I wanted to write something mushy - a love story that would probably make whoever is reading it want to wish it was her own love story. I wanted to share something inspiring, something totally cut out of a Shakespeare romantic piece minus the tragedy. I wanted to write something about how beautiful life is when shared by two people in love. I tried, been trying since that day I decided to write a love story. It has been more than a decade now, I’m still trying.
During one of my disinterested yet passionate discourse with a ver y good friend, we surmised that our problem is that, we have idealized love so much so that, what we have accomplished so far in this aspect is nix, nil, non, nada. What we do have are bits and pieces of what we believe love should be - committed, faithful, unwavering, transparent, a complete surrender of one’s self to another without counting the cost, without fearing the worst, with a happy ending even Cinderella would envy. In other words, everything that love in the 21st century is not - you know text-based, mobile phone connected, cyber very flexible to the point of entertaining everyone who may want to hop on and join the fun. But the thing is, love is not a noun, and so adjectives do not describe them well.
Love is a verb and so adverbs describe it aptly. Imagine having to do all those crappy stuff when you’re in love like informing your boyfriend where you are, who you are with, what time you went home, what you had for dinner, geez even the time you took a bath etc, etc, etc and asking the same questions all over again if you belong to the male species. Well, the list goes endless if you harbor the green green stupid machine - the jealous chu chu monster. Yup, love is one bitchy freaky verb and whoever said that love sees beyond the physical is either a hypocrite or an idealist jerk who’s rationalizing his or her insecurities. Because no matter what, the physical aspect is your first line of defense and or offense.
Yup chracter comes in third, because the hard-hitting smashingly smart brain is second when it comes to attraction and then love. (Arguments at this point is a welcome opportunity for all those who may want to realize that, hey this writer may have some point after all!) 
So you dress up well and a great outfit with matching great comfortable shoes requires a huge dough. Good if your parents are rich, good if your wealth is oozing like the hot springs of Camiguin (I love local stuff), and the accessories like paint err make up, cleansers, moisturizers, weekly visit to the spa, and for the totally extreme, a regimen of NOT eating what you like in portions you prefer, and going to the gym to shed off excess stuff. Who needs to do all these and more? Answer - EVERY HUMAN BEING GIVEN THE CHANCE! A real no-brainer if you ask me.
Still, love according to my relg 4 professor (mr. soliman) is a disease. (hi sir!)It’s like a viral illness that has an incubation period. And no matter what antibiotics you take, the virus stays in your system and there’s no way in heaven’s name that you can get rid of it. Puzzling enough, it disappears when you least likely expect it, just about when you and the virus have become so close! Then you wake up one morning and then it’s gone. You end up wondering where it went, glad that you are ok, but also sad that you can’t cuddle in bed and get all the attention a sick person gets. Who wants to be ill with this disease? AGAIN, ALL HUMANKIND GIVEN THE CHANCE. Pretty pathetic huh?
Finally, in the wee hours of that Sunday morning, my equally frustrated friend and I concluded that a man and a woman CAN NEVER BE BEST FRIENDS! Sorry folks, naa-ah. Yup Mars and Venus can never be best friends. Yeah yeah argue all you want but at some point in the so-called "best friend relationship" that a male and a female has is one of them falling (if not fallen already, drowning if you may) for the other and hearing these acid burning words upon a confession, "WE’LL BE BETTER OFF AS FRIENDS"!
Crappy as that might sound, the other half of this best friend relationship shows off his or her best-friendly smile and says, YEAH, I THINK YOU’RE RIGHT. But along the way the smitten party becomes paranoid every time the other half of this not-so-clear-relationship dates other human beings. The smitten one has no claim over the other, so he or she ends up sobbing in real friend’s shoulders, drowning his misery over alcohol hoping that the sub-zero temperature of his so-called friend will eventually shoot up to higher levels of signification on his or her heart’s behalf! This is not original thinking, actually, we were just affirming what Harry told Sally when they met. So who wants to be in love with your so-called best friend? JUST ABOUT EVERYONE GIVEN THE CHANCE! Masochists anyone?
Well it was dawn all right because we heard the housekeeper banging up pots and pans, not to mention what my friend calls the early-morning-disco-mix-of-cha-cha. Having said all these about love and what it does to a human being we ended up asking, "Would you still want to find love and write your own mushy love story?" Our answer? - YEAH GIVEN THE CHANCE! And so wisdom dawned on us after uttering these humbling words - we are normal human beings! We might as well have thrown our ice queen crowns at the neigbors just to even up the score!
Yup, like a crazy endless quest for the proverbial pot of gold (or cheesecake if you like) at the end of the rainbow, we chase those rainbows in our dreams knowing that this crappy love stuff is just as fragile as the hues that momentarily paint a pretty picture in the sky after the rain. As of today, we’re still running and dreaming… about this crappy love stuff Yeah, and before I forget, if you do find love, give it a home!
