An Unbecoming Death

The past week, I’ve been receiving text messages from a friend, messages of despair.

He’s in love with a person (a classmate since elementary) who is also his best friend. They see each other every weekend, go shopping together, eat out together, have sex… but they’re not really… together. Know what I mean? This friend’s friend goes away on long vacations abroad and who does he leave to house-sit? My friend. They’re that close. Tito/Tita close. That’s what they call each other’s parents. So…

For two years now he’s been agonizing over whether to pop the question (tayo na ba?) or not because he’s afraid of upsetting the status quo. He won't because the status quo is good enough for him, but somehow he feels disenfranchised. There’s something lacking.

They go an having sex and seeing each other weekly and giggling over stuff like Kettle Chips and L’Oreal Men Expert but it’s not really “them” which was all fine until someone came along and turned the apple cart over. His BBF’s (best/boy friend’s) ka-opisina. This third party interloper who sees the BBF every day, while my friend can’t because he works several towns/cities away.

So now the ugly green monster is eating my friend up. Jealous, jealous, jealous as jealous can be.

Which is nothing new, is to be expected, and totally natural. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Except that he started talking about death. He can’t kill the negative emotions even if he wanted to, and is contemplating on killing himself to make the pain go away. Flashing red sirens!

I gave my standard reply, which I hope was enough. “If you kill yourself, you will be reincarnated as an insect.” To make sure he got the point, I added, “you will live and die as a lower life form for a hundred thousand lifetimes before you become an erection in your future father’s loins.”

Now I’m thinking. What movies and books should he be steered away from? What music? What is this world coming to? Why would perfectly healthy people with thriving careers ever contemplate death? Chos… I think he just wants to chat over dinner. But I still want to wring his neck.