Just a text away

It was a year ago during my social science class when somebody texted me "hoy!". For me and my friends, a “hoy!” is a friendly approach, so I, not really knowing who it was, did a quick reply for I thought it's someone I’ve known before. In a friendly manner, I asked for his name, pretending that I accidentally deleted my contacts but sadly, he refused to tell me.

I’m not a texter type but he gained my interest when he told me that I'm Marsha Tacadao from Tandag, Surigao del Sur and it was like "Shit! Who the hell is this? He actually knows me!". I was thinking that time that maybe he's just one of my crazy high school friends, trying to play a prank on me. Eventually, I did not stop texting him about his identity.

Later that day, I went back to the dormitory and told my roommates about it. We've got no stuffs to do, so our attention was blitzed to that mysterious texter. Me, Mariz Peralta and Hannah Talatala texted him. One of our questions was from what school he is enrolled in and he answered a good-sounding, prominent school and the abbreviations of that school became his contact name (haha). He also asked us the same question and we answered him as well.

He insulted the school we're enrolled in and we did insult his' too. Trash talks were exchanged from the both sides and we challenged him to tell us who he really is if he is indeed brave as a man. Still, we ended up not knowing him. It came to a hurting point for me that night when he told me that I’m very ugly, absurd and fat. For those who knew me for so long, they know that those words are my weaknesses. I cried hard that night, thinking that he really knew me. My roommates on the other hand, did tell him about my reaction.

On the following day, he texted me that he is very sorry about it. He confessed that he hasn’t seen me even in pictures and he got my number from his friend. I did forgive him and decided not to text him anymore. However, he insisted that we could be good friends and hmmmm, I accepted it.

He still refused to tell me his name but he gave me the initials of it. I now called him on those initials but still did not change the contact name I saved. He told me that he will tell me his name letter by letter, every after ten days. "What!? You think after ten-ten-ten days, I’m still texting a person I don't even know the name?" That was what I told him forcing him to tell me his full name (haha).

He confessed to me that he was not really from the school he mentioned but rather from a private college in the northern part of the Philippines and is taking up BS Architecture.

Basically, though I found this corny and fudge, we actually became textmates and FB friends. Through his facebook, I saw him and yes, he is handsome. We exchange messages almost everyday. Messages about ourselves, interests and we indeed discovered our differences like, I’m talky, he's the opposite; I’m mababaw, he's not; I like green, black is his preference; he's tall and I’m not; I laugh most of the time about these differences and he don't have any reaction about these differences. One thing we have in common is we're both slow (not poor) in math (haha). Also, we have the same interest on foods and when we talked about food stuffs, our tummies start to starve, craving for a delicious bite. We sometimes talk about delicacies and food we would like to taste someday. We even talk about restaurant-hopping in the near future.

We did not just ended up texting each other but we did drop calls. We talked random things, anything under the sun and anything which puffs out of our head. I still remember the time when he read me a book about mummies over the phone, until now I don't know why he read about mummies.

He's interested in astronomy and is updated with any breakthroughs about it. Though I’m not engrossed about it, I tried to tangle with it and he introduced me to the concepts of parallel universes, black hole and even promoted Discovery Channel's show Curiosity. Now, I’m actually a fan of the show and the science of astronomy. We also used to look at the night sky, texting each other and locate a common star. He's also interested in Sci-Fi and he actually made an out of the world Sci-Fi story about us. It is a Marsian story -- The Saturday Ice Cream.

Texting him became a daily routine for me. I’m used to have his messages in my inbox. Furthermore, to remain awake during hell weeks, I text him until I’m done studying and also, he texts me until he's done drawing his archi stuffs. This hobby did not affect me negatively. In fact, I manage to get good grades for my first two semesters in college; it did help me in some ways. In times that I’m down and discouraged, I have my friends, family and him who motivate me to try again and hit even harder.

As any friendship stories have this, we sometimes fight especially about opposing beliefs and principles.  Then again, we try to bring the craziness of the relationship back. Though this friendship had a hard start, the flow indeed became smoother and smoother until we reached this long.

We indeed became good friends. He is like my friends in the province. He is like my friends here in the campus. He is like a friend you can lean on. He is like a friend whom I used to be with for a long time. He is like a friend you have in your side for real, in 3D.

To him: Hey! It’s been a year and we haven't seen each other face to face. It’s been a year and we use to call this to each other: "Baliw!"