bloodletting and boyfriend-mongering

i decided to donate blood on this day after christmas, when the glazed ham (my favorite holiday food!) is still pumping through my veins along with so many other food items that i had indulged in the night before. they say donating blood not only helps people in need of blood, but it also improves your own health.

it's my third time to engage in this noble activity, and this time, one of the blood drive specialists was a woman in her sixties (her name tag read EVA) who asked me (right after i had filled a bag with my own blood from a needle embedded in my left arm) if i was filipino. i mumbled yes, and she followed up with "do you speak tagalog?"--to which i replied, "siempre po."

it turned out she was from the same island as i was--panay. her province of aklan is beside my own province of capiz. she looked at my donor identification sheet and noted my surname, then declared she has relatives with that same name. she thereafter narrated her story of coming to america and how she petitioned her siblings to migrate here as well. i tried my best to look genuinely attentive as i propped myself up from the cot and regained my energy.

and then the conversation sauntered off into her relative who had asked her to find him a girlfriend here in the states. my inner radar sent off warning signals, and i could not believe my ears, but i knew it was coming--this lady was trying to set me up with a man. a lady i had met but five minutes ago, and the only thing we share in common is the dialect we speak. oh, but it gets worse! this man she wants me to "befriend" is in his FORTIES and has grown kids! and--eva added that he just had his marriage annulled because of his adulterous wife--as if this piece of information would pique my interest in her efforts to play cupid.

i declined her suggestion by politely stating that i'm not interested in getting married yet...that i had other plans at this time and things i wanted to do first. in my mind, i was muttering, "ano siya, sinusuerte?!" much as i felt offended by her gesture, i did not show signs of it out of respect to the elderly. perhaps her true intention was merely to "help", but i truly did not expect to get a proposal for courtship by proxy at a blood drive! surely, i did NOT come to that place with a sign that read, "have blood, need boyfriend!"

the universe is playing mean tricks on me....