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"you cannot find true happiness unless you have truly loved.  you cannot experience true pain unless you have lost it."   – Anonymous

i saw this quotation flashed on screen by one local channel, and i cannot help nodding in agreement.  i have told myself time and again that love and hurt are inseparable.  if you fall in love, you risk getting hurt.  this is exactly the same lesson learned by one person whose life story i know by heart. 

not too long ago, my friend unintentionally fell in love with a close friend.  He thought that what they got going was mutual, so for a long time, he went with the ride ecstatic.  he never thought that in this lifetime, he could experiece such bliss.  he always woke up with a wide smile plastered on his face because he had something to look forward to, and in the evenings, he looked forward to sleeping knowing that the nights only had good dreams in store for him.  this went on for a while until….

my friend’s friend outgrew him.  my friend was devastated.  all the things he held on to was a lie.  he was no more than a friend to his friend, and that realization left him in the cold.  my friend asked himself if he truly loved his friend.  there were questions left unanswered, and these overwhelmed my friend that he seemingly gave up on love.

many years after, my friend got to reminisce about his past.  he was no longer as bitter as before.  he convinced himself that what he had for his friend was unconditional love.  i asked him once, "what is unconditional love?"  he looked at me, smiled, and said: "Loving without expecting in return.  I love my friend, and my friend doesn’t have to love me back."

"loved, you mean," I said.

"no. LOVE," he said.

it’s so easy to judge my friend as a hopeless romantic.  i once said he’s incurable, but i understand him better now.  when i have the urge to tell him to move on, i just remind myself that it’s not that easy.  after all, how can you do it when your heart tells you not to let go?  sometimes i get to think if my friend could truly be happy again.  then i’d say, "he has loved, he has lost; he’ll survive."

how many of us have fallen in and out of love?  in the movie, "the mirror has two faces," the character of barbra streisand asked her students, "why do we fall in love when we know that in the end, we’d get hurt?"  she answered her own question saying, "because while love lasts, it feels fucking great."

if that is true, then do we risk getting hurt to experience the thrill of love?  does that make us masochists?

p.s.  by the way, do you know who my friend is in the story?  you don’t have to look hard.