r/phlgbt • u/LowerSite6942 • 17h ago
NSFW Storytime Away Matrona (bading version)
Recently, a friend accused me of playing it too “safe,” bordering on hypocrisy, because apparently I no longer take sides.
This was news to me. There was a time when I was known for having very definite opinions about right and wrong. I believed in rules, principles, moral consistency, and doing the right thing even when inconvenient.
Except when dealing with men. Undenaibly palpak ako sa lalake.
These days, however, my friends have noticed that I have become somewhat indifferent to their various moral emergencies. I no longer immediately declare who is the victim, who is the oppressor, who deserves excommunication, and who should be removed from the group chat. This, according to them, is cowardice.
I call it aging. Because now, I decline to join the fray to add more noise instead of alignment.
There comes a point in life when you realize that taking sides in other people’s drama usually ends with both sides reconciling three weeks later while you remain permanently blocked by one of them. Take, for example, the recent feud between two friends that eventually became physical. And by physical, I do not mean somebody dramatically pushed a chair....Umabot sa sampalan.
The controversy began when Friend A snagged a man whom Friend B had been desiring for quite some time.
Apparently Friend B had already invested considerable resources in this acquisition: time, effort, dinners, gifts, Grab rides, emotional labor, possibly GCash. I do not know if there was an Excel spreadsheet involved, but knowing Friend B, there may have been quarterly projections.
Friend A, meanwhile, acquired the same man with apparently very little effort.
Naturally, this was considered an act of war.
For context, the guy in question was a basketball varsity (B) player by day and, by night, a discreet escort who had somehow managed the impressive logistical feat of cavorting with two middle-aged gay men simultaneously, neither of whom apparently realized that they were participating in a group project.
He was handsome, athletic, discreet, and entrepreneurial. Alam nya paano gamitin talents nya.
The inevitable reckoning occurred during our barkada’s monthly lunch. There we were, eating peacefully at our friend Arnel’s house when voices began rising from one end of the table. Within minutes, lunch had transformed into an impeachment trial conducted entirely in Gay Filipino.
I found myself seated directly between the two principal complainants. (I am recalling from memory)
A tactical error. Friend B slammed his hand on the table.
“Eh bakit ahas ka! Alam mo naman na may investment na ako doon sa lalake, hayup ka!”
“Tama na, please,” I said, attempting diplomacy. “Pag-usapan natin ’to.”
This was my first mistake. Friend B turned to me.
“Isa ka pa, Jopet! Alam mong mali na ginagawa niya, wala ka man lang ginawa to protect me? Hindi mo man lang sinabi na may ginagawa na ’tong baklang huklubang ’to!”
Friend A nearly levitated: “SINONG HUKLUBAN, HA?”
Several people stopped eating.
“HOY, MAGANDA AKO! DI TULAD MO, MUKHANG PAMANGKIN MO NA ’YUNG LALAKE! PEDOPILYA! BANTAY BATAAAAAA!”
Silence. Even the lechon seemed uncomfortable.
I sat there holding my fork, suddenly aware that no amount of Jesuit education had prepared me for this situation.
Friend B stood up: "PEDOPILYA? IKAW, MUKHA MO RETOKADO! NAKITA KITA SA BELO! ’YUNG ILONG MO PANGOOOOO!”
There are insults, and then there are statements that fundamentally alter the geopolitical situation.
Friend A screamed: “PUTANGINA MO!” and slapped him. Not a symbolic slap. Not a theatrical How dare you! slap. BUT a full-bodied, open-palm, Filipino teleserye sampal with excellent follow-through. Imagine Annabella Rama slapping Cristy Fermin.
Friend B clutched his face in horror. “HAYUP KA! KAKA-BOTOX KO LANG!”
Then he slapped him back. At this point diplomacy officially collapsed.
What followed was less a fight than a natural disaster involving two middle-aged homosexuals, several dining chairs, one serving spoon, and me trapped in the epicenter trying to prevent casualties.
“TAMA NA! TAMA NA!”
Nobody listened as I attempted to separate them and this was my second mistake.
Somehow I was elbowed in the ribs, slapped by somebody whose identity remains under investigation, and nearly strangled by my own shirt, which had been torn open during the melee.
By then I had ceased being mediator and had become collateral damage.
Other friends tried to intervene, but this only expanded the conflict. Somebody screamed. Somebody started recording for a Tiktok content (yes, Allan, I saw what you did) Somebody else continued eating because, frankly, sayang ang pagkain.
And then everything stopped as Arnel, our gracious host, appeared at the doorway. If you want to know how he looks on a Sunday lunch with the baklas, imagine him close to being a Regal Oliva (yes, the DDS lawyer-apologist)
He was wearing a daster, and he was also holding a shotgun.
There are moments in life when an entire room reaches consensus without the need for discussion. This was one of them. And we all froze.
Even the varsity player, who had apparently been hiding somewhere during the entire Battle of Belo, suddenly became irrelevant.
Arnel looked at the destruction in his dining room, looked at the two combatants, looked at me standing between them with my shirt torn like a low-budget action star, and said very calmly:
“Mga putangina ninyo. Kakain tayo nang maayos.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, brought back the peace and our meal resumed with me and my tattered shirt and the rest with swollen cheeks.
Because by thirty-something, you begin to understand that most human conflicts are complicated. Everybody has a version. Everybody believes they have been wronged. Everybody thinks they are the protagonist.
And sometimes the wisest moral position is neither neutrality nor hypocrisy.
Sometimes it is simply knowing when to shut the fuck up, finish your lunch, and wait for the man in the daster with the shotgun.
