Equal Parts Fascinating And Fascinated

I have always been a skeptic of the so-called “love at first sight.”

Talk to me about ghosts, UFOs, or your craziest personal conspiracy theory – I’ll take your word for it. But please don’t talk to me about “love at first sight” unless you’re 90 years old and married to the random stranger you met in a bookshop.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, “love at first sight” just doesn’t exist, and so should “love before first sight,” but that didn’t stop it from happening to me.

Literarily speaking, there is such a thing as a “suspension of disbelief,” a concept which suggests that a reader should momentarily stop questioning a narrative’s reality (or at least its possibility of becoming a reality) and instead focus on enjoying it for its own sake. So suspend your disbelief for a couple of seconds: I fell in love with A— before I even met him in person.

Don’t ask me how. We met in the least romantic place on earth (it rhymes with “winter sweat”). Being two of the most stuck-up and presumptuous people online, we quickly bonded over prolonged discussions on religion, philosophy, and a lot of pop culture references in between. We exchanged numbers and made incessant calls and texts, during which time we got to know each other pretty darn well, or at least, as well as online-possible.

A— is a no-nonsense kind of guy. He says what he thinks leaving very little room for considerations. For some bizarre reason which escaped his usually-suspicious self, he singled me out as his confidant, and I, on my part, somehow just found myself hanging on to his every word. He seemed to me equal parts fascinating and fascinated. If you ask me now what we talked about on those first seven odd weeks of late-night Skype calls (never video calls; we abhor video calls), I won’t be able to give you a convincing-enough answer. Suffice it to say that he went from random stranger online to best friend to older-brother-I-never-had to potential boyfriend, and somewhere between all of that, I fell in love, regardless of how many times I tried to deny it.

When we finally decided to meet up, we were both terrified at the prospect, but we knew there was no other way. We couldn’t just go on calling and texting each other indefinitely. We had to know.

Because I had the better schedule, I offered to break sexist societal rules and visit him in Abu Dhabi (as opposed to the more traditional boy-visits-girl routine). I regretted my decision almost instantaneously. The two-hour-long trip was the most agonizing trip of my life. The ordeal was so emotionally draining that, by the time I arrived in Abu Dhabi, all I wanted to do was to get it over with as quickly (and preferably painlessly) as possible.

It’s such a shame, really. Just look how pretty the cityscape is!

A— worked for a company located inside a mall, so we decided to meet up there. Because he had work that day, he still had to go home and change, which meant that I had the privilege to arrive first. I was reading “Eat, Pray, Love” for the nth time when A—called to ask me if I was reading. I nearly (comically) dropped my book as I scanned the perimeter. Next thing I know, this beautiful boy, the very same one I’d been crushing on for a month at least, comes over and sits beside me. My sigh of relief took me completely by surprise. “The worst isn’t over yet, stupid,” I scolded myself, but I was relieved all the same. I guess there was a part of me that was afraid that he didn’t exist. But then there he was in his aviator sunglasses. He did exist. I was not crazy. I could not help but be relieved.

He said that because I was new in the city, I was entitled to a tour, and in the absence of an itinerary, I piped up the suggestion that we make a quick detour to his workplace. The walk proved to be a painfully awkward moment for the both of us, because I beg of you, what do you say to someone you’ve talked to until a little after midnight for seven straight weeks? He was always the more chatty one on the phone, so I never had to make much of an effort to keep the conversation going – until then. And boy did I say a load of crap, but it was either that or me running towards the nearest exit. I had to choose the lesser evil.

A—introduced me to his colleague with whom I exchanged nothing but the most necessary civilities with. I’d already been told what a dick he was, and as if to prove my point, he asked A— to cover for him while he went out for a cig. My date wasn’t even on duty anymore! Nevertheless, A—agreed because as soon as his colleague left, we had the whole place to ourselves to kid around.

