The boyfriend could laugh and roll his eyes because I'll be heading to Malate this weekend.

The Sagada trip we were planning had to be postponed because he fell ill and needed time to recover. I initially declined a friend's invite because of the weekend trip, but now I could go join the weekend faggotry. YAY.

I have another friend whom I was talking with this afternoon. I brought up the Malate thing and invited him to join us. This friend recently got himself a boyfriend (the first truly serious one -- good for him); his boyfriend will be out of Manila this weekend so my friend asked his boyfriend if he could join us in Malate.

At first I teased my friend that I never had to ask permission from any of my boyfriends to go anywhere. (Likewise, they don't need my permission if they're going someplace.) Then my friend said it was because we're going to Malate. Ah.

I understood what's behind it. Malate (specifically the Nakpil-Orosa area) is the most prominent gay district in Manila. The place is a known haunt of fags who wanted to let their capes down, dress up, party, and maybe hook up with some cute guy. My issue with the place is all the preening, strutting, putting one's best foot forward, checking out, and general superficiality and pretentiousness of gay men who wanted to impress each other -- hopefully for a lay. Plus I don't dig gay dance music.

On the other hand, I've known gay friends who've had arguments with their boyfriends because one went to Malate without the other. Single men go to Malate hopefully to get boyfriends, but once they've found boyfriends they are likely going to avoid the place.

The place smells of sex -- or the need for sex -- you'd be daft not to notice it. It's seedy in a trying-to-be-glamourous-but-mostly-just-tacky sort of way, what with the garish neon lights and mostly overdressed people. But for most people the place is for sex. Or rather, the possibility of sex.

So I asked my friend, the place isn't all about sex and hooking up, right? I told him that I think fags with boyfriends generally avoid the place because hooking up is probably all they ever did while they were single and they don't know what else to do there. Boyfriends probably are worried their partners will forget about them while in Malate and flirt with other men -- isn't that sad?

People find the place seedy without realizing that they might have contributed to the seediness and that kind of denial disgusts me. It's not like anyone forced them to whore themselves while in Malate. Being there, eventually, was their choice. What they did there was their choice.

So on Saturday I'll have drinks with friends, maybe drag them to Penguin if there's a gig, laugh quietly at the depressingly optimistic overdressed fags who are hoping to find their One True Love. Who knows, maybe they will?

Maybe I'll flirt with someone, if there was anyone who could last more than ten sentences in a conversation. Not that it'll lead to anything. Eventually it's mean and pointless: few guys could compare with boyfriend, and I'm with him for the long haul.

But I'm sad we had to postpone going to Sagada.