Hearts of (a few) Men, Part 2

Sans Expectations

IF there was one person whose love story had left a deep mark upon my core beliefs in life, then that would easily be Aaron. He had a heart bigger than John’s (please see previous post); ironically, this same big heart had caused a huge vacuum in Aaron’s spirit. I still carried with me the thought of his new-found credo, a credo that no-one, in my opinion, should subscribe to. But Aaron does, and who could blame him…?

AARON was a tall, physically fit, slightly balding, but strikingly handsome Englishman who just turned 50-years old. He was a solicitor from London who decided to retire from his profession immediately after his divorce. He thought, at the time, that he’d had enough of being a lawyer in a city known for its perpetual damp and dreary weather. With his lifetime savings plus the money he got from his ex-wife who bought out his share of their beautiful home, he flew to the Philippines to turn over a new leaf.

Starting life anew, for Aaron, meant investing in a business he knew nothing about. He was, for the most part, encouraged by his pals, three in all, living in the Philippines. Two of these pals, Kyle and Dude, were multinational executives assigned in Makati; the other one, Brent, a former law school classmate, had made the Philippines his second home.

Brent was also a Brit, twice-divorced, from a well-off family who’d rather “pay” him just so he’d stay away from England. Aaron’s best pal, Brent, was the black sheep of the family and as such, a constant source of embarrassment for the stiff-upper-lipped clan. Through Brent, Aaron met Emmalyn. She was Brent’s Filipina girlfriend.

Emmalyn was in the local real estate business. When Brent took her to London once for a month of rest and recreation, they met Aaron many times for dinners, drinks, and gabbing. As Aaron was in the final year of settling his marital dissolution – and very depressed and confused – the smooth-talking Emmalyn managed to earn Aaron’s admiration and trust. He thought how lucky his pal was to have hooked up with a smart woman. In conjunction with Kyle and Dude’s persuasive tales of the nonstop sun and fun Aaron could have in the Philippines, the wily Emmalyn goaded Aaron to invest in her most ambitious project, that of land and subdivision developing.

When Aaron flew to the Philippines, he thought he’d never return to England again except for brief visits. He sold all his assets, from stocks to his car; even his law books! He burned his bridges in his homeland as he imagined the good life he would have in a developing country.

Aaron sunk in all his money, a little over £1,000,000 (over P80-million pesos as per the current exchange rate at the time), to finance Harmony Homes (not the real name of the company, like all the names of the people here have been changed as well). And as the paperwork for Harmony Homes were being prepared with Emmalyn fronting as the majority partner, Aaron had the time of his life.

Goodtime Girls Galore

AND he did have the time of his life!

Aaron, accompanied by his pals, became a regular patron in the clubs and bars in Makati. He could not believe how easily the guest relations officers (GROs, euphemism, of course, for sex workers / bar girls) did fall in-love with him. Aaron felt absolutely loved when he, even without the company of his compatriots, had cruised the clubs in Makati and all the working girls – those without customers to entertain – flocked to him as he entered the threshold, as feathers to tar. It had not occurred to him that buying for them a ladies drink or two, at P450 a pop, was what made him popular and lovable (the word ‘sucker’ did not enter his mind). But when he met 23-year old Charmaine, the ‘star’ GRO in his favorite club, Aaron suddenly stopped bar-fining / bedding the goodtime girl of his choice for the night, every night, week in, week out. He had found the most attractive lady of the night, one who could satisfy his amorous and erotic needs.

After paying a huge bar fine for Charmaine, he took her away from the club scene. They beach-hopped for six weeks. They had fun and sun – from Boracay to Palawan, from Bohol to Davao, from Guimaras to Boracay again.

Returning from their holiday, Aaron did not allow Charmaine to go back to work as GRO. He wanted her to continue her college studies. She agreed, but with conditions. First, she did not want to move in his Ayala Alabang condominium unit. She said it would break her parents’ heart if she lived-in with a guy, especially a foreigner. She said that Aaron must also support her family as she was the breadwinner while she went back to school; she could only spend the entire weekend with him if she was to concentrate on her studies.

