s keep a place for me , and blasting to mitski’s repeated litany of nobody, nobody, nobody . in the same year, portrait of a lady on fire gets released and i learn the side of sapphic twitter after watching it via zoom call with bia. april and i exchange monthly life updates as check-ins.
in the following months, i move to bia’s town and meet fellow filipinos. i was overwhelmed at their constant invitations to get together. paul walking in on me alone at the dining table drinking tea, he offers me an avocado toast he just whipped up. lee having baking experiments in the apartment kitchen, reserving me the last leche flan. raven and eif join us in movie nights, with raven attempting to save her pancit canton reservoir.
it was in that same apartment wherein through an instagram dm (which was supposed to be a flirtation move) i get an invite from den to join her book club. i meet mar and audrie. in the present day, i have met cidee, angelu, paola, and brin.
this was also the era of various niche facbeook groups. i would post music i enjoyed and listened to playlists from music recs without context. i post and read poetry in lit recs without context. i also immerse myself in the drama of the all girls school trashtalkan. when im welled up in a room, i needed a way to gain a sense of others.
but i learn to talk through these things. in every late night message nikki sent to me about love. bianca, cooking meals for me when i come over to her apartment. francis video calling to check up on me. april (forcing) me to open up first during our chats.
this translates further when i come back home. i meet a collective in nissie, sari, rae, tin, and eloisa. i find comfort in reconnecting with bubu, and meeting danny, jana, ren in the process. i eventually meet my beloved, terra. i recall back to some university friends: ali, nicole, tizzle, paty, and danny. all from a different block but still chose to take me in. julyan and french, still initiating for meetups despite our schedules all conflicting.
i receive a message, i love you, or in any other variation of it from a friend. after months, i learn to say it back.
one of the images i got obsessed with for a while was holly warburton’s couple on the escalator. i longed for that safety and comfort, translated in the carrying of one’s head on a shoulder. to have my mind read by someone through rest.
restrictions have started to loosen up and i long for the days i get to see my friends beyond the chat notifications on my phone and waiting room entry on my laptop. we all turn to each other.
i bought a new film roll recently, black and white (because the prices are an atrocity). i long to remember more and more. i write in my journal. i send updates in shared discord servers and telegram group chats. i learn to give. i learn to know more about myself and be myself around them.
as for her, we’re no longer as close as i want us to be. but i want her to know that i will always be grateful that i’m still allowed to witness her get good things, and how she still allows me on the receiving end of her deez nuts jokes.
i seek maggie nelson. in bluets, she concludes her desire:
Love is not consolation, she wrote. It is light. All right then, let me try to rephrase. When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing but of light
and i thank all my friends for being the lighthouses for helping me see this light towards me.
other things: