Way back high school, there was a time when reading tagalog romance novels was “in” (yes there was believe it or not!). We’d often borrow these 120 page booklets from a bookshop near our school- 5 pesos per book as I can remember. During the craze, we’d often read these books during classes while the teacher is busy doing her job imparting knowledge to us (so she thought!). Yes, we were learning. Not from her, but from these thin novelettes. We learned a lot actually- since the theme of these novels were all circumvented to the idea of love and its idiosyncrasies, we thought we knew love. We knew ways how two people find each other, how their love is tested and how they end up happily ever after. In high school, I thought we knew love was that simple- finding, being tested and winning.

College came and we’ve outgrown these tagalog romance novels yet the idea of finding and winning love is still fresh and unscathed. I had my first boyfriend during my freshman year and it was exhilarating! Love was such a nice experience. It was simple and pure. We’ve had our ups and downs but we were winning. Yet, 4 years passed and things didn’t turn out the way it should be. We lost. We didn’t find our happily ever after. Then came another relationship. It was nice and it was better. It was love and it was full of potential. But then we’ve lost it again. Relationships after relationships followed and I was still losing. I figured, this isn’t the love I thought was 7 years ago. How come I was always losing? How come it was now full of crap and pretenses? How did love become too complex that I myself could not define it anymore? Does it still exist? Does it still have a name?

Yes.

Crap and I don’t care.