By the time I turned twenty-four, I had everything they said a woman should want.
A career that made people tilt their heads and say, "Wow, you're really doing something."
A wardrobe built on clean lines, neutral tones, and the occasional silk blouse that made me feel expensive.
A LinkedIn profile more active than my dating life.
And a walk that turned heads, even if my eyes never turned back.
I was, as one guy once said, "a little intimidating."
He said it like a compliment, but I knew better. That word was a mirror. It meant: You're beautiful, but I'm scared you don't need me. You seem like you already figured it out.
He wasn't wrong.
I had become excellent at curating myself.
Witty on first dates, articulate in awkward silences. I knew how to laugh at the right times, tilt my head just so, sip my wine like I wasn't already scanning for red flags.
I could read a man's intentions by the way he held the menu. If he asked the waiter "What's your cheapest wine?"—red flag. If he spoke Taglish in a British accent—redder. If he talked over me the entire meal and made no eye contact with the server? I'd signal the end by ordering dessert to-go.
Dating in your twenties in the city feels like an audition you didn't know you signed up for.
We all pretend we're not trying too hard while trying harder than ever.
Everyone is performing.
Everyone is slightly detached.
We match on apps with perfectly filtered smiles. We write clever bios with just enough irony.
We go on dates that feel like interviews disguised as intimacy—same questions, same stories, same shared laughter that doesn't quite reach the eyes.
I learned to play along.
First dates were easy. I could talk about books I half-read, podcasts I only listened to the first fifteen minutes of, current events I skimmed on the subway.
I told them just enough about me to seem open. Never enough to seem fragile.
I wasn't lying.
I was editing.
Sometimes we'd meet in Bonifacio, other times in hole-in-the-wall cafés tucked behind Quezon Ave. Once, a guy brought me to a rooftop jazz bar in Poblacion that overlooked the city like it was something worth falling for. We drank whiskey on the rocks and talked about childhood fears and capitalism like we were philosophers who never had to pay bills.
Men said they loved that I was "driven." That I "knew who I was."
They liked me for the same reasons they'd later leave—when they realized I wouldn't melt in their hands or chase them down the street if they pulled away.
The truth was, I wasn't looking for love.
Not really.
Love, as I knew it, was a gamble. And I was done betting on things I couldn't control.
So I dated for the company. For the stories. For the illusion that maybe, if I kept trying, something might eventually stick.
I downloaded apps during slow Sunday afternoons, swiping between bites of leftover turon, with a glass of red wine in hand and lo-fi playing in the background. Some part of me liked the game. The surge of dopamine with each match. The power in choosing who got access to me.
But even when things went well—even when the dinner turned into drinks, and drinks turned into tangled sheets—I always left before the sun came up.
I didn't want to see what love looked like in daylight.
I wanted to keep it brief. Beautiful. Forgettable.
And so began the parade.
Men with nice smiles and unhealed wounds.
Men who read Bukowski and called it therapy.
Men who loved the way I held myself until they realized I wouldn't fall apart for them.
Some lasted a week. Others a few months.
But none of them ever got close enough to see me naked beneath my confidence.
I became familiar with the sound of unanswered texts. Learned to laugh off ghostings with friends over overpriced coffee. We'd toast with caramel macchiatos and say things like "Men are trash" or "Baka busy lang siya." But we knew better. We always knew.
Because no matter how many dates I went on, or how many arms I woke up in, the door inside me—the one that closed the night my father left—remained locked.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I'd wake to the buzz of my phone and find a message: You up? or Missed you today.
And for a moment, I'd feel wanted. Not loved, just…wanted.
And I'd debate—respond or stay silent?
Most times, I didn't reply.
Not because I was proud. But because I was tired.
I filled my calendar with work, events, deadlines, check-ins, and mentorship programs.
My therapist—yes, I finally got one—once asked, "And when do you rest?"
I blinked.
"Rest?"
It felt indulgent. Like softness was something I hadn't earned.
On Instagram, I looked thriving.
Pinned down and polished in every post. Corporate events. Conferences. That one trip to Palawan with the team where I held a coconut and smiled like I wasn't checking Slack every ten minutes.
But at night, my makeup off, bra unclasped, lying in bed under a single dim lamp, I felt like a well-decorated apartment no one really lived in.
And sometimes I wondered…
Was I protecting myself?
Or punishing myself for needing anyone at all?