Aaron could not say yes, yes, yes, oh, damn yes! fast enough. He was, to say the least, under Charmaine’s thumb.

Pizza, TV, Sex, Sex, TV, Pizza

AT first, Aaron thought that such an arrangement with Charmaine was neat. While she was in school during the day on weekdays, he could, at the same time, focus on work and business. In the evening, while she did her schoolwork, he could join his pals as they cruise their favorite nightspots in Makati. So, that’s what he did.

Reality, however, started to sink in as Aaron found more time for business. He discovered what every investor in the Philippines, foreign or local, finds: the labyrinthine business documentation process. The process – too innumerable to mention – was so slow it was like watching a young coconut peel its husk itself. Even when he gave Emmalyn the go-signal to grease the necessary palms – and there were quite a number of them especially in the government licensing divisions – the progress of Harmony Homes moved tediously.

With all those issues swirling in his head from Monday to Friday, Aaron, naturally, shared his concerns with Charmaine. He thought he could get some form of input from her. But he thought wrong. Not only did she give him a blank expression as he outlined the outrageously slow progress of putting up the business, she also drowned out his complaints against Philippine bureaucracy with her favorite telenovela!

Aaron tried to justify Charmaine’s attitude. She was young and perhaps a bit immature. She had no interest in any kind of business; or perhaps she had no interest at all in anything he said? Once or twice, she had made a comment so stupid that he chose to ignore it. But then, he thought about it later. Charmaine was a college student, not a high school freshman. As such, he said to himself, she must have some sense of what was going on in her country. Then he paused, eyebrows knitted, and thought about Charmaine’s course. A four-year secretarial course! In Great Britain, secretarial skills were taught in three months. Aaron could only shake his head; he downed the single measure of Scotch whisky he had poured for himself and took a deep sigh.

Eventually, his excitement over weekends with Charmaine had become less and less intense. It had become routine; a routine of sex, TV and pizza. Since neither of them knew how to cook, they depended on home-delivered fast food, pizza being their common choice. As for TV, while he recoup his strength from their bedroom acrobatics, she watched local shows – and with boisterous emotions. She rooted and hooted loudly, as if watching a live ball game, while watching noontime shows, game shows, telenovela, even gossip shows. Aaron began dreaming of his previous sane existence in London with its famous dismal and dreary weather.

And then he met Ginette.

“A Filipino Woman Like No Other”

IT was through Ginette that I learned about Aaron’s circumstance. She was pretty, petite, smart; a youthful-looking widow who was three years younger than him. She owned a few businesses, all small ventures but consistently in the black over the past few years. Ginette and Aaron met in her office at the Makati business district. She was scheduled to transfer her office in Ortigas Center; he was sizing up Ginette’s office as possible location for Harmony Homes' main office.

Little sparks, although very subtle, flew during their initial meeting. They had lunch that day; midday coffee the next, lunch again the day after that. They were certainly headed to have dinner and breakfast together if only Aaron could cancel and reschedule his flight back to London. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, really, he could not forgo his trip. It was business-related. He needed to raise money in England because his business venture in the “land of nonstop fun and sun” was bleeding his blood dry.

During the 15 days that he was on the other side of the globe, he kept constant touch with Ginette. He was so infatuated with her. He could not believe, as in could not really believe, that there is a Filipino woman who possessed so much knowledge, info, and wit between her ears. Aaron thought that the country’s female population was represented by the likes of "empty-headed" Charmaine and her colleagues, and money-grasping Emmalyn and her female office staff (all, one way or the other, relatives of Emmalyn).

It was also during Aaron’s absence that Ginette learned all about Charmaine.

Widow’s Ego

“SO,” I said to Ginette, “tell me.”

