The Game of Love

AH im’ed this morning: “And the soap continues”. “Soap”, shortened for the soap opera that has been going on with his love life since 2 weeks ago. He had had a fight with his girlfriend for 2 years over a dinner, after that phone calls stopped, number deleted and personal belongings returned. A week later, he met another girl and thus the “soap” started when the old girlfriend called with a change of mind.

I am amazed how instant modern relationship has become after 25 years out of the game. Never proficient in this arena during my young single days, I have always regarded love, or dating game, exhausting and excruciating and thanked God for the good fortune on the day when I was exempted forever as I stood at the altar and gratefully swore in my “I do”. Unfortunately, I continued to be exposed to this frustrating mystery through friends whose marriages or relationships failed. While they go through their up and downs, tears and joys, I too weep and laugh as a good friend would do. Still the truth remains that I have no clue on this impossible task, as to its complexity and oddly its simplifications nowadays.

When young, love or romance was irresoluble for a girl like me with a big appetite but much less in budget. Sadly, I was also cursed with 2 sisters and plenty of friends whose assets allowed them to pick and choose as they desired. For the longest time I sat on the sideline watching them jumping in and out of the field perpetually and effortlessly. With my older sister, who is merely a year apart, I was more than an audience. The inevitable sibling rivalry made her turns an intense and personal experience thus I envied and resented her accomplishments with secret tears and curses. As for my girlfriends, it was thankfully more of an enjoyable entertainment less the involvement.

Maria, my best friend in high school, provided me with such benefit from high school to college. Popular and wild, she was the frequent player in the game. She was also funny, smart and for reasons unknown loved me and patiently endured my awkward dejection in those days. Her glorious triumphs in life (and boys) never presented a problem in our friendship. What do you do with nature wonder such as moon, stars or rainbow except admiring and applauding? Morning after morning, we’d pace up and down on the school’s court yard, pretending to be studying together while she disclosed yesterday’s “development” in details. After high school, our “rendezvous” continued on to college. I remember taking the bus from my college to hers, walking on that beautiful, wooded campus to the office where she worked part-time, all excited for her lunch break when we’d close the office door and lie down on two desks for her to resume the drama. I would always start with a semi-serious jest like “which one are we on now?” and she would reply “which one do you want to hear?” The iteration continued with me complaining how hard it was to keep track and her come-back like how much she should charge me with that much of thrill. Thinking back, I now realize how carefully she must have concealed with the details of the romances to protect the innocence of her sheltered friend. Even so, the ancient old lover inside of both of us, though different in life and personality, remained forever passionate toward this thing called “love”.

Years later, my beautiful wild romanticist friend and I parted as I travelled across the Pacific and settled down on this side of the water. We lost contact but I continued to hear from our mutual friends that she had got married soon after college, followed by a heart wrenching divorce. I heard too how she continued to pursue love even to as far as Canada, only to be left deceived and desolate. Our last encounter was nearly 20 years later at a small class reunion in a restaurant back home. The once dashing star proved to be successful and assertive in her career and yet still lost in love. She disclosed to us her relationship with a married man and incurred from me a reflexive blunder when I exclaimed “but you deserve so much better!” Her indignation was never eased off even after my repeated attempts of explanation and apology. We parted this time unamiably. The last I heard from her was that she had packed up her life and career to follow her lover abroad.

AH’s 2 week’s drama is far from that of my friend’s 30 years of combat in its magnitude and nature. He continues on as a resilient warrior 2 divorces and many romances later, except that he has sworn off marriage despite of his long-suffering endurance. I have to wonder: is it sex, culture or even time that contributes to the drastic contrast of my 2 friends’ love life? Both have been the repeated players, one rolling in and out without wait while the other diving in without concern for point of no return. My heart marvels at one’s resolute effectiveness at the same time aches for the other’s total abandonment. Comparing to my 2 courageous friends, one new and one old, I remain as sheltered as ever. Somehow my competitive nature does not seem to be bothered this time. In fact, I am thinking how fortunate I am – the late bloomer, the tortoise, the dark horse, who barely got her turn to play actually scored and made it there safe and sound. The trophy I have received, in my own estimation, surpasses any thrills and kills that those players could ever claim.