What I Wish I Knew Before I Turned 22: I Need Men in My Life

I had my first real heartbreak six months before my college graduation.

Here’s a quick rundown of the events: girl meets boy, girl and boy become friends, girl falls for boy, girl misreads all the signs, boy friendzones girl, girl breaks her heart single-handedly – the classic (pathetic) case of unrequited love.

Shortly after a few nocturnal tear-jerking sessions, I did two things that would seemingly define me for the rest of my life. First, I threw my whole self into my school work (resulting to my graduating as summa cum laude – thank you, crush). Second, I inwardly swore to myself to never need a man in my life again.

Not that you’d ever know.

To an outsider, I kept up the appearance of being as boy crazy as ever. I continued to fan girl over the likes of Ryan Gosling, Channing Tatum, and yes, even Pierce Brosnan. When I was out with my girl friends, I would point out the nearest cutie in secret agent-style (“Quick! Hot guy in navy blue shirt at 2 o’clock!”) And up until recently, I was the patron saint of online dating.

But that was just it – casual. And I intended never to let anything boy-related advance beyond the line of personal vulnerability.

On my first year of teaching, the editor of the school paper asked me to write about feminism. I don’t think she ever figured it out for herself, but I was sticking my neck out for her when I agreed to write the article. I was not just the new girl in school; I was the new, fresh-out-of-the-university teacher in a conservative Catholic all-girls school. When I did my undergraduate thesis, I deliberately shied away from using feminist literary theories for my theoretical background, not because they did not impress me (Simone de Beauvoir’s Le Deuxième Sexe was so impressive and so French), but because I believed for some time that it was impossible to be both Catholic and feminist at the same time.

I took what was then my new writing assignment (handed to me by a high school senior girl) very seriously. I did my research after work hours (something I did not mind in the least as it brought back many happy college memories in the library) and came upon Pia de Solenni’s doctoral thesis on Christian feminism. De Solenni used St. Thomas Aquinas’ feminist theories which posits that true Christian feminism respects the woman’s essential identity as an image and likeness of God (see the Book of Genesis) and sees her differences with man as both constructive and complementary.

“Uh, honey, I know you’re right all the time, but… All right, never mind.”

Did you get all of that?

It was never a question of gender superiority or even gender equality. There are undeniable gender differences, and man and woman would do themselves and the world a favor by complementing each other (“I’ll unclog the sink. You make me a sandwich.”), instead of competing with each other (“Unclogging the sink is a life skill. Anybody can make a sandwich.”)

In a conscious effort to drive the point home to my high school students, I mentioned Jennifer Lawrence’s and Emma Watson’s differing ideas of feminism before presenting authentic Christian feminism, and I sincerely hoped that they subscribed to the latter.

Even as I myself subscribed to none of the above.

Deep down, if I were to be completely honest about myself, I stubbornly clung unto my post-heartache vow to never need a man in my life.

Yes, writing that article ended up being very hypocritical on my part, but it also made me realize that I was finally shaping up to be an adult – Do as I say, don’t do what I do.

Yesterday, my friends invited me to go on a road trip to the deep south, to a little known place called Aguinid Falls in the tipmost town of Samboan. The trip caravan was composed of an all-girl dream team: 3 high school teachers, 2 college students, 1 fresh university graduate, and 3 apostolic celibates. I think that the driver, Mang Danny, was beyond emasculated.

I had no idea then, between alternately sitting through a 4-hour drive and complaining about my butt cramp, that the day would culminate in the breaking of a vow.

We left the city a little after 8 in the morning, and after a quick roadside lunch, arrived in Samboan at 12-ish. From the main road, the dream team proceeded on foot. The place was packed with Labor Day vacationers who reeked as much of the city as we did. A local – male, early 30s, looking every bit a Samboanon from top to bottom – approached us and asked if we needed a guide. Luckily, somebody in our group had the foresight to say yes, because I would most probably have haughtily refused the offer.

The Aguinid Waterfalls is famous for its 5 levels. You start from Level 0 and work your way up. I ignored our guide’s warning; he explicitly told me that I had to leave everything behind, because I was going to get wet all over. By Level 2, I felt like kicking myself. It was just so me to disobey explicit orders, and I was about to pay the price by saying goodbye to 2 years’ worth of savings from my measly college allowance – my Ipod. Fortunately, one from our dream team chose to stay behind Level 2 when faced with the challenge of a rock climb to Level 3. It was she whom I entrusted my little Apple baby with.

