“A boy loved a girl so much so that he proposed to her, but she declined. Even so, the boy remained happy and content with his life. A friend asked him why he was still happy and the boy simply answered,”I`m happy because I lost someone who doesn’t love me, but she lost someone who loved her.”” - C.F.

That anecdote made me think about relationships; and though I have no girlfriend, it made me see things, such as courtship, in a different light.

A boy takes the risk to confess his feelings to a girl so that he could find out if she feels the same. Key word: risk. Guys don’t like that. We want things to be safe, consistent and sure. That’s the way our brain works- we’re business minded. We don’t want things to be uncertain. It’s always better for us to know what the outcome of our actions will be. This is why almost every guy tends to keep his feelings to himself until he knows if the girl likes him back. So when a guy confesses and she doesn’t like him back, it hurts. Trust me, I’ve been there.

It doesn’t just end in getting hurt. There’s always that loss of confidence and motivation, as well as the possibility of losing the girl as a friend. Guys don’t like that, and neither would girls if they were in our shoes. I mean, seriously, would you want to wake up everyday thinking that the person you’ve had feelings for for the longest time doesn’t feel the same way? It sucks, right? But this anecdote says that we shouldn’t feel that way, which is what intrigued me.

It implies that this not-getting-liked-back thing isn’t all that bad, and points out that the person who isn’t liked back isn’t the one on the losing end; maybe it’s even for the better. Kung hindi ka naman gusto, ba’t mo pa ipipilit? 

I guess all I’m trying to say in this blog is that there’s always a brighter side to things. So don’t try to dwell too much on the negative things, and as cliché as this sounds, the grass is always greener on the other side.

Photo by: Khomenko

**Anecdote from my friend, although it isn’t originally his.