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Friday afternoon, walking underground to reach the subway, I was jamming away to some tunes. Then I heard a voice, and don't ask me how, but I knew it was directed at me.
Removing my headphones, I looked to my left, and saw a man. Sensing my confusion, he repeated himself
"(in tagalog) How you doin'?"
"(tagalog) Fine thanks. Yourself?"
"(Also fine, thanks.)"
I was impressed. His accent was spot on, and he sounded very confident in what he was saying. I thought he may be fluent.
"Your tagalog is excellent! Are you fluent?"
"No, not really."
"Well, either way I'm impressed."
"Actually, I do become fluent when I'm attracted to someone and I want to impress them."
A face that sets off gaydars the world over."Whoa...this is new." I thought to myself. Never had a dude hit on me before. As we reached the bottom step, he went to his right, I went the other way, and my oncoming train roared into the station, drowning out the awkwardness.
"Anyway, have a great weekend!"
"Yeah, you too."
You can see it in his face, the realization that I was not "his type". It sorta said "OK, I get it, you're straight." Not that I was trying to bugger him off, I thought I ended the conversation nicely, and deserve a pat on the back for being nice whilst yet establishing non-gayness.
And I guess it's cool to be thought of as attractive enough to approach. Still, kinda wish it was good-looking girl. Oh well, I'll take the ego boost.
A nice story I thought I'd share.
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Thief repents after 21 text messages
A Chinese thief has returned a mobile phone and thousands of yuan he stole from a woman after she sent him 21 touching text messages, Xinhua news agency said.
Pan Aiying, a teacher in the eastern province of Shandong, had her bag containing her mobile phone, bank cards and 4,900 yuan ($A800) snatched by a man riding a motorcycle as she cycled home on Friday, Xinhua said, citing the Qilu Evening News.
Pan first thought of calling the police but she decided to try to persuade the young man to return her bag.
She called her lost phone with her colleague's mobile phone but was disconnected. Then she began sending text messages.
"I'm Pan Aiying, a teacher from Wutou Middle School. You must be going through a difficult time. If so, I will not blame you," wrote Pan in her first text message which did not get a response.
"Keep the 4,900 yuan if you really need it, but please return the other things to me. You are still young. To err is human. Correcting your mistakes is more important than anything," Pan wrote.
She gave up hope of seeing her possessions again after sending 21 text messages without a reply.
But on her way out on Sunday morning, she stumbled over a package that had been left in her courtyard only to discover it was her stolen bag. Nothing had been taken.
"Dear Pan: I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Please forgive me," a letter inside said.
"You are so tolerant even though I stole from you. I'll correct my ways and be an upright person."credit:
Reuters
This past week, I walked into a Chapter's to calm my nerves and soothe my psyche. Walking through the fiction section, I noticed that every fourth or fifth shelf contained a batch of books coloured in hot pink, bright yellow, and orgasmic orange. What other book genre would boast such colours? Chick-lit!
What is chick-lit? Chick-lit is an abbreviation for "chick literature", or girly novels. Some examples would be the Shopaholic series, and the "Something Borrowed, Something Blue" books. I would even group in some romantic, dramatic novels, such as "The Time Traveller's Wife". Since I was bored with nothing to do, I picked some of them up and started reading a bit.....who am I kidding? I picked them up because I was insanely interested.
VS 
As a guy's guy, let me tell you: this is a no-brainer.
I admit it, I love novels that deal with issues that are considered girly: most notably, love, dating and romance. Unbeknownst to many of my peers and family members, I've read, and own, several dramatic novels that can be considered chick-lit (think again if you think I'm going to list the titles!).
Although the interest is there, I can't read the extremely girly books (the one's covered in the aforementioned colours). Not only because I'll have to surrender my balls at the register when I voluntarily pay for these books, but because they approach the topics of interest from the female psyche. Wanting to read a chick-lit, I was faced with a dilemma. So I did the only thing I thought I could do--I immediately went home and started googling "girly novels for guys" and putting in the appropriate queries on amazon.ca and chapters.ca. And I found some interesting things.
I stumbled across a blog of a (female) romance writer, who states that "22% of romance readers are male.", although the percentage of these male readers who are coerced into reading them by their girlfriends/wives is not mentioned. Second, in England, dick-lit, or "lad lit", as it is referred to over there, is a surging literary genre. Hence the rise of UK lad lit writer Nick Hornby, who wrote "About a Boy" and "High Fidelity", books that may be considered girly but approach the subjects with the male psyche in mind. Third, on amazon.ca, there are several guy readers who have posted their lists of favourite dick-lit books (I'm sticking to my own label for the genre).
It's great that there are more dick-lit books coming out, but..more, more I say! Hell, there are some of us that want to read up on all that dating/romance stuff too. We deserve it. And if you're laughing it up with the revelation that I'm a dating/romance junkie, suck my dick-lit.
