Chat With Strangers

My family were born again christians so if word got to my father that I drank alcohol so much and blacked out, I would be in huge trouble.

I did not remember anything on the night I blacked out except joining in with my college friends who were in a voice channel watching an anime movie while I said many words from being drunk.

One of my cousins the next morning told me that I peed on my shorts. I could not tell if that was true or not, up to this day. I just hoped it was not true.

The only thing I remembered was, "One day, I am going to beat one of my grandpas when it comes to drinking. His time is up! While my time is now!"

And then I had a solo flight back home to Manila. We came to Iloilo, the province of my parents, where I had to spend my vacation at with relatives.

At the airport, I could still feel the alcohol as I was itching too much. My skin was too red, the body was not digesting the alcohol properly probably because it was my first time drinking.

All I could think of was getting through the airport, sitting in my flight without being too obvious to the security that I was still drunk or looked like I was having a hangover.

It was a struggle, but I made it. And the next day came my birthday.

On my birthday celebration, that happened to be a family reunion also, word of that declaration got to one of my grandpas that I directed it to...

I thought I was in trouble but he commended me and said, "Yeah, continue to be like that. You'll beat me one day," handing me 2000 PHP and pat me on my back like a proud grandpa.

Well this was unexpected, but I'll take it. I thought. I was happy on my 20th birthday in the year 2023.

But with Jae, I deleted our conversation and unfriended her in the socials we were mutuals. It was just regret and that haunted me.

The thought of. She definitely told her friends about this. Also her boyfriend, haunted me so badly. I was so concerned that she could have gotten a picture of me and made a gossip of me to her friends. Her character to me was not like that, but women do love gossip and such.

I managed to move on after many months, probably 9 to 10. I got over it when I saw her at a cafe while I was doing some laboratory activities about network routing protocols. She was talking to her boyfriend.

I was finally at peace when I saw her with him, and I will admit that it was very ridiculous. I sometimes thought that my emotional attachment and optimism clouded my thinking.

She probably broke up with him now. Maybe I have a chance? No, this was embarrassing. This isn't right.

I was conflicted so much that when she said she was in a relationship, I hoped that some time later, she could become single.

This was devilish of me and I felt so much shame and regret for thinking that way when I self-reflected this event in my college life.

At least I managed to move on.

For the remaining months of 2023, I did nothing regarding love life. I was not looking to be in a relationship and instead improved on myself such as fixing my mindset and finding ways to get rid of this guilt, shame, and regret.

In the third year of college in the year 2024, the early quarters made me feel that I am finally ready to look for someone to be in a relationship with.

I studied so much about girls and asked different girls in my different friends groups what they like and what women in general like?

There have been online topics in social media that talked about men and women in the field of romance. I mostly focused on women because I am a man myself and I was confident to answer anything about male perspectives regarding dating.

So I read forums about how women think and were in general. I even asked different girls that were my friends in my different friend groups about what and how girls are in general.

Their opinions and statements were very helpful in grasping the complexity of women.

I learned so much about what worries them, what they are often insecure of, what is important to them, what they want when they have red days, basically how they were in general, even in the topics that lurked in "girls talk"—conversations between women that were inappropriate or uninteresting to men as how it was defined... But I found this talk to be interesting and it got me prepared on how to treat women better or how they should be properly and actually treated.

I also learned about, if there was a man involved in different scenarios, what would the woman want from a man, like what should they do and not do.

Guys, if you ever find a girl that you ended up liking, always ask for girl opinions because it helps. And also, just a disclaimer.

I am the type of guy that kept a lowkey profile online and in real life. I hated getting attention or clout because I figured them to be unnecessary.

And having to approach girls on campus was very hard for me to do, especially with what happened with my encounter with Jae. She was well known so there was a chance some girls I could approach might know her and might know me because of what I had done.

I had befriended the friends of my other friends, particularly the girls, and I saw that some of them know Jae.

I thought to myself, There was no way I can find a potential to be with on campus if this is my case.

I was aware of overthinking things but I could not risk it. So I shifted to looking for girls to be in a relationship with online in... platforms that were generally about chatting with strangers in text.

Unfortunately, it was hard to have a proper conversation with anyone because the algorithm matches you with a guy more often than a girl. And every time I found myself talking to a girl, they were defensive and cautious.

I was aware that this was not really a platform for dating. Some of the girls I ended up having a talking stage with insisted on continuing the conversation on sketchy platforms such as those that were used to sell nudity and other "services."

And if there was a proper girl, I often found myself carrying the conversations throughout, which I was proud of. Having to carry on conversations was not a concern to me, my concern was that these women I had talking stages with were often looking for and insisting on hookups, fudge buddies, and anything that constituted intimacy without commitment.

Any guy would probably have said yes to those kinds of activities but not me. I was not raised to be like that nor would I ever desire such.

I believed that pure love and true love happens when there is intimacy, passion, and commitment.

But intimacy without commitment? HELL NO! Being someone that can get easily attached emotionally would find this desire very difficult and unnecessary.

Even worse was the fear of getting a girl pregnant when there was no commitment and yet I was still studying in college.

What would happen to the kid? Does the kid deserve this start in life? What if the girl doesn't want the kid?

There were societal topics such as abortion. This was not normalized in the Philippines for reasons I would not dare to explain.

I was looking for a long-term relationship and many of my encounters were not into it.

The girls that I met online were, at times, quite aggressive in flirting. They probably had a high libido I guess... But their actions had gotten me afraid of them.

I realized that exploring on a "chat-with-strangers" platform was such a bad idea.