The good news was, his colleague came back after 10 minutes. The bad news was, we had to figure out where to go next. I didn’t want to eat anything yet – my digestive system has a funny way of shutting down on a first date – but I did want to see more of Abu Dhabi. A— eyes me uncertainly and voices out his concern over my getting a sunburn. I had to remind him that I’d lived in the Philippines my whole life. I guess he wasn’t used to girls who were as negligent with their complexion as I was, but he seemed more than happy to hail a cab to take us to the marina.

The Abu Dhabi Marina was just a stone’s throw away from the picture-perfect corniche. It had an amazing view of the city’s most scenic skyscrapers. A— always pointed them out to me, and I always responded with a less-than-impressed, “It’s just a building.” We shared the marina with a few other people – late afternoon joggers, college students on summer break, and parents and their young kids sipping from their juice boxes. It was a great day to be out with an equally great guy. We went for a lazy stroll (cut short when we spotted two young lovers bickering), took turns taking photographs…

He even took this one of me jumping in mid-air — he knows I collect jump shots

…played 20 questions by the beach, and bet 5 dirhams over a friendly thumb wrestling match (nobody won).

We had dinner in a nearby open-air French restaurant which served food as awful as the place was pretty. A— paid extra to get us seats beside the water. I tried to talk him out of it, but he told me I was embarrassing him, so I stopped. I apologized, he accepted, and we laughed the whole thing off over the worst seafood pizza ever. We still had a lot to learn about each other. Besides our differing opinions on whether or not to pay extra for good seats, he managed to scarf down 6 slices of bad pizza, whereas I only managed 2 and simply stabbed the rest for shrimps. Our differences would take some getting used to, but it helped that we both had a good sense of humor.

After dinner, we walked back to the marina area where he asked for my hand. It took me approximately 5 seconds to realize what he was going to do next but by then it was already too late to run. He looked into my eyes and asked me to be his girlfriend. I looked down and made the tiniest of nods. And just like that, A— and I were official. To celebrate the more-comedic-than-romantic occasion, we walked hand in hand to the general direction of the fountains. There we invented a game with the objective of taking as many bad candid photos of the other as our cameras allowed. Needless to say, we freaked out a lot of children that night – two grown-ass adults running around like kids.

Tired after our game (which we agreed to call “photo war”), we crossed the road to the quieter side of the marina and sat on a bench overlooking the Emirates Palace. By then, it was already 8.30, and I had to take the 9.30 bus to Dubai. That was when he decided to take the trip back with me. It also soon became clear that calling his spontaneous plan “crazy” did the opposite of discouraging him. Defeated, I pulled him out of the bench and told him we had a bus to catch. There was a taxi stand across the street, and we made a dash for it holding hands. We laughed breathlessly once we were in the cab that would take us to the bus station. While he got the bus ticket, I got us drinks which he almost didn’t accept. Maybe he knew I was going to give him hell about chivalry being anti-feminist, or maybe he was just really thirsty after all that running. Either way, he sheepishly took the drink.

We reached our bus a little ahead of schedule. We picked seats at the back, and I like to think I got the best one in bus, because I got to sit close beside my boyfriend. I only wore the sleeves of my sweater, so it kept sliding down my arm, and A— had to keep pulling them back up. Like I said, best seat in the house!

When we reached Al Ghubaiba, A— asked a friend of his to pick us up and drive me home. This friend was a newly-arrived Egyptian expat from Saudi Arabia who was hopeless with a GPS. A— was helping him find a new place in Abu Dhabi, so he decided to return the favor by giving us a late-night lift. His friend’s idea of befriending me had a lot to do with questioning my national identity. “You don’t look like a Filipina. You don’t even sound like a Filipina. You’re supposed to say ‘My pren!’ and ‘Payb derham’.” I didn’t know if I should have been offended, but his comedic chops were spot on. The guy was hilarious. He parked his car down my building. A— insisted on walking me to my door. We hugged each other good night. And I did have a good night, whereas he had to crash with his old roommates, because the last bus for Abu Dhabi had already left. For some ridiculous reason, he was still the happiest stranded person in Dubai.

We made plans to meet that weekend too, but that’s a whole different blog altogether.