Love is a pair of sneakers

Originally written for The Man Blog

Choosing the person to spend the rest of your life with is like choosing a pair of sneakers. Initially, when you first lay your longing eyes on the pair in the store, something inside you tells you that you have to have them and so, acting on impulse alone, you purchase them without any hesitation. Sure, it takes a while for you to feel comfortable in them but in a span of mere days, you’re walking the streets with a proud, arrogant, and conceited gait only a pair of stylish, comfortable pair of sneakers can afford.Your new sneakers become your best accessory, people compliment you and your sneakers all the time and slowly, you become one with them.

However, time passes and what was once your new sneakers begin to show signs of wear–the laces get frayed at the ends, the soles start to give and the canvas may have a tear or two in them. This doesn’t faze you as you continue to wear them, mostly because of the comfort they provide you and you, however much you deny it, are attached to them. I mean hey, after all, it took you quite some time to break these pair in and you doubt that you still have the patience to break in another pair, which is most likely, never going to be as comfortable as this one anyway. So yes, you vow to continue wearing them until they simply become unusable.

In a lot of ways, love is like a pair of sneakers.

Phase 1: Brand new bubblewrapped love straight out of the box:You have a girlfriend. Dating, fun and sex abound. At this phase, the notion of having a girlfriend is a truly magnificent experience. You, tell everybody about her. Hell, you even tell your mom about her who, in turn, secretly thanks the Lord above that you brought home a female for dinner and not your best friend Jay whom you talk about incessantly and even one time got caught with you mimicking clothed sex in the attic.

You and your new girlfriend will take weekly out of town trips where you, most of the time, will lie sprawled across the bed naked, whispering sweet nothings to each other’s ear, watching whatever’s on Discovery channel, eating room service and getting drunk. You smoke your post-coital cigarettes wishing that this never ends because at the moment, you are love’s idiot slave.

Unfortunately though, it ends and much sooner than you thik too. In a way, this phase is brimming with ironies–On one end you are happy and giddy because you’ve experienced what you believe is the best feeling you’ve ever had. On another, it’s awful because deep inside, you know that it’s all downhill from there. Face it, you have no control over what’s going to happen and because you’re generally a terrible person hated by all (including God), destiny will flank and blindside you and before you know it, it is kicking you hard down a flight of stairs.

And don’t even think you don’t deserve none of what’s coming to you. This is your punishment for committing all those racist crimes when you were younger.

Phase 2: Wear and Tear

You’ve been together for almost a year now and although there are times when you doubt your feelings, you know deep inside that you are still inlove with your girlfriend, albeit not with the same intensity. You’ve done your part to be a good boyfriend but sometimes, you ask yourself why she has to talk to her college friends on her cellphone even though your out on a vacation. You also ask yourself where the once vibrant conversations you usually have over dinner went. Why is it that your conversations now revolve almost solely around the trivial things that happened on each other’s work day?

Also, what the fuck’s her deal? