Isn't Love all about ‘what if's?
We were in my car, stalled in the ferry, en route to Vancouver Island for a weekend, blushed and giggly about this short getaway of ours as being best friends for little over 12 years. After taking short in-between naps through gaps of times, we were full of energy. Our eyes met in the air, and we started to talk about boys. Such a typical trigger to begin a whole new world or a conversation. Girls….. Back then, I was in a long-distance relationship, and whenever I needed to deal with the topic of ‘boys,’ in general, I felt guilty. Probably that was why I kept myself being an interviewer, rather than being an interviewee. To Stephanie, love is being loyal, enduring, able to keeping vows. Undefined, I couldn’t force my conception of love to her, but I could still test her out with some of the weirdest, yet straight-forward, what-if questions. I wanted to see to what extent she could stay loyal, how much she can endure, and how forgiving she can be when her imaginary partner breaks their seemingly rock-solid promises. “What if your future partner jumps into a direct economic competition with you by opening another counseling office right next door to your counseling office?" Yes. I did begin with career. It wasn’t my pure intention, but my questions were in the order of how important each aspect of life is to me. Stephanie looked fine, at least so far. No baffling at all. As if the question was too simple to answer. "I will close down mine and get a job as a full-time counselor at different centers." Her imaginary partner clearly won in this free market. The free-market of an economy, the free market of relationships. "What if his family is heavily in debt of over a million dollars that you also need to participate in repaying after getting married." This time, Stephanie's face turned slightly more serious. It meant that I hooked her in this creative process of imagining a situation that seemed real and happen-able in her life. She followed up with a question, making sure that she was the real protagonist of this story. "Has he informed me about this, before getting married?" "Yes, he has," I clarified. "I will do it, then." She apparently didn't mind cleaving her monthly income in two with the monetary burden that her partner brought into their relationship. Money seemed to lose its original power, to me, after handing this question over to her and after she answered me that she would certainly do it with the guy as well as with his family. Of course, there are tons of other considering aspects of living as a couple and being in a relationship. But to simplify this 'what-if' exercise, I chose to throw the final question, as the third one, to shake off the core of any relationships in the world: What if your husband is a professor teaching mostly 100-level classes, with the audience of charmingly refreshing 18, 19, 20-year old female students. One day, he came home, had dinner with you, left the table for using the washroom and didn't leave his phone, but carried his phone in his palm to the restroom. It was unusual for him. Since then, he locked his phone with the quadruple passcode, unlike before, and he kept looking and typing on his screen way more than usual. It turned out that he slept with one of the students, the one you remembered seeing on campus when you visited for a surprise lunch date, unplanned and non-discussed, strikingly young and active with excessive gestures and laughs around your husband as they were walking out of the lecture hall. "What would you do?" I finally asked. Stephanie looked tentative of the idea of answering on time. She would be missing the deadline this time, for sure. I gave her few more seconds. Her face was being filled with this smile, carrying bucketful of awkwardness. Nothing to resent being in the exercise. Too late or never early enough to exit. "Is it a one-time thing? What does he say about the affair?" More questions were generated in her brain within those given minutes. "Yes. One time only. He says he doesn't have any feelings for her. You listen to him and you trust him. You see how genuinely he feels sorry for what's happened and for you. The memories of you two pass by in your vision while he is sincerely apologizing to you." I fictionalized and polished the story a bit more vividly for her to arrive at the conclusion. "Then I will forgive him." I knew that Stephanie would forgive him and try to forget what happened between her imaginary husband and the young, sexy, persuasible college student. When she told me that she would forgive him, I was disappointed by how unable she was to see that this young college student, and every bit of their history, was capable of making the relationship perishable. For me to show her that her answer didn't dishearten me, I continued the story. "After you forgave him and almost forgot what had happened between your husband and that girl, he's relocated himself in another college and seems to have no problem at all with the relationship you guys have. He is like the second-best husband ever. Obviously, he couldn't get the first place because he cheated once. But you become to know that he has been seeing her for more than few months, lying to you all the way. He finally confesses that he truly loves her, not you. What if that happens? What would do you?" "Bye-bye," said Stephanie. She looked as if she was let down by her husband, real or fake, emotionally attacked and deeply hurt. Her love, either conceptualized or concealed, was something that would never perish unless there was another form of love that cut in. She will literally yield the right-of-way to that stupid little b**** and her stupid little motherf*****, called her husband, and let them find their way out. At the end of this conversation, I realized that it wasn't her inability to see how dangerous to trust anyone who has a history of committing something unforgivable. She is a person who tends to give another try more than just to walk away from what has happened. More than being loyal, enduring, able to keeping vows, love represents a commitment to Stephanie. Once a promise is made, she has no hesitancy in trying everything, and anything, to keep the promise as promised by being loyal, enduring and doing everything else. Until the moment. Until the moment when the unexpected third person wedges in. People used to say that the problem is almost always within. Things that bug you are the things you've created within yourselves. But in Stephanie's case, the power of love can resolve all the internal issues in a relationship. It is sometimes the external source, which we cannot control, that breaks, crumbles, and destroys us. By thinking of what-if questions and forthcoming answers to them, we are enabled to explore the possibilities and projections of love. It also allows us to put ourselves in the others' shoes, to understand them and to take their stand. I hope Stephanie, my best friend, one day finds someone and builds a life together with him that is full of loyalty, endurance, and promises that will forever be kept. I wish this guy is someone who isn't overly competitive in his profession, who isn't in an obligation of repaying a million of family debt, or who isn't easily fooled by a trick. And, most of all, I want to have that assurance that she has. The level of confidence she has in love. What if I have that in coming relationships? It will be such a different experience for me, to my future partner and that absolutely excites me. Love is truly beautiful that is worth waiting for because it is all about what-ifs.