Shut up and listen to me

You’re sitting outside Starbucks, minding your own business. Then you stiffen in shock as you hear what seems to be the voice of God, bellowing "listen to me!" behind you. You turn around, and you see a bunch of people who seem to be in an intense, heated discussion. There’s one furiously smoking a stick of Marlboro, another running his hand excitedly through his hair and a girl leaning back with half-closed eyes, sarcastically commenting every few minutes. You listen further, and are surprised to hear them arguing – actually arguing – about the pros and cons of a Mocha Frappuccino.

You run into National Book Store for a quick purchase, and you see a guy with spiked-up hair and a silver earring picking up a copy of The Economist. Not exactly that esteemed magazine’s usual customer demographic.

You’re in class, when the professor calls on a sleepy-looking girl to answer an out-of-this-world question. She sits up and spends two minutes discussing the finer points of the issue, while the professor looks half-impressed and half-irritated. Then you watch as the girl turns around and asks you, "What was the question exactly?"

All these people are that species of students known as debaters. I happen to be one of them.

We debaters have been repeatedly accused of possessing monumentally inflated egos. We’re said to believe that we can answer the world’s problems. And obviously, all, and I mean all of us think we’re right. We can talk for hours on end about nothing. We are this world’s wretched geeks, repressed nerds and elitist rebels. Obviously, we have no friends besides other debaters. No one normal can stand to be around us.

I’m insulted. I have non-debate friends. Just not that many.

The problem – or maybe the charm – of debate is that it attracts the strangest of people. There are the people who show up in tournaments wearing long black skirts, black leather boots and black mascara (oops, that was me in my Havoc-grunge-vampire princess phase). When silver pants and chains were in, trust the guys to raid the next People Are People store. Then you get people in full corporate gear, pinstripes and all, arguing with the surfer dudes in shorts and flip-flops. It’s just as possible for girls to slink in wearing tube tops and dangling earrings as much as it is for them to stride in wearing ties.

Every word you say, every gesture you make, puts you at constant risk of humiliation. The boy who started off with "I’m sure this debate has given everyone a headache – let me be your paracetamol," will never live it down. There was a girl who started a speech by singing Britney Spears’ Hit Me Baby One More Time and then proceeded to argue about spanking delinquent students in schools. And of course, there was my good friend in high school who beat me by saying that my speech was a "dead horse" that didn’t deserve the effort it would take to "kick down one more time."

Sometimes, the strain is too much for most people take. Take "breaking" in a tournament, for example. To "break" in a tournament means to break into the Finals Series – meaning, you’re part of the lucky sixteen teams who survived the elimination rounds. There’s a "break night party," where no one has fun and alcohol is necessary just to stop people from jumping out of windows. I’ve seen people curled up in corners, reliving each debate, murmuring "should’ve said that" under their breaths. I have female teammates who manage to kick trash cans they’d normally stay five feet away from. I’ve experienced going home with bruised knuckles from punching walls, and then sinking into bed to cry until I fall asleep.

It’s not only the debaters who suffer. I had a coach who reduced a judge to tears after he made us lose a debate. I’ve seen people charge up to an adjudicator (that’s what debate judges are called) demanding that they explain his unspeakable nerve for putting them at second place. At the end of a debate, I heard a judge pompously state: "You didn’t seem to understand the complexity of the debate, but you’re the Best Speaker. Congratulations."

When it’s pride at stake, there’s little a debater won’t do. When you’ve survived debates that force you to argue that women need men as much as fish need bicycles, or that the next best thing to a perfect world is a world without religion or that hey, debaters make the best lovers – you’re likely to think you’re capable of solving the world’s problems. At least we don’t go as far as the Harvard debater who declared with passionate conviction: "America is the best damn planet on Earth."

But hey, give us debaters some credit. We put up with ridicule, anxiety, depression, and serious nicotine addictions to travel halfway around the world just to kick the asses of arrogant white guys who are surprised that Asians can speak English properly. We spend thousands of pesos each year, go on our hands and knees before sponsors, literally dress in sackcloth and ashes, just to carry the flag of our universities and our country.

And unlike those oh-so-popular-and-pampered UAAP players, we don’t get condos, allowances, cars, or special favors from our professors.

Someone asked me what I get out of all those months of training and hours of talking.

I smile and say, "Hey, I just want to win."

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