i love get-togethers. i love seeing my friends after long uneventful months at work. i have quite a small circle of friends and i don’t get to go out a lot, that’s probably one of the greatest reasons why. i want to stay in touch and know what’s happening in their lives. not that i need to know or they need me to be there for them but i just want to know what’s up with them. because of that, i always try to push dinners and day-outs be it my treat or other people’s. you could assume that i’d be “in” to whatever event there is that could get us to meet each other. i’m just like that. but i got a problem about being the pushy one. people will naturally expect me to have a good plan for the event and i always haven’t any.
i’m a poor host. i myself have no doubt about it. my friends are kind enough not to let out any remark about me trying to push get-togethers but having nothing in mind for us to do. but just the look on their faces tells me they are bored. whenever i see that look i always get to questioning myself what has gone to my head again.
i’m like a child when it comes to events and surprises. i’m very easy to please. quite embarrassing to admit, the phrase “it’s the thought that counts” must be so deeply ingrained in me that i live by it. my friends don’t really need to try to come up with something extraordinary to make me enjoy being with them. they could simply come over and laugh with me about random stuffs and that could be it. that is probably because it takes time for me to really consider someone a close friend and being my close friend means i’m totally comfortable having you around that you don’t have to do anything fancy or impressive.
the problem lies with having things the other way around. people aren’t the same even when they are friends. what’s pleasing to me may not be as much as pleasing to others. that makes me a poor host. i could settle with just about anything and i couldn’t get it out of my head that they could enjoy things just like i do but it doesn’t always work that way.
last time we had an all-nighter almost like for nothing. one of my friends adel, invited us out for dinner and we knew we couldn’t make it early enough for a good chat, ‘cause most of us would have to travel quite far to get to the place. there were eight of us in the dinner. i was one of the three people who got to the place too late for the buffet that we only had iced teas. that was pretty expected because it was almost ten in the evening. i, adel, and my girlfriend eunice planned the all-nighter before just so the opportunity of having everybody gathered won’t be wasted. the other five were hesitant. they all got other plans for the following day and we understood although we really want them to join us. one more decided to join us even though she had no clothes with her to change to and we thought that would be it. there would be four of us for the night and two more pulling the graveyard shift in ortigas will be joining three o’clock the next morning.
it was a pleasant surprise when the three people we just said goodbye to before we waited for our ride showed up again and said they decided to join us. i was already anxious then of what to do by the time we get to the house where we will be having the all-nighter. when they showed up, i knew things will be okay. like the overused phrase, the more the merrier.
not so much sensible talk happened that night but there definitely was a lot of laughing going on because of this movie title which meaning was changing as we were rearranging the words. they also decided to watch 28 days later on a laptop’s small screen but were too sleepy to finish the film.
the following morning three of us had to go early and i felt a little anxious once again if they enjoyed the night. not satisfied with my brain’s answer i decided to treat what’s left of us to the movies. we watched the devil inside. it was not shocking at all for me because of my high tolerance to thriller films having watched a lot of violent horror/thriller/slasher films at my early teens. but i guess they enjoyed it. that was what mattered most. on the way home my girlfriend asked me why i suddenly decided to treat them to the movies. i said i was supposed to treat everybody anyway because that was part of the original plan. but to be a little more honest, i’m practicing to be a better host i guess.
i. am. mark. 