B. M.

J. O. R.

G. C. V.

They are the people I've known back in high school to be weird, sometimes despised by many (probably because of their weirdness). The first guy has been thrashed and sworn at by my classmates many times for his impish behavior. The second one is a mesomorph known for his eternal love for reading books and yet he told me he has never bought one for himself. He just borrows. I catch him often reading a novel in total abandon under his desk during math class, which eventually places a heavy toll on his grades. He is hardly seen hanging out with friends at vacant periods, or walking toward the classroom with buddies beside him. The third one is as interesting as the second. He's a narcoleptic bibliophile, a computer and anime geek with few friends, walks with an autistic gait which we all thought was very funny at the time. In class he tries to fight all the pleasing stimuli that might put him into sleep. But he fails at each attempt. And whenever he's caught, we naturally got tired of him saying the usual no-sir-I'm-just-thinking excuse.

I remained good friends with the three of them all this time, despite the oddity I saw in them. And it produced good results as I had expected. My other 'cool' friends sometimes ask me why I'm making friends with them. I didn't know for sure but I just felt good about knowing them more personally. It's like the thick barriers between me and these three people were broken down and we connected all of a sudden.

My narcoleptic friend has eyes like that of a woman. Very beautiful. Especially when you make him laugh.

On our graduation ball, right before I left the night party, B. M. gave me a dozen roses. He told me it was his way of thanking me for being a very good friend to him. I treated him as though he was as respectable as the rest of my classmates. He said I was the only person who called him by his first real name, which I didn't know --until that time-- how much it meant to him.

During math class, J. O. R. wrote me a very beautiful letter. I have always admired him for his great talent in writing. If I may add, he says, "The first time I saw you and got to know you, I somehow knew – maybe I was told by lost angels – that you were special. But then, when I truly got to know you, I shook my head, and thought, you’re not just special. You're one of a kind… You gave me a brighter view of life, something to replace the dark spectacles I wore to watch everything around me….”

In his second letter to me the following year, he studied my personality and described it to me in a very stylish manner. After four years, I realized he may have been right about me – cheerful and sociable on the outside, but on the inside, I'm just an adult, alone and emotionally subdued, with thoughts "kept in the innermost recesses of [my] soul, forgotten voluntarily."

I still have his letters with me.

It may sound like a loser, but real beauty is found on the inside. So it pays to know people more deeply because one doesn’t see real beauty by just looking at them.