Just last night, I sort of ended my hermitage (break’s officially ending and not that I really took a serious day off work) with dinner and coffee with the peeps. Nice to see familiar faces for quite a while. As with our many meet-ups love lives. With several of us already in “stable” relationships, the single ones are always in the hot seat.

Anyway, somewhere along the many topics of conversation was one of us sharing a boy-hugs-girl moment with the following premises 1) girl likes boy and 2) boy just wants to be friends.

For some reason, my brain’s sign system seems to consist of pop culture references in the short span of . (Pretty f*cked up for a guy who’s working on critical discourse analysis for his thesis. No wonder I’m getting nowhere with it. Reading Gloria Arroyo, interpreting Gremlins. Sheesh!) Here’s how my brain pretty much worked that moment.

1. A movie quote that references hugs: Vince Vaughn’s character in Wedding Crashers circa 2005.

Janice, I apologize to you if I don’t seem real eager to jump into a forced awkward intimate situation that people like to call dating. I don’t like the feeling. You’re sitting there, you’re wondering do I have food on my face, am I eating, am I talking too much, are they talking enough, am I interested I’m not really interested, should I play like I’m interested but I’m not that interested but I think she might be interested but do I want to be interested but now she’s not interested? So all of the sudden I’m getting, I’m starting to get interested… And when am I supposed to kiss her? Do I have to wait for the door cause then it’s awkward, it’s like well goodnight. Do you do like that ass-out hug? Where you like, you hug each other like this and your ass sticks out cause you’re trying not to get too close or do you just go right in and kiss them on the lips or don’t kiss them at all? It’s very difficult trying to read the situation. And all the while you’re just really wondering are we gonna get hopped up enough to make some bad decisions? Perhaps play a little game called “just the tip”. Just for a second, just to see how it feels. Or, ouch, ouch you’re on my hair.

2. A cheesy song used as background music for boy-hugs-girl/boy-kisses-girl moment: Heroes by the Wallflowers. (Struggled to think of the exact movie this was used at that moment. Initially thought it was a 90s teen movie but Rish quashed that thought being the disciple of John Hughes and the “expert” on 90s teen movies. Turns out, it was in that ending to that enjoyably horrible football movie – The Replacements circa 2000 – where Keanu Reeve’s character was snogging Brooke Langton’s character. PS: Who’d have thought that the guy playing that pyschopath SWAT officer/linebacker would later on direct Iron Man?)

And we kissed, as though nothing could fall.

3. A reference to “the friend zone”: Friends by Bog circa 2003. (Sure the show Friends was the one that started the whole idea but Pinoy rock has its gems too. Hits home harder too.)

Ikaw, gusto mo lang ay “friends.” ‘Tang inang “friends.” Ayoko ng kaibigan…

And in my reverie, I missed out on the other details of the story.

Check out these other posts:

1. Pirates 3: Elizabeth Swann is overrated
2. Casino Royale is the Batman Begins
3. “Are you about to call me an a**hole?”
4. The best Batman movie ever
5. I paid Michael Bay to piss me off