When I was a kid, I remember getting into the babiest of fights, one of which was a pinch fest when I was in fifth grade. It started during recess because my classmate and I were arguing as to who the tallest boy was in class. Out of God knows what, he suddenly pinched me because I said it was neither of us, so instead of throwing him a punch, I leveled by returning a pinch. Like oversized crabs, there we were, exchanging pinches only to end up crying several arays later – on the floor.
That was ages ago and I’d like to extend a belated apology to all those kids who witnessed such a lame waste of their recess time. The lesson there was to choose a proper fighting style. Pinching is the road much traveled if you intend to lose a fight and mess up your reputation.
Confusion is a hard sport
A quick warp to freshman year in high school: It was P.E. time and there we all were playing indoor sports. The siga bros went for basketball because A, it was the cool guy sport, and B, there was only one actual basketball at the time, while the rest of us nerds resorted to painful volleyball.
Before we could quit said sport, a soccer ball randomly rolled in my periphery and I went straight at it and began kicking it around. I kicked and kicked it, and finally gave it one big kick in the air out of pure yabang. I proudly watched it arc in the air nicely, smiling even, before it – yes, hit the chief bully on his head – BOOM. The ball hit his head several courts away, causing his head to dip down like a turtle back in its shell. I could see his eyes turn evil as he went after me, pushing me upwards because he was only 5’2”. He yelled “T*ngina mong g*go ka, bakit mo ginawa yun?” and all I said was “You think you could just be like that to everyone.”
Huh? Exactly. I didn’t know what I was saying. Lesson: Confusion is a hard sport to play. The next time you fight, simply stay in context during conversation. Breathe, then breathe some more. Then, unload some simple sentences. I could’ve just replied, “Because it was an accident. Sorry, dude,” instead of trying to correct his bullying ways right there.
Your Baon or your life
A few months after, I got into more siga trouble because I would write smack about my classmates on my blog. I would say stuff like this guy had “too much gel in his dumb cowlick hair” or that this chump didn’t deserve this girl because he was “fat, ugly, and mean” when I was only bitter she wasn’t my prom date. I didn’t know they read my blog. The next day, they told me to delete my blog entries or they’d steal and eat all my baon. I didn’t bring baon that time so they stole my pencil case.
Quick lesson: Stop hiding online like a sissy. Get things across as much as you can offline if you have to. Or just chill out in general.
Too serious to live
College, on the other hand, was like Glee on drugs. Every a**hole was at their prime, and everyone tended to get hurt way easier than ever. I was the latter. Story-wise, I recall a time during a debate in a Socio-Anthropology class where the topic was gender superiority: Were guys better than girls in this and that field and vice versa? I did what I could for the guy’s side, extolling the advantages of physical strength and emotional endurance. But when I started considering that there was gender equality, a bear-like blockmate of mine started shouting “p*ssy” and “emo” at me over and over to my face – with saliva shot add-ons.
Who cares, right? I did. Not only did I care so much about being called p*ssy” and “emo, I even went up the platform and decided to call the guy out on everything he did wrong in general – he was “arrogant” and “treated emo people unfairly.” And not only did I humiliate myself by carrying the flag of emos everywhere, I also successfully branded myself as too serious to live.
The fight ended with me getting the girl’s applause but I still feel bad I let my own bros down. Lesson: If you’re too touchy about being labeled as something, then you are probably that something.
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Tweet at this bro @ralphmendo.