Polaris Pax Deux

(This is not the Polaris. This is Shia Lebeouf, a talented actor.)


Four years ago I had a dream about a guy I’d like to call the Polaris. In this dream I found myself in a situation, that lead to a bizarre meeting where I felt like I joined “The Bachelor Show” and he was the Bachelor. At the end of the dream I was on the phone with a close friend demanding her to tell me who signed me up in the ridiculous show. She said I shouldn’t get mad because it was the current trend for men of his status, and I was already included in top three finalists. Even on that dream I did not have any interest in participating in such a weird dating game.
Who is this Polaris, you might ask. I had a crush on him when I was eleven years old. It was with him that I first started to rationalize my infatuations. Before I met him, I used to like boys based solely on their attractiveness; I was too shy to get to know them and to even come near them. When I met Polaris I instantly like him, but I also decided it’s better if I know why.
He is the first minister’s kid whom I’ve met who is the same ages as me. He is friendly, calls everyone older than him “kuya” and “Ate”, looks after his younger siblings and hold doors open for women. They were in our locale during a drought and he still brought cold water out for us kids right after our choir practice. I think those are the reasons I liked him, because he is a nice person and it showed in his actions and demeanor.
I remembered the time I asked him to fill out my autograph book. It was one of those small notebooks that only asked for Name, phone, address, favorite food, sports, likes and dislikes. I think I was afraid that if he filled out one that asked for his crush or love, it would not be me, because even at that time I was very sensitive about rejection. He filled it out after 10 minutes and even though I’ve since burned that autograph book along with other relics of my childhood, I can still remember that his favorite food was spaghetti and fried chicken, his favorite sport is basketball and he was born seven months before me. I can still remember how that little note with his handwriting made me feel butterflies in my stomach every time I read it.
When they transferred I thought I’d never see him again but I did, because we went to the same high school, although we were never classmates. I still admired him from a far even though up close I was borderline rude and uncouth. Yet he went out of his way to say hello to me, ask me how I was doing wedged in between the bushes near Aydes Eatery. Somehow he must have realized I often stalked him, but he is such a nice guy that he never told me in my face how creepy I was.
I only wish that in the seventeen years I've known him, I took the chance to know him as a person. He was always this larger than life ideal, statuesque entity whom I admired and feared at the same time. Which is silly because he wasn't really a celebrity, we went to the same school, ate at the same cafeteria (although different schedules), had the same teachers and knew the same people. I think maybe, because I idealized him so much, I was content with looking at him and admiring him from afar. Maybe I was afraid that if I talked to him more and I discovered more things about him, he would cease to be the ideal man. In this way I think I have succeeded, as my image of him remains as untainted and pristine as it was seventeen years ago.
This is why I never considered him as my first love. I admired him from afar and what I felt for him may just as well be what I felt for Matt Damon or Joseph Gordon Levitt. I was just his fan, happy to bask in his glorious awesomeness once in a while, happy to find out that he still knows me after not seeing each other for the past ten years. I said I wish I knew him as a person, yet I wonder, if given a chance, if I would have done things differently.