Love comes with a price

Dr James Dobson has a book "Love always Hurts", and in that book he talks about how love comes with a price, never easy, and it's all about perseverance and stuff...

I had my fair share of being bombed where love is concern. Trust me, I can draw up a community project from scratch, dissect a fish head with my bare hands, compose a lousy and reckless birthday gift song for a friend in 10 minutes, but where love is concern, I suck full time. Firstly because I really don't understand a girl, and I have no slightest idea what comes across a girl's mind when she hangs out with a guy; secondly, I have almost NO experience where it comes to dating a girl, or making her happy or stuff. So here's my sad-and-funny story of how I loved a girl.

First time I met her was on orientation day. She was pretty tall and slim, wore braces and looked pretty ordinary for a girl. What caught my attention - surprisingly - was her smile. For a girl wearing braces she had a lovely smile, and I thought I'd almost die for another one of that kind of smile. So I got her number from her friend and started smsing her. So that's how I got to know her. She's a Christian girl, lives in DU, plays the piano and violin, fun, talkative, so on and so forth...

Then I started to like her. I kinda liked the way she wore her baju kurung to INTEC every mondays and fridays... for a slim and tall girl like her, her baju kurung really fitted her well. She has a nice smile that could really just sweep me off my feet... but the best part was being with her. Man, that was the coolest thing to do in the whole college coz being at her side would mean non-stop laughing for as long as you sit beside her. She's superbly good at lame jokes, lousy jokes, family jokes, house jokes and all sorts of jokes you need to make your day.

I thought I grew to love her. I couldn't have fell in love with her, coz it wasn't a one day affair. The more I knew her, the more I adore and admire her. She seemed so perfect from outside, and though she may not be a supermodel still she carried herself very well, except that she talks too much at times. But overall, she was a really nice and wonderful girl.. that was what I thought.

So I kinda started my attempt to let her know that I love her. I bought her a cook book (coz she said she had no idea on how to cook), got her a nice little key chain from Vietnam, made her a little movie from my photos I had with her and stuff.. and I wrote her letters, emails, smses and the typical stuff. Part of me was desperate for her to know that I loved her, and the other part of me was struggling to not let her know that I loved her. Basically, I wasn't really prepared to get into a relationship. I know its perils and pain, and I wasn't ready for it. After all, I was committed to CA in INTEC and my service to God was priority, so having a relationship? Heh, could jeopardise all of that..

But I eventually told her that I loved her. She knew from the beginning, and she got the hints and stuff when I smsed and sent her mails and stuff, and at that point of time she too said that she loved me. It was like a WOW! yes! Finally a girl telling me that she loves me? I couldn't really believe it.. too good to be true.. and I told my mom, I was half elated but managed to keep calm thru-out explaining to her what I did and what she said and stuff.

My mom was still the sensible one. She didn't discourage me, she didn't stop me, but she laid out the whole situation to me very blankly. "Are you sure that she reali loves you?" and I was stunned.. "ur well, yeah... you know that's what she said.."

That was when I started to realise something was wrong. It wasn't that my mom put doubt in my head, it was that something was just wrong. I could literally smell trouble and problems coming, but I didn't know which direction did it come from. Warnings sure did come, real warnings. 7 of them altogether, here are it all in order:

1. Pastor once reminded me, "Joash, as a leader in CA, guard your heart at all times. Make sure that you're always emotionally steady and stable so that nothing stops you or hinders you from your service to God." and at that time I started to love her already, and I said "Sure pastor! Don't worry about that."

2. I was so fed-up one fine day after a meeting with her, and was very upset that she refused to take charge of certain responsibilities that everyone knew she could do well. I went to a MacD and argued with God, and fell asleep. When I woke up, I realised something was different. When I dozed off to sleep, the rain was blowing to the right side of the window, and when I woke up it was hitting the left side. Then I heard it clear, "See how swift the wind changes its directions, so shall the hearts of Man." and I went like, "What are you saying? You talking about her?"

3. My mom told me blankly about what a girl likes about a guy, and she said "Not only the girls, but even the mothers of the girls would tell their girls to go look for a guy who's of a well-off family.." and it hit me harder, but I was stubborn enough not to heed the warning.

4. I came back from INTEC and was about to take a nap on my bed back at home in Ipoh, when God struck me with this question, "If she leaves you, what will you do?" People, I was so scared I went down to both my knees and literally begged God for mercy, and I said, "God, please don't do this to me, it's not fair and I can't take it.."

5. Friends did warn me. They told me that she had a tendency of spending too much time with certain guys that were very good looking, and I thought, hey every girl would want to spend time with handsome guys, and then I said, well if it really makes her happy to be with handsome guys, so be it. I loved her enough to let her have her fun.

6. A symptom that a girl is no longer interested in you is when she starts ignoring you. I felt the cold shoulder at the point of time where I needed her the most, and when I was super down I gave her a call, hoping for some encouraging words like "I love you" and all I got from her was, "Let's pray about our whole thing ok?" The thing was, didn't she prayed about it before she told me that she loved me? So why is there doubt now? I immediately sensed that there was a guy behind this whole scene that she was painting, but I still waited.

7. The final deal came, when my mom at the same point of time when I heard the still voice in my heart, said the same words as the voice, "Joash, time to let go. If she's yours, she'll be back. You have nothing to lose." It was tough, and it was the hardest thing to do, but I've decided, yes, I'm going to let go. She told me that she loved me, but she's doing everything that proved otherwise. She's going out with other guys, went out with her ex, having fun with other handsome guys and forgetting all about me? Enough is enough, I'm done with being left behind or being a bathroom slipper.

The day I completely let go of her, I found out the truth. She didn't like another guy, she liked 2 other guys. Both guys are more good-looking, 'nicer' and richer.

*Sigh*

There were certain implications of these whole event. Firstly, on my part, it hit me bad not because it hurt but because it left me to wonder, am I really that bad? Am I really that ugly? Am I really that hopeless or helpless? I asked, is it my fault that I'm born into a poor family who's dad is a pensioned government servant? I didn't ask for it did I?

Secondly, it hit me bad again because she gave me the hope of everything and yet left me with nothing. The damage was great, devastating to certain extent. It did hurt badly, and it sure did.

But now as I look back over the whole thing, I still can laugh at it. I wondered, if I had proposed to ask her to be my gf back then, wouldn't things have been worse for me now? Thank God I didn't..

Lesson well learnt? Perhaps. Ready for another try? Heck no. I realise that the person that you love the most is the person that has enough capabilities to bring you devastating effects that can change the way you think about yourself.

Love comes with a price. It certainly does, and sometimes, it's just not worth the price.

Put it this way: It's too great the price.