Starting to learn

At a formal event, my friend drank too much and told us his life story. Well, more like stories about his romantic life - nothing too big, nothing too small, nothing too unimportant, nothing too important.

He ended off with, "I can do school, I can do dance, I can do almost anything with my life, but when it comes to girls, I can't do that."

Is it true then, do all of these pop songs, all of these fairy-tale ending movies, all of these glorified love stories in the tabloids, all of those articles in the magazines - are they all a sham? Act like this and you'll be happy, just say this, do this, and you'll be together forever.

But we don't live in the idealistic, emotionless pages of a glossy 245-page magazine, or a 136-minute chick-flick with happily-ever after perfect kisses in the sunset, find you before you board a plane and fly away and tell you I love you and that you're the only one. We live in a world where I talk, you listen, you talk, I listen, (we converse), I act, you react, you act, I react (we interact) - it's a two-way street.

Yes, I am used to working hard to make things work, or to achieve what I set out to achieve - work hard, study hard, get good grades; send out resumes, prepare, brush teeth, put on professional clothes, thank the interviewer, get a good job; go to lessons, practice, stay disciplined, play piano at a professional level. All of this is accessible to me with hard work and perseverance, and never giving up.

But the sad truth is that I can only give as much as you are willing to take. I can work hard and try to make things work between us, but only if you are too. Because it takes two to make something like this work.