in times of war(la)

many love-bitten/cynics/pragmatics' accepted truth is that love is not enough. it is not enough to eradicate world hunger, solve economic crisis, cure cancer, not even to save relationships!

i confess to being one of the pragmatics before who personally adhered to the doctrine "love doesn't exist, only self interest" then. BUT, having found love twice with men, 4x with womyn, i have come to have more faith in love than religion (the agnostic in me speeking).

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my gf was on vacation for a week from work and we haven't seen each other that much in five long days. i have expressed loneliness of her on our regular calls. as a tgif treat, she told me that she'll pick me up from work on Friday and we'll have a date. how grand i told myself.

friday night, after a week-long enslavement from work, we met at my office' building lobby. she was unusually quiet, distrubingly unsmiling, totally not her typical jolly self. i prodded her of the plan for the night and she just shrugged her shoulder. since she's not telling and she owes me a date, i just went on business as usual, objectivity to the hilt.

me: seems like it will take us forever to take a cab, let's just take the jeep.
gf: just nodded.
me: where do you want to go?
gf: anywhere.
me: let's go to g4 then, food choices.

at the mall..
me: where do you want to eat?
gf: you go ahead. i'll just eat later.
me: fine.

while in line at World Chicken, i called her.
me: do you want anything?
gf: nothing
me: ok.

i finished my dinner, without us talking. i just texted to keep myself busy and unaffected. she did the same.
after like 30min of non-date activity, i asked..

me: let's go?
gf: ok.

at the escalator to mrt, the g2g couple looking more like strangers to each other,
me: i'll go ahead now.
gf: ok.

neither looked back.

in my cool facade was a fuming gf. cursing her anger away. wtf was that all about??!! she was the one who volunteered to pick me up, enticed me with a date, made me expect of a tgif to end my stressful work week only to be treated like crap!!! i soo don't deserve this. i was so angry i didn't notice tears that welled from my tired eyes. each drop representing a sob kept hidden from the throng of mrt commuters.

twas double the pain because i had to act perfectly okay in front of my unknowing family (that their daughter is gay and is broken hearted). i deeply closed my eyes to quell the pain that's crushing my chest and to remove the image of an uncaring gf when i said goodbye.

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if only love overpowered us that time, we would have not ended the night with pain and silence.
if we've let love rule us then, we would have been more concerned of the other than of the self. "are you okay?" instead of "where do you want to go?". intentionally overlooking the partner because i wanted it to be a "me" night.

love is enough if we just let it out.