Hello Me!! It’s all about Marissa.

I met Marissa at Xcite, in Cagayan de Oro (CdO), in the Province of Misamis Oriental, Mindanao Island, The Philippines.. I had been in country seven weeks at that point and I had dated several, if not many girls; all of which had left me wanting. I’m not here to complain about Filipinos, I am, rather, here to celebrate one particular Filipina, but in some ways she was as hard to find as a needle in very plentiful stack of hay.

She was seated agaisnt the wall about 12 O’clock across from the stage, and there was one row of tables that seperated her from the dance floor, from the crowd, and she was dancing with another girl, but dancing in a restrained way, like she wanted to dance but she didn’t want to be noticed.

I was seated at about the center of the bar, and I don’t remember much else until the bar closed except being mesmerized. I approached this girl when people began to leave and I was sure she wasn’t on some date with a hitherto unseen guy, and asked her to have dinner with me across the street at Front Street Restaurant. She agreed, but only if her cousin, Kathy, could come also. Kathy was only the second best looking girl on Mindanao, so I couldn’t refuse that.

At Front Street the conversastion was very plain. How many brothers and sisters do you have? What does your father do? Did you go to college? Do you have a degree? What do your brothers do? And she asked me the usual generic questions: Why are you in Cdo? What is your business here? Do you know many people here?

It was plain talk, nothing special, but there was something special going on between Issa and myself despite the simplicity of the questions. I hung on her every word, her every guesture, and she was putting in considerable effort to mask her interest in me.

She informed me that she was not allowed to date Americans, her parents would not allow it. Why? I asked. What’s so wrong with Americans that your parents would ban you from dating them?

It’s because Americans have no integrity, they come here and they sleep with many women, every night a different woman, she told me. You tell me sweet things tonight, but tomorrow night you will be saying the same things to another girl.

Well, I said, What if I would only go out with you? Would that be okay with your parents? If I would only go out with you?

Maybe, she said.

Now, of course this is all very un-Michael-Turner. I mean, normally, I want to take a chick for a full test drive to make sure all her blinkers work before even committing to going out regularly, let alone exclusively, but for some reason I upped the ante on myself.

Keep in mind that Issa had a big pimple on her nose that night. She was beautiful, but she was not perfect, and she had some family agenda in the background.

Let me say now that from the first time I laid eyes on this girl, there was something about her that struck me. I may not be able to put that something into words, but I will struggle to do so.

So, I asked her, point blank: If I were to only go out with you, and date no other girls, would that be okay with your parents?

Maybe, she said.

Do you understand that if I went out only with you, then that would make you my girlfriend?

She thought for a moment and agreed.

Would you be my girlfriend? I asked.

She shrugged, as if to say, what will come to pass will come, and I still need to ask my parents.

To make one thing clear, this kind of thing has never happened to me before. I am asking this girl to be my girlfriend, to go out only with me, and in exchange I will only go out with her, but we have yet to even touch hands let alone kiss. This is just unheard of. Something was wrong with me.

Issa gave me her phone number and we parted for the evening. I promised her that I would only go out with her if she would only go out with me. Basically, I told her, I want you to be my girlfriend, and if you will go out with me, only me, then I will go out only with you.and that this should distinguish me from other Americans and perhaps your parents will approve of me.

So Issa and I parted ways. She left the restaurant, and there were other girls there, at the restaurant, that knew me, that waved me over. I later left with two or three of them, figuring that my committment to Issa would start the next time I saw her. Afterall, she had agreed to go out with me if I would drop my widespread dating, and I was completely agreable, I would stop my widespread dating just as soon as she would begin to date me. It was in my American mind a simple scenario. Unfortunately, she had other ideas. She considered the deal effective immedaiately and espied me leaving the same restaurant with two other Filipinas. No matter that I simply dropped them off in the taxi, in her mind I was fried.

The next day I tried to fall Marissa, but she would not take my calls, and so I tried texting her, but she would not text back. Having seen me leave the restaurant with two other girls showed her I was not serious about her, that I was just a player.

Every day I must have have texted her for a couple of weeks, and I never got a response, so eventaully I gave up calling her and texting her.

Then, I saw another girl, and I thought, This girl is as beautiful as Aira, maybe, but I couldn’t get this girl’s attention. I saw her playing pool one night and I followed her around, staring at her. I couldn’t help it. I was in stalker mode.  I knew this new girl couldn’t be the same girl I had met three weeks before because she would not even acknowledge me, she wouldn’t even look at me.
Actually, I was quite grateful to see this new girl as it made me miss Aira less. A few nights later I saw this girl, by herself, at Xcite, and I asked for her phone number. You already have it, she said.

It turns out this 2nd girl was really the first girl, it was Aira.

What I can tell you about that is it cemented my confidence in my taste in women. This first girl had torn my heart, and I had been unable to quit thinking about her. Then, along comes this other girl who was so beautiful she almost made me forget about my longing for the first girl, and it turns out it was the same girl.

Well, I didn’t need to know much more after that. Marissa and I have been tight, like peanut butter and jelly ever since.

Today, I believe in love at first sight. Not because it struck me, but because it struck me twice, on the same girl. Marissa is an affirmation of my heart.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 17th, 2006 at 3:45 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.