Walking up to the manager of a famous commercial bank and inviting her to refer you to their big depositors in exchange for a hefty commission is no easy task. But that is just some of the things I do to build a strong client network in real estate. You see, as a licensed broker, I have to put on my most confident smile, in front of top bosses I saw for the first time and act as if I eat CEO meetings for breakfast.
I get rejected most of the time of course, but that does not stop me from reaching success. Little did I know that the same resilience will come handy in my love life.
Call me Dani. I’m part of a local initiative now known as the Nicotine Consumers Union of the Philippines (NCUP). It started as an idea my friend Anton had been talking about a few years ago.
In order to have equal freedom of expression, smokers should also be allowed to enjoy their adult vice. Given that they do not litter nor blow smoke into other’s faces. In fact, there are a lot of other vices with a very toxic effect on the planet and society. Illegal drugs poison and alter one’s mind.
It not only destroys the user’s body, but gives him false hallucinations that lead him to commit heinous crimes to another living being. Smoke belching is very toxic and deadly to living beings within meters of its vicinity. While garbage littering destroys the planet and kills everyone living in it.
Am I a smoker or a vaper? Nope. But I am living with my smoker mom and it has been a love-hate relationship for years. I am very neutral with smoking since it does not make one do criminal things and it does not poison the air like smoke belching does.
Thus I have been very lenient with her vice because after all, it’s her money and freedom. But at times she forgets, I have asthmatic tendencies and I might actually die if she smokes in front of the electric fan or beside me. And that is really, really aggravating and suffocating.
I thought my mom is the only smoker I will have to debate with, the rest of my life. Same mistake I made, when I thought sales is dominated by women. Spoiler alert: IT’S A MAN’S WORLD; so put on your BIG SHOES and stop being a cry baby.
So you can see why, I would rather dream of success and financial freedom than weddings. Nonetheless I always find myself attracted to healthy, tall and agile men. 11 years ago, when this tall, lean, new workmate was doing headstands and skimboarding to impress me; I let myself be impressed. He was smart, had the same principles as me, considerate, God and family oriented, physically fit, has alpha qualities and the list goes on. But he is so mysterious. He chose to sit on a desk beside me but would not talk.
He is friendly with everyone else though. Ugh, men and their confusing mixed signals. One day at a team meeting, he was sitting at the center and coyly laughing along with everyone else at a joke; he suddenly asked me: “Are you new? Why haven’t I seen you around?”
[To be continued…]
This blog is written for NCUP in partnership with DGiTalk.
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