Text Tales

[A] Can You Say, “Pushy”?

Around two months ago, I received an email from a 20-yr old from St. Benilde. Let’s call him Mike (not his real name, of course). Mike saw my profile online and wanted to meet me, see if “maybe we can be friends.” I’ve since met him twice (and for the record, we only talked over coffee), and on the second meeting I was pretty sure he’d be a handful. Days before Holy Week, Mike was bugging me about my plans; he wanted to spend the weekend with me. I was able to ditch him totally, and I thought maybe I heard the last of him. Early this evening while I was driving to Megamall to watch Robots, Mike sent me an SMS. The following is our text conversation, done mostly while I was driving down EDSA.

Mike: Musta na!

Me: Eto back at work.

Mike: He he he! Ako din kaya, finishing touches nalng 4 my thesis, defense n me, anyh0w, san k nga pala nung h0ly week, iniwan m naman ako! :-(

Me: Ah mostly on a road trip with family, some friends.

Mike: W0w, family oriented k ha! Nga pala, na mis m b ko? Kc, mis n kita eh, pramis, walang stir

At this point my eyebrows were raised. Missed me? He never entered my mind even once the past four days. And why are all his letter “o”s changed to zeroes? Must have something to do with our phones. It took me a while to compose my reply.

Me: I’m concerned with how intense you are, and how your needs are different from mine.

It didn’t take him long to text back: So! Wat d u mean?

Me: It means I’m not looking for a relationship with anyone right now.

A pause. Then his text message came in.

Mike: But we can still be friends naman dba?

Ahhh. I have to be diplomatic about this. No sense being unnecessarily nasty or blunt.

Me: It’s possible. Let me make this clear now: most of my friends are the low-maintenance type. So if you’re not the emotionally needy type, then perhaps we can be friends.

Mike: D ko ma gets joel, tagalugin m0

What?

It took me several minutes to compose my next text. What I really, really wanted to text him was this: “For a Benilde student, your poor grasp of rudimentary English is appalling. Grab an English dictionary.”

Instead, I texted him: Wala akong kaibigan na demanding.

Mike: Bkit? Kailan b ako nagng demanding sai0? Ah ok, nung h0ly wik? Tama b ako!

Before I could reply, “Kelan? How about NOW?!” another SMS from him came in.

Mike: Needy type!? Bkit? Kailan b ako nang hingi sai0?

I took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel tighter. Let’s be gracious and kind, I told myself. I waited until I had parked at the Megamall basement, gone to Teryaki Boy and finished giving my order to the waiter before I composed the following reply.

Me: Right now you’re being pushy. Why don’t we give this a rest, time to calm things down, okay? We both still have work to do.

Mike: Ok! Lam ko busy k lng cgur0! Anyh0w, just text me if u have tym n 4 relati0nship! Nyt

Oh no, I groaned inwardly.

*****

[B] The Graduate

Walking to my car after watching the movie Robots, I received the following SMS from a number that’s not in my phonebook.

+639272034817: Mare hppy graduati0n!

Hmmm. I’m really getting irritated with all these “o”s to zeroes conversion.

Me: I think you have the wrong number.

+639272034817: Cn0 kb tlaga r u kidding?kc im sure na dme ngka2mali ng #.

Umakyat ang dugo ko. Puta ‘toh, questioning me if I knew who I was?! Was I kidding daw?!

Me: Who are you congratulating ba? I’ve graduated years ago.

+639272034817: Tgasan p0 ba kau i mean saan lugar p0 2?gwa p0 #.2 ng kumare k0ng tga sbang p0.

Hay naku. Time to cut this short.

Me: You have the wrong number. This is an office phone.

And that was the end of it.