What is love? I have met in the streets a very poor young man who was in love. His hat was old, his coat worn, the water passed through his shoes and the stars through his soul.
~ Victor Hugo
"Wala akong mapin-point eh. Basta lahat gusto ko sa kanya," this was what a friend responded to me upon being asked why he liked the person he claimed he loved. "Kahit hindi ko alam lahat tungkol sa kanya, hindi ko alam kung bakit ako na-in love," he added. He claims he has loved.
During our Marriage and Family class, my professor used to tell us that Loving was not all about feelings; rather, it also entailed knowing your chosen partner and accepting him/her despite everything. Care, responsibility, respect, and knowledge must mediate between two people - these four values comprising what was known as the elements of love. With the absence of one, there would still be love, but less of its nature. Love minus either one of these equals a love that's immature and ingenuine.
"Kahit hindi ko alam lahat tungkol sa kanya, hindi ko alam kung bakit ako na-in love." He claims he has loved. This has been the kind of love young people know. Basing it solely on feelings, young people think that they have already loved when they have felt the kind of "spark" that puts butterflies on their stomachs. Being kilig and placing blushes on a young girl's cheek, they engage in relationships that are of short-term perspective but could be mistaken of as long-term. When the short-term thinker meets the long-term settler, expect a game of feelings and chances.
The "spark" occurs in the boy upon seeing the girl with long lashes, rosy cheeks and kissable lips. The girl notices the boy's stare and glances back with her long hair dancing with the gentle breeze. The boy begins to build a connection with the girl, searching for traces of networks until he finally gets a friend who belongs to the girl's circle of peers. The girl becomes aware of the boy's intent, engaging herself into girl talks with her closest friends and looking for "signs" that finally, he is the one. Finally seeing, hearing, smelling or feeling the "sign", she opens the door for the boy who has been trying to mark a footstep on her doorway. The boy courts the girl, the girl entertains. The boy sets a need in the girl's life. When the need has been settled, he succeeds - always (and in the girl's mind, forevermore.) The spark has turned into a glow, finally, a burning fire. The game is on.
The one who gets rid off the first "spark" wins. The one who has been left with the "spark" loses. The winning party departs the scene, and looks for another whom he could play his short-term relationship game with. The long-term thinker has been left picking up the broken pieces of dreams which she has made with, in and of the presence of her partner during the short-term game. What she has thought of a long-term relationship of commitment became a short-term relationship of games and chances. The game of feeling and losing the spark; the too-good-to-be-true-feeling of being needed by someone and chances of retaining it.
The boy and girl claim that they have loved. But not really. They have equated love with the "spark" - a mere feeling. The "spark" that have tried to retain care, respect and responsibility to each other. But there has been lack of knowledge - to the individual perspective that each has in mind while "playing" the game.
Being in a relationship is different from being committed: this is what has been overlooked.
"Wala akong mapin-point eh. Basta lahat gusto ko sa kanya." This is the kind of love that young people know. The love that is born of a "spark" until extinguished by the lame wind of immaturity and ignorance.
On a personal note:
So na-in love ka nga? :)
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