“I don’t know where to start,” she said as she took away her dark glasses and exposed the lack of sleep in her eyes, “I was shocked when he confessed about his girlfriend last night.”

Aaron had been calling Ginette, night after night, for hours on end, from London. His call must be costing him a small fortune but he needed, obviously, to connect with Ginette.

“You’re apparently smitten by him.” I smiled. “Even your office staff can tell.”

Ginette managed a smile but she looked at the door of her private office to check if it was shut tightly against eavesdroppers. “He wanted to be my boyfriend.”

“What did you say?”

“I said yes but on one condition.”

“Yes?”

“He will have to break up first with this young girl, that’s all.”

“What did he say?”

“Yes, he was for it. He said weekends of sex, TV and pizza no longer had any appeal to him. He wanted someone with whom he could discuss serious stuff.”

“Also someone who could give him free advice with regards to the ins and outs of doing business in the Philippines, right?” I said, a bit cheekily. “Or someone who could lead him into the right circle of people to facilitate the solutions to his business woes?”

Ginette laughed. “Don’t forget: someone who cooks well and only watches the news and the stock market channels.”

“Are you serious, Ginette, about this Englishman? You’ve only just met him!”

“It was you, as I recall, who advised me to give love another try?” She was obviously on cloud nine. “So, I will give it a try. It isn’t every day that a lonely widow like me gets to meet a gorgeous-looking – ”

“He’s bald.”

Ginette laughed again. “Just slightly balding, which was becoming. Gives him character.”

I stopped making comments. I hated deflating anyone’s ego, Ginette’s especially. It was clear that the extra sparkle in her eyes was due to Aaron’s amorous attention. So if she was happy, then good on her. We parted, Ginette and I, with her in high spirits. She was counting the days when Aaron would be back in Manila, out of Charmaine’s arms, and into Ginette’s.

Trophy Girlfriend - Not

AARON had suggested to Ginette that she pick him up at the airport when he returned to the country. She declined. She reminded him of their agreement, that they would only meet again after he has broken up with “the girl,” as Ginette liked to refer to his girlfriend.

He arrived safely, called Ginette from the airport as soon as his plane landed, and called her again as soon as he arrived in his Ayala Alabang condo. After that, four days of utter silence from Aaron followed. No telephone call, no e-mail, no office visit, not even one lousy text message. On the seventh day of Aaron’s arrival from London, Ginette took a few days off work. She needed to brood and sulk and feel like an utter reject amongst the heap of sorry rejects.

Aaron, she said, chose his “stupid, shallow, two-timing bar girl” over her. “But I am not at all surprised, you know,” she further vented. “What can you expect from a middle-aged man? They need to prop up their ego; they need to have their virility revalidated by a girl over half their age; they need a trophy –” Ginette faltered. She could not bring herself to say the words, trophy girlfriend, because in her opinion, Charmaine did not qualify as one.

Ginette nursed her bruised ego over a long period of 144 hours.

Heart’s Expectations

NOT very long after Ginette has bounced back to her old, happy, optimistic self again, I discovered the minute details of why Aaron dumped Ginette. Looking back to that day, I would perhaps be disinclined to hear what I heard, and know what I now knew. But as destiny would have it, I was given another little glimpse of real life, another peek on the other side of romance…

Aaron, on the second day of his arrival from London, called Charmaine on her cell phone. He wanted to see her; he wanted to discuss their break-up. Charmaine answered the phone, said she was at home and she was busy doing a writing project, and can they not talk that coming weekend? He was not happy with that brush-off. She had not seen him in over two weeks, and yet, there was no indication that she missed him. Didn’t she say she loved him?

On impulse, he went to where Charmaine lived. He had never been invited by her to come to their humble house, but he had taken her home many times, in his car, and dropped her off the street corner. He knew their house number so it was not a problem. However, Charmaine was not at home. Her relatives living in the house said that she had been out since morning.