The rock climb wasn’t that bad, once you got the hang of it. The rock that you had to climb, a massive round of a monster, had convenient holes in it for your hands and feet to slide into and keep you from slipping. Did I mention that a light to moderate water current also flowed down even while you were trying to climb the rock? But, like I said, it wasn’t that bad, even with the drizzle that obstructed my vision. It reminded me of the many times I went wall climbing. I just scaled my way up and made a mental note to thank one of our own who stayed behind.

From Level 3 onwards, the paths just became perversely more difficult than the last. By then, all of us had completely given up all hope of dry underwear. From the waist up, we were soaked from the rain; from the waist down, we were wet from wading through anything between 2 to 4 feet-leveled, limestone-murkied water. On the upside, we started to see actual waterfalls as opposed to the shallow and narrow rivers from the lower levels. We stopped by mini falls and allowed the current to massage our backs. As much as we wanted to stay, our guide urged us on by promising us a better view of the falls from the top, from the much-acclaimed Level 5. And so we persisted.

There were paths that required not just the assistance of our guide but even from other men – other waterfalls guides or even just fellow visitors. Many more monster rocks needed climbing, but without embedded chinks for the hands and feet, we needed to be pulled up by a pair of strong arms, masculine arms.

It no longer occurred to me to look at these men. Had I done so, I would doubtless have sized them up based on their faces and their upper arm strength. No, to me, they were all the same. Their masculine presence meant support and rescue were near. It was okay not to know where to put my hand next or where to rest my feet on. It was okay to be weak.

Now, please don’t take me out of context. I am neither telling you to lock yourself up in a door-less tower nor be a self-imposed damsel in distress. We women have certain strengths. We have a discriminating eye for details, we have the so-called female intuition, we can multitask and breathe, but as much as we want to be right all the time, we must acknowledge that, for most of us who are not bodybuilders, our long list of strengths does not extend to the physical kind, the kind that we need to pull ourselves up monster rocks to get to the fifth level of the waterfalls.

After being the grateful recipient of at least twenty different displays of masculine physical strength (and it pains me now to admit that I had to accept more help than my more agile companions), I rested my legs on smooth stone slabs and related my feminist revelation to my friends. “This is exactly what God has been talking about in the Book of Genesis! Adam and Eve! The complementarity of gender differences!” I don’t know if any of them actually understood me, as my explanation was disorganized, fragmented, and breathless, even to myself.

When we finally reached the elusive Level 5, I stood frozen on a spot that gave me a wide-sweeping view of the entire Aguinid Waterfalls. I stood there for a good few seconds before actually wading my way below the falls. I first wanted to admire its greatness and the greatness of the masculine strength that helped me to get there. It was a very humbling experience, and though it lasted mere seconds, I promised myself I’d meditate on it on the way back, another 4 hours of butt cramps going to the city.

It’s true what they say about work and rest: the harder you work, the sweeter the rest. Nothing could compare to the feeling of the waterfalls pounding on our worn-out back muscles. I even had the crazy idea of turning my face upward and getting a “falls” facial, but it was crazy from the beginning. We stayed a bit, chatted about mindless things to enhance the natural spa experience, and before long, we started the long descent back.

The way down was a lot easier than the way up, for obvious gravitational reasons. When in doubt, I simply slid my way down, and for once, felt good about having a butt. Most of the time, I didn’t recognize the paths, even when I supposedly took the same ones going up. They always looked different, because there was always a traffic of people, some still dry and headed up, and others like us, soaked to the bone and headed down. I found it all very disorienting and exciting, until our group reached the monster rock. To my childish delight, I found that the exact same holes I used for my hands and feet going up doubled for my butt going down. One of the dream team (and the least I expected to quip anything remotely dirty) dubbed them, “Butt holes.”

It was past 8 p.m. when we saw the blinking lights of the city, and I was more tired than I let on. When I got home, I marked a red cross in my mental ovulation calendar. I thought that it was only fitting to have my first day of menstruation after a day of meditating on the complementarity of gender differences.

And as to that vow I made a long time ago? I broke it off. I need men in my life, and admitting so does not make me any less of the strong-willed, fiercely independent, Christian feminist of a woman that I am. It does not make me weak or desperate or any of their negatively-connoted synonyms. What it does is make me humble, accepting, human… and woman.