One hour into the New Year, I spent a few minutes blog-surfing, and came across a male blogger whose most recent post was about his undying love for a girl.
My first reaction was to click on the “Next Blog” button on the NavBar. But I then noticed the “150 comments” strewn below the post, and so my interest was piqued. Damn, 150 comments?! Love?
I viewed the comments, expecting them to be full of derision and humor (humor stems from another person’s misery, you know that). But glory of glories! The comments were in support of the blogger. They appreciated his eternal, undying, unparalleled, ultimate love for the girl. Not a single negative comment was to be found.
I was shocked.
It was then that I realized that I was truly jaded.
Don’t mistake me — I’m no love-hater. I’m no cold-hearted bastard. I’m still touched by scenes and stories of affection and warmth. I still appreciate love. But that appreciation was, I admit, lessened a couple of years ago.
There was a time that this boy courted a girl for three years, you know. That this boy also fell deeply in love with a girl. That this boy unabashedly professed his eternal, undying, unparalleled, ultimate love to her in more ways than one. That this boy believed in fairy tales and happy endings.
I think you could guess what was the end of that fairy tale.
About those comments mentioned earlier, maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised by them. After all, when I wrote a vignette on my own love story (for a Creative Writing class), packaging it as a fairy tale with a ‘happy’ ending, the reception was the same. My classmates — especially the girls — and the instructress were really touched. They liked the piece. Uh, because of the overwhelming literary talent? Nah. Because it was about love — a resounding, powerful, completely human theme. They even urged me to publish the piece:
“Oh, you’re such a good boy! So traditional, so endearing!”
“Man, you’re the type of guy my girlfriend would leave me for!”
“If you publish this, girls will come flocking to you, asking for your hand!”
Eherm. As you can imagine, some of these quotes are a little bit embellished. But the last line carries the original essence of what my teacher said. Yes, she was the one who uttered that.
Maybe someday, I’ll post that love vignette slash fairy tale here on this blog. I wrote it a year after my love story’s end, just for that writing class. It carried no bitterness, it carried no angst, it just narrated what happened: simple, straight-up, journalistic-like story-telling. And they liked it.
And so in the end, armed with this memory, I decided to write in my own comment for that poor lovestruck guy, to pitch in some advice, to sympathize. What a turn-around! Maybe I’m not so jaded after all.
But his blog didn’t accept anonymous comments, and I wasn’t logged-in at that time (and had no intention of doing so). I lost the urge.
Oh, the nasty tricks Fate plays on us.