Aaron turned the car, intending to drive towards Makati. He would have gone to the bar where he met Charmaine. He was so incensed at being lied to. But as he turned the corner, he saw Charmaine. She was walking with a young man, his arm possessively resting on her shoulder, Charmaine giggling softly and coquettishly. There was no question in Aaron’s mind that there was something going on with Charmaine and the man.

When Charmaine looked up, she saw Aaron in the car. She went very pale. Aaron drove on, teeth clenched, fury rising up within him. He had no idea how he got back to his residence as his mind was in total turbulence when he saw Charmaine with another guy.

Charmaine arrived at the condo within the next couple of hours. She was in tears as she hugged Aaron and asked for his forgiveness. She was so fearful that Aaron would break up with her. If he did, how could she go to school and feed her family at the same time? She said she did not love “that man” that Aaron saw; said she only loved Aaron, and could love no-one else.

Aaron hugged her back. “It’s all right,” he said to Charmaine, “I forgive you. I love you so very much, you know that.”

* * *

As Aaron finished relating to me his side of the story, he must have felt the rather thick and palpable contempt that oozed from my direction. I did not have to voice out what I thought of his naiveté.

“You can call me anything and I will not contest it,” he said.

I toyed with many names in my mind for Aaron: fool, blind, crazy, mad, stupid, idiot. I did not say any of them. I wasn’t there to judge him, just to listen to his justification for turning his back on Ginette.

“I realized that it is Charmaine who I really love when I saw her in someone’s arms. I was absolutely frightened of losing her!”

A hint of smirk must have crossed my face.

“You write about love,” he said, “so can’t you at least understand that what I feel for Charmaine is love at its purest?”

“I write about romance, not love at its purest. I write about fairy tales, with happy endings and feel-good resolutions.”

“And mine doesn’t have a happy ending?”

“It doesn’t have any feel-good element in it. It’s all wrong, but I’m not writing about Charmaine and your love story.” How do I tell Aaron that love was obviously one-sided in his case?

“I’m happy. I have my weekends with Charmaine – ”

Yeah, I said to myself, weekends of sex, TV, pizza. How exciting!

“ – And the first model houses of Harmony Homes are being erected as I speak. But, of course, problems at work keep on cropping up. Emmalyn keeps on asking me for more money for the business. She has forgotten her promise to me that I’d start earning on my capital after a year. I wanted to cash out but obviously, I can’t.”

I let him vent for a few more minutes. Writers are used to listening to people telling about their lives, even to endless whining. Then Aaron checked himself and apologized for talking at length about his woes.

“But,” he said after a pause, “I have a new formula, or maybe call it my new motto, for not getting overly disappointed.”

How?

“I realized that I will be happy and contented in life if I stopped expecting anything from anyone. Like with Emmalyn and my office staff, all her cohorts, by the way. I shan’t expect them anymore to deliver what they’re supposed to do and accomplish. With Charmaine, even if I love her to bits, I have started not to expect anything from her as well.”

“Not even her being faithful in exchange for your generosity and, uh, well, love?”

“If I live a life of no expectations,” Aaron explained, “I will not be disappointed or frustrated because I have no expectations of such in the first place. It’s how I plan to live my life while in the Philippines.”

We parted, Aaron and I, with a heavy, heavy load in my chest – for him.

While I admired the kind of selfless love he had for Charmaine, I totally disapprove of his ‘living a life with no expectations.’

If men or women were to go by their day-by-day activities with no positive expectations of anyone or anything, is that not the saddest and emptiest kind of living? And if men or women were to live without expectations of any kind from anyone or anything, would that not be tantamount to a life without meaning, without joy, without – well, life itself?

Hearts of men and women should not, must not, beat without any kind of expectations – jubilant, ecstatic, dismal, horrible, triumphant, ad infinitum. Living life with expectations, whether positive or negative, is what drives one to try either harder or hardest.

I feel so very sad and sorry for the hearts of a few men or women that beat in tune with that of Aaron’s.

(picture from www.leehansen.com)