two years

why stay in a relationship if you know its bound to end?

how long have they been together?

two years.

makes sense. 

what do you mean?

it seemed like two years have started to be a dreaded figure for some of my committed friends. it is like the new dropping curve for every relationship. and honestly, it is also beginning to alarm most people we know.

initially, images of friends with their partners, in their own ways, have striven to bring light among dying hopes and pessimism to most of us. beyond any chemistry and silent mushiness, it is already a delight just to have a mental picture of them. and even if we refuse to admit it, we have those little images, hiding underneath our cold pillows, which we go back to before we set sail for another dream each night.

then it becomes everyone's  dream to be in a somehow similar situation. who wouldn't? they understand the same means on how to overcome insecurities, trust and even infidelity issues. they know how to maintain a good  and never ending conversations and they can even see and understand beyond each other's imperfections.

how over the years they have stayed away from the complexities of these kinds of relationships that rot, probably the strongest foundations and just simply enjoyed it.

but its not easy, ewik. it takes a lot of maturity to own this, i remember one of them telling me this.

and then when we thought it was just about it, no one expected the worst thing coming: falling out of love.

i think they need to talk to clarify things. thats the problem when people act based from their assumptions. if they have already been together for that long, how difficult could it be to ask?

you know, even if my friend learned that his partner is not actually cheating, i guess it is already too late. he already cheated and started falling out of it.  

there was just so many things going on on this story. the guy is cheating because he feels that his partner does. he is cheating because he feels the abrupt and unexplainable coldness. or perhaps he is cheating because he is falling out of their relationship.

there will probably be a hundred more reasons, depending on whose perspective you will look at it. but at the end, i guess it will still be the same sad picture because no one was brave enough to know and ask why.

i never did find out where we were that day. 

He only said days with me were boring...

That we should end it... 

One day we might start over. 

For him "starting over" has many meanings.

- Lai Yiu-fai, Happy Together (1997)

so why do they still stay?

hope, regardless if its true, false or however you may define it, is simply the safest way to respond to uncertainties; with the least possible consequence of getting hurt. we hope not because we want the truth. in fact, we hope because we acknowledge the truth but too scared of what it may bring to us.

we stay because we hope. we hope because we fear of what will happen for each step we take. for some, they hope and stay because they are  waiting; waiting for that certainty that will draw them out from that empty silence.

some call it rebound, some say it is being selfish. but i guess thats just how life direct each one of us from avoiding hurt and finding their individual happiness.

besides, happiness could probably be the most synonymous word to being relative.

in an economic perspective though, some may treat a relationship as an investment. and the denial of acknowledging loss makes many people to stay and eventually hope for the promise of regaining it back. but can we actually bind such by figures, indexes and value? or by trend, demand and

i guess, at the end of the day, there is no better way of dealing it than completely embracing truth or probably, by bravely addressing it to the other party at the beginning rather than keeping it to oneself and just hope when it is already late. too late.