Hey guys, been a long time since I blogged but I’ve been busy a lot lately when it was supposed to be clear skies for blogging. But regardless, here’s something that happened yesterday that I thought I’d share with you on the subject of a romantic forever.
So I was at café about a day ago with a friend when he tells me to go to a certain school-affiliated Facebook Page called the IITian Insider. The IITian Insider is basically a page that posts the messages IITians send them that may be questions or calls for help on a variety of subjects – romance issues, friend dramas, and family problems, basically the unknown, online guidance counselor on Facebook. There was this one particular post:
“I believe there’s no such thing as forever. I swear there isn’t. I’m not bitter, I’m just realistic. In fact, I’ve never been in a relationship before.
But I’ve seen a lot of pain in the short time that I’ve lived here on earth. I’ve seen infidelity. I’ve seen people falling out of love. I’ve heard the sounds of hearts breaking a million times. I’ve lent my hand, my shoulder and my ear to so many friends who put themselves out there only to get hurt.
Love is selfish. Why do we commit to a relationship if we think we don’t have anything to gain, right? We value people because of their looks, their money. We only value what they appear to mean, not what they actually are. We want those traits, or hobbies, or ideals they (claim to) have to reinforce the idea that we are “”compatible””, that we “”can fall in love””. Even love is calculated, love has tactics.
Our relationships are a show for the public. You need your other half to be good enough for the endless scrutiny and judgement of our friends, our family, our social network. Is that what love really is? Is that “”forever””?
Life isn’t directed by Cathy-Grace Molina. You aren’t Mace Castillo, and you’re never gonna get rescued by Anthony in an airport in Rome. If you do, he probably just wants to steal your bag. Or he could be gay. And then there’s That Thing Called Infatuation. You may think you’re inlove for a few months, 50 years, but it doesn’t matter. You start to see these little things that you don’t agree on, these things that annoy you, these little things that may be small and insignificant now but will then grow bigger and bigger until it’s bigger than the love you once had for each other. And then you can choose to be apart, or you can choose to tolerate each other. Being with people for too long makes you immune to the beauty they once held.
And if you’re nice enough to actually tolerate each other until the day you die, what happens then? You die. You’re body turns into dust again. Your happiness is lost in oblivion. You’re separated by six inches of soil. Walang forever.”
Now, I don’t usually comment on posts from The IITian Insider but it has come to my attention, that most – if not all, people in the comments section must have nothing inside their pretty little heads. This coming from someone who’s open to new perspectives and is willing to consider second-hand experience as a reliable source of data to make an opinion over. Comments then ranged from how there is an existing forever through God, some were annoyed comments on how the writer of the post was unreliable due to his/her “inexperience,” some encouraged that the sender should just get in a relationship and see the error of his line of thinking, etc.
How I see it, it’s not that the writer of the post doesn’t believe in the power of forever in the religious context. In my opinion, should you choose to know it, is that the writer is merely acting on the growing trend of people associating the word “forever” with love and every other aspect that in all actuality, is not infinite. The fact that you see this post as a pass at being bitter, says a lot on how shallow minded people can be for misunderstanding the writer’s intent of exposing how everyone is obsessed with labels.
The first part is a form of a disclaimer, but it is also a hint that this is from another person’s perspective – someone who has zero experience in the game of love, but supposedly has enough information on the subject to expose his/her opinion, albeit anonymously, on the convoluted idea of romance is forever.
When he/she says “Love is selfish…” it’s his/her reiteration of my theory of what this post is really about, which is the general people’s obsession of adding labels to different phenomena – like a new couple, why this couple broke up, why another person is bitter, etc. This is further backed up by his/her statement – which incidentally is my favorite part, when it says “Our relationships are a show for the public. You need your other half to be good enough for the endless scrutiny and judgment of our friends, our family, our social network.”
It’s an exceedingly tiring fact to realize that most people’s concept of the possibility of a romantic forever is based off an hour long movie – I’m not just talking about That Thing Called Tadhana, I’m talking about every. Single. Damned. Chick flick romance film – and that apparently is enough evidence to back the claim that one can find forever within a numbered amount of time.
The concept of forever is subjective, but one legitimate example of an existing forever is the idea that everything is a cycle. When something ends, it gives room for something to begin again, and where there is a beginning, there is an existing capacity of something ending and so and so – revised novel reference.
You merely have to ask why things end to realize that there really isn’t a legitimate example of forever, and not just in a romantic context. Why did you and your childhood best friend fall out? Why did you get sick of your favorite food? Why do you get sick? Why do people – and everything else change? Why do we die? It’s because the fabric of reality isn’t finished or in one color. Life is not about the people that exist within your sphere of consciousness, it’s about all the choices and the events that are woven together to make the present.
In this context, the word forever loses its own meaning due to horrid misuse. Even the idea that one needs a significant other to have a fulfilled lifetime is also something that I find abhorrent – natural yes, but there are instances in which too much of a good thing, is very unhealthy.
I think I’ve had my say about this, and I’ve made my opinion clear on the subject of a romantic forever so why don’t you tell me about your feelings on forever in the comments below?
Until next time,
Enya
Mindful Diversities 