Must Blow 52: Gabo Reinhardt.

For more than two months I have been going out with a woman named Emie. She is an old friend who separated from her husband middle of last year. She kind of fell out of the group when she married. I semi-fell out from the group for a different set of reasons ---work, Rachel, Quincy.

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We got in touch again around Christmas, when my social-romantic life sort of fell apart. I returned to the fold and was accepted with open arms by the group. Emie and I would join the group for dinner, movies and shopping. However, since we were the only singles in the barkada, we were paired at the dining table, on the aisle seats of movie theaters and walking behind our other friends as we wandered around malls.

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Since late February, we have become comfortable in each other's company that we would go out on our own. Just us. Our other friends would kid us about our "date" but we have never used that word. Sometimes, I would take her out with her kids.

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I am not yet sure what my intentions with her are. She sure is attractive, I even harbored a crush on her some eight or nine years back. But I know I am tinkering on unchartered waters. I always remind myself to take caution, not to give signals that may be misinterpreted. I like her, sure, but I have to make myself certain on where I want this relationship to head. She is in a delicate condition ---might even be vulnerable--- I don't want us to rush into something that we will regret.

Anyway, that dilemma isn't really the point of today's blog. So I am stopping my ruminations now and turning to the topic I really have in mind.

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Last night I was waiting for Emie to get dressed. I fetched her at her house so that we will only take my car when we meet our other friends for dinner. Buddy, one of our friends, was celebrating his birthday at a Japanese restaurant in Quezon City.

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As I waited for Emie to get dressed, I sat at the sala and leafed through some of the glossy magazines on the center table. One of the magazines lying there was the September 2007 issue of the local Cosmopolitan. This particular issue had the infamous insert of the magazine's 69 Hottest Bachelors and 10 Celebrity Centerfolds. I wrote about it last year. However, I never got to buy a copy of the issue.

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Emie arrived just five minutes ahead of me so I knew that I had enough time to leaf through the insert. The pull-out, after all, was soft-porn. I looked left and right and made my ears keen for any footsteps coming to my direction. The coast was clear and so I extended one hand to get the Bachelors' pull-out.

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I leafed through the Bachelors' pull-out for about three minutes. Sensing and checking that Emie still wasn't ready, I looked through it a second time.

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One thing that I got from this risky adventure is that I was finally able to get the name of the male model I have the hots for. I have been seeing him in a lot of TV and print commercials and I was curious to get his name. I don't what I'll do with his name, I just wanted to know it.

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And the name was there on print: Gabo Reinhardt. The guy with the long mane appearing in the Clear commercial alongside Piolo Pascual. The same guy in the Lee denim billboards and other local campaigns.

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Cosmo identified Gabo as a young student from Costa Rica who travels around the world to model in order to support his studies. The Philippines is but a stop-over in this man's journey.

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Earlier today I googled the name "Gabo Reinhardt" to find out more about him and get more pictures. His Cosmo picture flaunted his wide chest and taut abs. I wanted more of roughly the same. Or something more daring and revealing.

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To my utter surprise, my search brought me hits of images, likeness, data and files of "Gabriel Garro". Some sites identified him as Gabriel Garro Reinhardt. He represented Costa Rica in a Mr. International competition but lost. The exposure, however, opened doors to an international modelling career.

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I have featured him here last year, a guy I mistook to be a model or actor from Brasil. I pasted his photos on my blog because he very much looked like my much-coveted personal trainer. Wow. I almost sang It's a Small World. Gabriel Garro and this model are one and the same!! Gabriel Garro is in Manila!!!

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My heart was leaping. As if I had any chance. He he.

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Anyway, since yesterday I have not had enough of Gabriel. I have his semi-naked pictures as the wallpaper of my phones. In my mind he is presently my boyfriend. Since I am not monogamous, he is one among many, including Tyler Lough, Chace Crawford and Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

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-----ooOoo-----

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A Final Say. Getting hold of a hard copy of the Bachelor's issue gave me the opportunity to closely scrutinize the scandal-making appearance of actor Dingdong Dantes. When the issue came out, a lot of blogs and tabloids speculated that Dingdong's pic was cropped and photoshopped to perfection. Some even suggested that it wasn't his body after all.

Looking at the photo closely, I found it odd. Dingdong's head was a little too large for the body below it. His chest too wide for the torso below it and his legs looked like they belong to a woman. He looked like a tarsier, if I may be blunt. It was ugly and disappointing.

What is the point of commissioning real-life actors and models if the magazine will only end up printing wax figures and anime cartoons? All that cropping and photoshopping did nothing to make Dingdong ---and Cosmo--- look any better. If at all, it only showed the insecurities that the actor had with his body and the magazine only reinforced such insecurities.

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