My 16-year-old self

Just last week, I was having a night in at the Electric Avenue apartment with my flatmates and a few friends. Due to current financial constraints, my roomies and I do not own a television set yet, which I think is actually a good thing, since it forces us to find more creative ways to entertain ourselves. Generally, this will involve sitting around on a weeknight and shooting the shit while we crack open a beer or two, then playing board games till someone calls it a night. Not having a TV works out even better when we have company over. Let’s face it, how many times have you rolled up into a friend’s apartment for a nice chat, only to find them zonked in front of their flatscreen, breaking their stupefied concentration only to ask you if you want to watch Shark Week reruns or sit through a Real Housewives of Atlanta marathon? I’m not knocking cable programming here, but coming over to a friend’s house just to watch TV is, like, so freaking high school, no? Besides, the talks I have with my flatmates totally spank the shit out of any reality TV show (except Jersey Shore).

On this particular Tuesday, we took a break from playing “Would You Rather?” and “Rock, Paper Anything” (which involves making up anything on the spot — with the exceptions of black holes and atomic bombs — pairing it with a hand gesture and then debating with your partner as to why your choice beats theirs) when Pollyanna opened up a new discussion to the group: If you could go back in time and meet your 16-year-old self, what would you say to him or her, knowing what you know now? This was based on a book she read called Dear Me: A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old Self, edited by journalist Joseph Galliano. Dear Me is a compilation of letters written by actors, authors, pop stars and other industry big shots and pretty faces who’ve been kicking ass and taking names. It includes letters written by Sir Elton John, Stephen Fry, Debbie Harry and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I hadn’t heard of Dear Me till Pollyanna brought it up, but it got me thinking as to what I’d say to the 16-year-old me.

I am constantly telling people that if I’d had a teenager exactly like me, I would give her away. I was a reckless little smartass playing dress up in tough girl zip-up boots who was obsessed with red lipstick and yet had no clue how to do her eyebrows. I went out even on school nights to get f**ked up till 6 a.m., chase boys and space out through my classes. I kept angsty diaries filled with doodles and stream-of-consciousness, self-indulgent crappy journal entries about heartbreak, hating my parents and wanting to get the hell out of Manila. I lived my life pretty much as if it were a giant middle finger to shake at the world. Basically, I was the most terrible tween cliché ever, like the basket case in The Breakfast Club if she had been sluttier.

When you’re 16 and an underwear model tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them. Stay classy, Miley Cyrus. Stay shirtless, Justin Gaston.

I wasn’t quite sure what I would tell my 16-year-old self, so I asked my other friends what they would say.

“Don’t worry, you’ll lose it eventually,” was Steve’s answer. “Not soon, but eventually.”

When I asked my attached-at-the-hip BFF what he was like at 16, he replied, “Physically as awkward as a giraffe climbing a step ladder, spotty as hell, seriously nerdy, awesome superiority complex. Pretty much the same as now, but worse hair.”

Steve is now 25 and works as a staff writer for the shadiest publication owner in Hong Kong. He has traveled to 18 different countries around the world and is in a very serious relationship with his awesome girlfriend, Hayley.

Annie, 25, one of my nearest and dearest who I remember from our days trapped in the all-girls private Catholic prison we called high school. She was three classes below me, sporting Chuck Taylors with her uniform (totally against school rules) and skull-print skinny jeans after school. We ran into each other at shows and complained about all the other bitches at school who were mean to us for “being so weird.”

When I asked Annie what she would say to her 16-year-old self, she said, “Just wait, you’ll be hotter than all of these bitches someday and the boys who are bypassing you will be beneath you.”

I asked her why she’d say that and Annie simply replied, “Because it’s true.”

Annie now lives in Manila, where she has in her own apartment and works as a broker. She describes herself as “An over-confident, underachieving bitch,” but considering all the other dumb broads who slagged us off in high school and are now working for their families or married to the first guy who knocked them up, I’d say she did pretty well for herself.

Ian, 29, is one of my closest homeys in Hong Kong and works as a deputy editor in corporate publishing. When asked to describe himself at 16, he replied, “a stubborn, troublemaking ruffian whose entire world revolved around music, drinking, girls and hedonism in general.” He told me he was pretty much on top of the world at that age and probably wouldn’t want to change much.

“I’d probably just tell him not to be such a slacker at school,” he said. “Although my 16-year-old self would probably just tell me to f**k off.”

Echo, 23, has been my closest girl friend in Hong Kong since I spent summer 2009 here. We interned for the same news wire service together and became friends immediately. We were polar opposites who became the best of friends after bonding over a love for cheap Chinese food and feature writing.

“I did everything right up until I was 20,” she told me. “Maybe I would tell 16-year-old me to stop messing with my sister’s cosmetics, that she might be acting like a bitch but she actually loves me.”

When I asked Echo what she thinks she did wrong, she answered, “Duh… Journalism.”

Echo now works as the executive assistant for “an old Chinese law firm where the most popular activity for annual dinners is mahjong, some partners are half-lucid 70-year-old law practitioners before the Chinese legal system came into effect last century and who refuse to retire.”

I guess, when I think about it, there’s not a whole hell of a lot I could say to my 16-year old self to stop her from making the mistakes she did. I also think several of those mistakes were essential to learning that my mom was right all along (about most things). I don’t think I’d be the same person if I had played it safe and I certainly wouldn’t want to be any different than the way I am now (well, maybe thinner).

I guess the only thing I’d really say to 16-year-old Francesca is this: “Just because you are on vacation and have had too much sangria doesn’t mean it’s okay to give your v-card to that handsome Spanish boy. He will write you love letters for two years afterwards while you are back in the Philippines and this will skew your perception of how things really work between men and women in the real world.”

She’d probably tell me to f**k off too, but I’m pretty sure that if anyone could handle the earful of cuss words she’d sling at me and put that bratty little punk in her place, it’d be me.

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E-mail the author at Francesca.ayala@gmail.com.