Dear Diary

As mentioned in this post, I managed to unearth some old journals I left in Surigao and Manila. Since I arrived back to BangCock I've been reading through them and had been continuously fascinated at how much I discover about myself when I was 14, 17, and so on.

I even ended most of my entries with a prayer to my guardian angel or something and that kept my eyes rolling as I went through the entries.

One particular journal stood out from the bunch though. Written within a span of nearly two and a half years (the first entry was in 2001 and the last was 2003), it covers my post-university days, particularly when I moved to Davao and then when I lived between Cebu and Surigao.

The first part mainly recorded my initial attempt at job-hunting. These were long, idle months, hence, I had the time to write about all the most mundane stuff on earth. And then I eventually found a job, explaining why there was a six-month gap in the entries.

I resumed writing in the journal when I had my first brush with, ehem, love. *Insert "Psycho" music here.* Well, particularly when I was heart-broken, which I touched on in this and this entries. Now this is where things became a bit more cringe-inducing when I read the entries a few days back.

I was YMing with a retired blogger (you know who you are!) about my reaction to the old entries and I told him that the main, BIG realization is: "Damn, the bayot has not changed!".

I was supposed to post here some lines from the journal to prove my point, but I digress. It's revealing way, way too much. I don't want to go into the details either.

Simply put, I could've written the exact entries down to the last word to describe how I felt a year ago, the last time I grieved over losing someone. *Insert "Jaws" music here.* I could even say the same thing for all the three times that I had my heart broken. Now that's a span of like six years, but my style is sooo last, last, last, last season it might as well be vintage. Sigh.

I also happen to have in my hands right now my old love letters with the second guy who broke my heart, and I also have my hidden blog to record the third instance. *Wince, wince, wince while rolling on the floor.* Ok, given these records, I tried to assess my relationship pattern.

And so when I was YMing with Retired Blogger (my personal process queen), I said that there seems to be a trend in my "relationships" (I could not help but put the quotation marks), or at least how they ended.

Without going into specifics, consistently it appears that they're a compendium of me being taken for granted by these men, or not being loved in return, or me not being in their priority list.

Always, and I mean ALWAYS, I just walk away without fuss, knowing very well that I cannot push my self down other people's throat. Begging is definitely out of the question. And well, the post-break-up part is a major story of its own (which I shall write about in the future. That too has a clear pattern.)

I'm curious if indeed it's very difficult to break relationship habits. I haven't talked to that many gay men about their relationship patterns, but I wonder what theirs would be if ever they have one. Or do they even bother to examine their past?

I just happen to obsessively document things, hence, I have something to look back to. But still for most people it would not require a found journal or a secret blog to plot their patterns. Why don't you tell me about yours?