What eight years of Valentine’s taught me about love

As a kid, I always wanted a date during Valentine’s. I’m not even joking when I say kid. I literally mean kid; a 12-year-old had dreams of taking a girl out on February 14 to show whatever meaning of love I understood to that girl. It sounds ludicrous, but really, my surname literally suggests that I love her.

My reasons for wanting as such were just like any other: the feelings of kilig, excitement, and the social construct that it’s cool to have a significant other. But more than the usuals, I wanted to be someone’s hero. You see, as a kid, I loved watching superhero movies and animes. I loved how Goku saved the world with Spirit Bombs and how Peter Parker saved Mary Jane from danger time and time again. I wanted to be a hero, but not just any hero. I wanted to be the savior of a sweet girl out there.

I found that girl in 2012 as a 15-year-old. Her name is Camille. I met her through a soirée, and the funny part was, we didn’t even like each other after the gathering. The only communication points we got out of one another were our names, our Twitter handles (@MathManMaster and @camillecutlerrr for life!), and the memory of me breaking a chair. I’m not even sure how that happened.

How we ended up together was peak high school romance. She messaged me first on April 2012. We built a relationship as close friends during that summer and eventually, on the early morning of May 27, 2012, we admitted our feelings for each other.

I still remember that text. I like you too. I felt like I had won my very first NBA championship in that moment. There she was. The damsel in distress I’d be a superhero too. Time to put on my cape and throw Spirit Bombs.

More than seven years later ever since that fateful evening, my view of love has dramatically changed. Here’s one thing I learned: Camille and I aren’t very similar.

She likes dancing, I like basketball.
She’s into the sciences, while I’m a writer.
She’s incredibly organized while I tend to be quite the mess.
She had an incredible college bloom while I already looked old when I was a high school student.
She’s very emotional and cynical while I tend to be the pseudo-philosophical one between the two of us.
She’s a Thomasian and I’m an Atenean.
(Which also means she didn’t win a UAAP championship while I did. Okay I’ll stop now.)

We did have one similarity though, which is quite the recipe for disaster in relationships: pride. Our egos were through the roof albeit we expressed it in different manners. Which brings me to the second thing I learned: there was no damsel in distress this knight in shining armor was going to save.

This was especially evident during our anniversaries and Valentines’. I was a TERRIBLE gift-giver while she always had these creative ideas to show her love to me. While she made these great artworks, I was left using whatever money I had to take her out at dates and whatever else. It wasn’t pretty. At all.

Thus, the third thing I learned: I had to throw away whatever armor or cape I thought I’d wear once I got into a relationship. This was the most important thing Camille taught me during these past seven years; how to love.

Love is such a wide and even vague term, so I think it’s best to describe this with one word I never thought I’d associate it with: partnership.

Because, that’s what love is all about. It isn’t about grand gestures, large flower bouquets, or fancy dinner dates during Valentine’s. It’s about being with someone. It doesn’t even have to be someone you’re totally similar with. In fact, being with an opposite of yours makes things even more fun. Instead of being boxed around this world you believed to be absolute, your mind and heart are forced to go beyond what was possible. In Father Adolfo Dacanay’s words, it’s about going out of your ego boundaries.

That’s one thing Camille got me out of; my ego. I was a perfectionist when she first met me and it was for the worse. Whenever I’d miss out on getting perfect scores in Math exams, I’d be punching lockers and hitting tables out of frustration. I thought too highly of myself, to the point when I couldn’t enjoy life to its fullest anymore.

So she took me down from the hill and introduced me to ideas and concepts I never even fathomed before. I didn’t have to be some knight in shining armor. I didn’t have to be a superhero who always found ways to save the day. I could just be what I really was; a human who was capable of making mistakes. And that’s okay. Because it’s in those mistakes and uncomfortable moments when you become better. That’s exactly what Camille did to me. She made me uncomfortable, but she also made me way better.

I may have not graduated with honors or have gotten into some incredibly difficult course in college, but in these seven years, she has made me human. To enjoy life a little. That I didn’t always have to compete with others or myself. Sometimes, it’s okay to just sit back, relax, and take in what life has to offer.

This was most evident during our recent trip to Taiwan. During our third day, we were starting to veer away a little bit from our itinerary because of problems with the weather. The perfectionist in me was feeling very agitated and she noticed it.

So she whispered to my ear and told me, “It’s okay if we don’t get to the places we listed. I mean, we’re already here. We’re together. I just want to enjoy it with you.” Here’s the thing though; she’s also a perfectionist, albeit different to how I handled things. She’d normally get very frustrated when things don’t go her way. It would upset her. But during this moment, she didn’t allow that to destroy our vacation and calmed me down instead. I know I always believed I’d be the one wearing the shining armor or the cape, but in that moment, she was the one who grabbed the super suit and threw down a Spirit Bomb to the bad vibes I was feeling.

I don’t want the cape, the super suit, or even the kilig I dreamt of having as a 12-year-old kid. Because, just so you know, 12-year-old me, those aren’t worth it. What you’re getting in 11 years is going to be so much more worth it. A partnership with an amazing girl who you can grow with. That’s something the grandeur of Valentine’s won’t ever beat.