By DUFFIE HUFANA OSENTAL

Discussed: Missing thesis-mates, an unhealthy attachment to the ’90s, and giving slackers a chance

The Waldos of My Life

He was perpetually stuck in the 90s, with his fashion of wallet-chains, baggy pants and loose, Metallica t-shirts. Though one can tag him a clown for his unbending admiration for that decade (and mind you, many did), Charles Tui instead garnered my admiration simply because of his overt academic callousness: he just didn’t seem to care about his scholastic failures. Always one foot out the door (out the door being kicked out), he was known as the epitome of a terminal student – a slacker – taking the bare minimum number of units to balance the number of accumulated failing grades so he could stay on for what seemed like an eternity. I used to call him a career shifter and it was a running joke among fellow History majors that he’d run the gamut of the different departments of La Salle, from Computer Science, to Development Studies, to Literature, to Philosophy before settling down and majoring in History, thus affirming our department’s status as the sludge-basin for the unloved and unwanted. His blank face and nonchalant willingness to do anything for a passing grade drew him to me as a potentially excellent thesis partner, filling the role of pack mule to my Sancho Panza. I had promised him a perfect score, so long as he did anything and everything I told him to do. He just wanted to graduate.

And so it happened, decked out in slacks and starch white shirts, that we successfully defended our research—although Charles had to endure the suspicion that his intellectual contributions were negligible.  I kept my promise: we indeed passed with a perfect grade and even got the damned thing nominated for a best thesis medal. He insisted that we celebrate in a parking lot a few meters away from the campus with some of the special brownies he’d brought for the occasion. We did.

I never saw him again after that. No, he didn’t die—at least I hope he didn’t. In the intervening years after college, he sort of disappeared from my social radar, like Amelia Earhart but with a bad haircut. He changed his cellphone number, deleted his Friendster account and never had the good sense to keep in touch. Perhaps he returned to the 90s, to be among his idols like Kurt Cobain and Shannon Hoon. Perhaps he grew out of his baggy attire, finally realizing that it’s time to put away his slacker college reputation and move on to a place which simply doesn’t include his old thesis partner and erstwhile friend.

In short, Charles Tui fell off from the face of the Earth.

THE DISINTEGRATION OF A TWO-WAY STREET

I’m sure there are many of us who lost count of all their friends they just don’t see anymore. It may be for a myriad of reasons—and it forces one to examine the meaning of friendships. I once asked someone if I was really her friend or merely someone she worked with, and thus fooling us into believing that the thin threads of commonalities that bind us are stronger than they really are. She replied that she always regarded us as friends, although my resignation ended that charade. I suppose it feels good to know that we have friends to count on—as long as we still work in the same office that is.

So what is one to do? Rely on a certain amount of shared history? My closest friends are the ones who’ve seen me through my neurosis and all, bearing it with patience that I’m guessing only true friends possess. We reminisce about the past and it’s fun talking about the old times and our former selves. But what then? I rarely have anything in common with many of my close friends nowadays, save for that shared history. Lock us in a room and it’s likely that all we’ll talk about is high school, bullies, and the idiots we’ve crossed. What about growth? What about the music I’ve discovered since Third Eye Blind, the books I’ve read since the Communist Manifesto, the number of personas I’ve put on and stashed away?

Of course, I’m also not immune to being edged away as well, often meeting old acquaintances at awkward social events because Manila is so small. On good days, I learn something new about this person and she or he learns something new about me. On good days, I’m amazed at the extent of how a person can change for the better. On bad days, I’m slightly horrified that I was ever friends with a douchebag.

I THOUGHT WE HAD SOMETHING

“Last I saw him, he hadn’t yet graduated. He still had one unit to finish – Chem Lab – and he completely forgot to take it.”

I had that to work with that statement about Charles, culled from the memory of a mutual friend. Another told me that Charles was now working for his family hardware store, which was surprising because I really had no idea he was the scion of a hardware empire. Charles was always the guy who was invincible in a game of Command and Conquer, not the proprietor of screws and plywood. I shouldn’t be completely stunned though: his one foray into entrepreneurship I’ve witnessed was when he printed and tried to sell t-shirts with the Friendster logo. Jumping on the social-networking bandwagon (even though he didn’t have a Friendster account at the time), he approached the endeavour with the same callousness he gave his undergraduate studies, with a predictable result: minimal sales. He barely gave a shrug.

In between thesis writing and Command and Conquer sessions, there would be small windows for which I was able to glance inward at his soul. He was a profound person, which he masked with an air of dispassion. Our conversations ranged from current events to his views on historic milestones, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of Adolf Hitler. Through the cigarette smoke he exhaled, he would sleepily describe why he thought medieval France’s role as regional superpower was unsustainable. Then, we would go back to my house to write our thesis.

It was through those fleeting chats that I thought we were laying the foundations of a lasting friendship—not exactly the deepest of relationships but one built from common interest and a shared experience of contributing new research to the world. Fuck, I thought we had something.


FROM THE PAST TO THE NOW

I find it difficult to believe that Charles simply used me to finish his thesis because I genuinely feel that we were friends. Is it too late for us? Three years ago, I wouldn’t have cared as much. Now that I’m my late 20′s, it’s increasingly harder to say “Fuck it” and dissolve what were once fairly-close friendships. I’ve come to realize that there must be some way to initiate reunions with lost acquaintances who made enough of an impact to contributed to the parts that make me human—and maybe in some way discover my own impact on their lives.

It’s been a good seven years since I’ve graduated from college.  And I’ve done many things since then. I’ve lived with religious brothers; worked a night shift; been to the Nou Camp; won a Palanca; and wrote a play. I’ve never stopped playing Command and Conquer, so I think I’m much better than when I was still a snot-nosed Lasallite dragging his blank-eyed thesis partner to the brink of graduating. I left him at the finish line and never looked back.

But now I’m looking back. So Charles Tui, if you’re reading this, let’s meet up. We’ve got loads to talk about.