Rational Insanity
By Bryan Mari Argos

That crazy little thing called love

I am lucky to have a good-middle-aged-widow friend whom I can talk to everyday at the office (office mate ko siya, syempre). She gives me quite comprehensive points of view of love from someone who has been there, lost it, and is trying to fill that void again. We share lots of ideas – I have “colonized” her to the world of the internet where she could meet many men her age from all around the world but not actually meet them! Her stories are always filled with wizened color and very objective insights; it's from her that I was able to summarize love in three very compact ideas, so compact that even with this introduction I can discuss them all in this meager column space.

First, love is free. If someone you think loves you begins to show aggression when you are unable to give him/her pasaload, that person does not love you. You are being used. I have a twenty-year old gay friend who goes to a certain municipality in Capiz everyday to call on his 26-year old, undergraduate lover(?)-boyfriend(?). The family of my gay friend owns a bakery in Roxas City and if I were to sum up the amount of bread and cakes he has taken from their bakery everyday since he and his pet became an item, I could probably start a new bakery of my own. The sad thing is, he has begun to use other people's money (like mine, his moms, and his sisters) just so he could satisfy the insatiable “bread-lust” of his so-called “boyfriend”. (Of course you know its not just bread and cakes that he offers his pet, if you know what I mean.) Anyway, this is a classic example of an impressionable young gay being (ab)used by an older guy (who by the way is also questionably gay, but reputedly a gay hunter) under the guise of love. Love is so wanted nowadays that some unfortunate souls would go to expensive lengths just to feel an (in)accurate paradigm of it. Snap out of it people, do not fool yourselves, maraming peke sa mundo. Learn to recognize the signs of true unconditional love and plain deception. Some people would justify their “pa-sugar-mommy-daddy” strategies with, “Oh, I do that because I want to and not because he/she is asking for it…” Hey! Are you that desperate? Goodness…

Second, love is not wanting. Love does not seek to have something that cannot be given by the loved or the lover. It dwells on satisfaction. True lovers are perfect pairs; not wanting anything what is outside the realm of whatever already exists. Love is perfect in itself that it does not seek what could be given or gained. If you seek love because there is something missing in your life, then you are mistaken. Imagine the frustration you would have trying to fit square eggs into round trays. My friend Marz would go to even more visual examples of the futility of this by saying “ Do not try to fit me into whatever trays you have predestined your lover to be, because to start with, I'm not just square! I'm a gelatinous amoeba. I may be round today, square tomorrow, and yes, I may even be a dodecahedron two days from now!” People are unique. Each one has individuality that there is a slim chance for your prospect “peg” to fit in your need “hole”. (At this point I'm having quite a difficulty presenting a visual image as ‘pegs' and ‘holes' and ‘eggs' call to mind an entirely different thing…hehehehehe). Most of the times, this is the reason why relationships do not stand the test of time. When lovers start wanting and the significant other fails to provide, they begin looking elsewhere for someone better. Be reminded though that there will always be someone better if that is what you are looking for. As the great Karen Carpenter eternally reminds us… “If you're only using me to feed your fantasy, you're really not in love so let me go… I must be free!”

Finally, love finds you, its not you who should go around looking for love. Again, going back to the great Karen Carpenter in one of her songs, she sang…”I know I've asked perfection of a quite imperfect world, and fool enough to think that's what I'll find.” Love is perfect, but we cannot look for perfection, it finds us. In essence, there is no perfection but at least love brings you closer to it in one way or another. Two people in love are perpetually revolving within a near perfect sphere – we cannot search for that sphere, it encloses us when love finds us.

After all these things have been said and done, there is really no hard fast rule with love. There is no university that will teach us how to lover properly or manual that will tell us where to find love. It's really up to us in the end – all I am doing here is giving you some road signs, now do the walking. Good luck!

Some additional bit of advice – “Later that day I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous” – Carrie Bradshaw, Sex in the City

Be rational; be insane…every once in a while! Hello to Anne and to Mary Dale! Hello to my dearest readers, Chan, Mr. Bobot, Vic, Vincent, and Rex, Alex, Arvin, Corz, Jim, Kiara, Malikh, Audrae, Franz, Hendrick, Janice, Jay, Jim, Jonathan, Mark, Marz, Mel, Pres, Nhonoy, Niel, Piper, Rheavil, Joey, Alma, Rodolfo, Ecker, Ryan. Hello also to a new addition to our RI Barkada, Roni, thanks for the great comments, to Miss Dieter of Lapaz, to Ian of Bacolod but who is in Iloilo right now, to Narle, Sunny and to Anuj of CMC, I love you all! Byers! Salamat gid sa mga walang-hintong text and reactions nyo! Catch Rational Insanity in TNT's online edition, check us out at www.thenewstoday.info, text me at (0920)9254269, or email me at prague@eudoramail.com .