JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

I will begin my answer with a story.

When I was in the sixth grade I had a seatmate named Isabel. I forget her last name but I do remember that she was a sort of tomboy. She seemed to be struggling with herself and was in constant need of attention. I believed myself to be a good and virtuous eleven-year-old Catholic boy and I resolved to bear the brunt of her inexplicable tantrums. I thought that it was my Christian duty to befriend her and make her feel at ease.

One day she demanded that I show her where I lived. I saw nothing wrong with this so I led her to my house. “This is where I live,” I said upon reaching the entrance to our building. Then I sent her off for it was lunchtime and children in my family were not allowed to bring guests home without prior permission.

One Saturday afternoon our maid announced that I had a guest. “It’s Isabel,” the maid said teasingly.

“Where is she?”

“Surprise!” Isabel said as she climbed up the stairs. I was aghast. She had broken our family protocol. No guest is allowed in our third floor living room without prior clearance. Apparently she had followed the maid when she’d been told to wait for me to come down and receive her.

Not forgetting my manners, I instructed the maid to buy some snacks. The maid gleefully obeyed.

“So why are you here?” I asked. I was peeved because I was looking forward to a fun-filled afternoon alone with the television.

“Oh nothing,” she said, “Just want to hang out”. She jumped onto the sofa and put her feet up on the coffee table with her shoes on. I was scandalized by her casualness. We did not display such casualness in our own living room. But I said nothing.

“What do you want to do?” I asked politely.

“Do you have a movie?”

“Yeah, but can we watch it after Shaider and Maskmen?”

She began to exhibit the beginnings of a tantrum.

As host, my training demanded that I pop in the betamax.

Thirty minutes into the movie, which I loved, she declared, “This is boring. Let’s go out”

“I can’t just go out. I have to ask permission.” Protocols must be observed.

“If you don’t want to go out, I’ll go home”

“All right, you can go home,” I said with great relief.

She went home in a huff.

Her sudden visits became a weekly nuisance. She would pop in inconveniently on Saturday and even Sunday afternoons. She interrupted my siesta and afternoons with my family. She would even insist on joining our family activities, which I would oppose vehemently by stalling her in the third floor while my family’s boisterous laughter floated down from the fifth. She was invading my life and my privacy.

One Sunday afternoon there was a party in our house. It was my grandfather’s birthday. The maid informed me that Isabel was at the gate between the first floor and the mezzanine.

“What are you doing here?” I asked without bothering to hide my irritation.

“I just want to see you and hang out,” she said as if it were her right.

“We have a party going here. There are lots of guests.”

“I want to come up.”

“I can’t let you come up. I will not be able to attend to you because I have all my cousins here too.”

“Where will I go?”

“You can go to the twins’ house.” Our classmates, who were twins, lived a few blocks away.

“I don’t know where they live.” It was an obvious lie. Everyone knew where the twins lived. “Why don’t you come with me?”

I was incensed. “Are you dense? We are having a party here. They will be looking for me. I will get scolded.” She was teary-eyed but I was tired of her drama. “I don’t want you to come to my house ever again without an invitation!”

She stood silent on the other side of the gate. She turned around and slowly walked down the stairs. I turned around and went up the stairs without giving her a thought. Cake and ice cream were being served and I wanted a third helping of lechon.

Two weeks after my display of rudeness, our class seating arrangements were changed. We never spoke to each other again.

What can we glean from this experience? The first thing I would say to women on the prowl is: “Lay off”. You may say that it’s the 21st century. Women can go after the men they like. That is unnatural. No decent (since decent is what you are all looking for) man will truly desire a woman who goes after him with such doggedness. That woman would only be a nuisance.

We, and by ‘we’ I mean males, want to pursue and not be pursued. We have our own little world, our rituals, our hobbies, our quirks, which we greatly treasure and would only abandon for someone we think worthy. When we are interested we take three-hour bus rides to see you, use up all our prepaid call cards to hear your voice, stay hours on the internet to wait for a chance to chat with you, and even use our vacation leaves so that we can fly to wherever you are.

To all lovely women out there, do not make it easy for us. Just be your beautiful, confident, intelligent, successful and friendly selves and let us do the chasing. Difficulty and challenge make you valuable – a worthy prize to be won. Allow us to make a large investment of time and money in you. Only those who truly persevere in the quest to win you are worthy of you.