Many Loves

“Iba pa rin ang pagmamahal ng isang boyfriend.”

So many times I’ve heard the above argument before, when I was still single. Certain people, when they find out I’m single, say something stupid, like, “Ay, walang nagmamahal sa iyo?” which I then refute, citing the love I get from family and friends. And after that is usually when they say that line.

Yes, they are correct. The love of family and friends is different from the love of a boyfriend. But I always maintain that romantic love can never really be justly compared to love of friends and family; it’s apples and oranges. One love isn’t necessarily “better” than the other.

Experiencing all those many loves is what makes us richer persons, and the more love you experience, the more blessed you are. What does it profit a man if he gains a jowa but is estranged from his own family?

When friends find out that my 44-year-long Single Since Birth status has been broken, they ask me, “So how is it, not being single anymore?” And they’re beside themselves with excitement, as if anticipating a breathless, gushing, romance-filled answer from me. What they get is this: “It’s really no big deal. As in, really.”

The sun still rises in the east and sinks in the west. The J.O.s still pile up on your desks. Clients can still be unreasonable, and deadlines will always hound you. A perfect fried egg is still amazing, and soft, gentle rain pitter-pattering on the roof will still lull you back to bed. A clogged toilet bowl is still an embarrassing inconvenience, as much as a clogged nose is too. New babies are born, while the young and the old die. Before, whenever things get me down, I used to look to my family and friends and think, “They make it worthwhile.” Today they still do, but now that list has grown by one more.