Torpe's Trouble

while reminiscing in my old e-mails, i found this piece. this piece first appeared in PDI's youngblood on May 7,1997 and was included in The Best of Youngblood. hmm... i think i'll submit one of my entries to Youngblood too.
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Torpe's Troubles
by Arem

"Torpe" is one of those Filipino cultural words. Its English equivalent, timid, does not fully capture its real meaning. But then again, neither does its local popular meaning. To most Filipinos, it simply means being shy with the opposite sex. Yet it is something more than that. In order to fully comprehend the term, let us observe a typical torpe and how he goes about his love life.

While most people fall head over heels for voluptuous women, our torpe does not. The usual object of his affections is someone who is, as childish as it may sound, nice. Our torpe easily falls for a lady who is amiable, congenial and smiles a lot (it would seem that he looks more for personality rather than for physical beauty). He doesn't go after a lady just so that he can have someone to brag to his friends about. Rather, he likes someone whom he could talk with, share some thoughts with, walk under the stars with. But neither the talk nor the walk really ever happens, for how can he talk to someone whom he shies away from?

Being a torpe, he does not have enough courage to talk, or to do any form of interaction, with his crush. He sweats at the mere thought of saying something to her. He runs (yes, this does happen)whenever he sees her coming and hides in some desolate room (torpes have sharp eyes and can easily spot their crush from miles away). And when he has no place to run or hide, our torpe simply passes her by and pretends that he did not see her, from fear that he may have to say something to her. The most that he ever does is to take an occasional glimpse at her. And should his crush just happen to look at him too as he glances at her, a thousand stampeding horses rush about in his chest.

What happens if, by some freak of nature, our torpe is forced into a situation in which he has to talk to his crush? He usually just stands there and gathers dust, waiting and hoping that it is she who shall initiate a conversation. And if she does not do anything to start they end up saying "hi" and "hello" to each other 10 times over. But usually, after the third "hi" and fifth "hello," the lady says that she has to go somewhere and leaves. Our torpe then blames himself for fouling up what seemed to be the chance of a lifetime for him. Don't get him wrong, it is not that he does not want to speak with her. In fact it's quite the opposite, he zealously wants to talk with her. He does anything he can to get a chance to converse with his crush. He follows her home, to the library, to her classes, to the mall, to the church, eagerly waiting for her to notice and approach him. He would approach if he could, but the nearer she becomes the more his tongue swells. And when she is within talking distance,zoom! he runs away.

So, how does our torpe court his crush? Through letters. What he cannot say personally he says with pen and paper. At first, he sends a thank you note for some trivial thing, or a birthday card, or a Christmas card, or a bar mitzvah card (torpes sometimes employ the most outrageous of excuses). If she sends him a note in return, he then sends her a letter. This time, the letter is a narrative on how his day went, but he ends it with a question on how her day went or on how she is. He hopes that she'll write back, but, almost always, she never does. Yet our torpe still writes to her, and writes, and writes, and writes, until she is literally flooded with letters. As time progresses, these letters start to contain declarations of love toward her. As I said, what he cannot say personally he says with pen and paper. This of course does not mean that he loves her any less than a normal person would. It's just that he's too afraid to tell her.

In the end, his crush distances herself away from him, evades him. She is afraid that our torpe will think that she likes him too. But he'll never think this way. He knows that she won't fall for him; for who could like someone who's too afraid to talk, too scared to speak to the most important person in his life, too frightened to say the wrong thing to the lady whom he loves above all else. I should know --I'm a torpe too.

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me too.

.:yomz:.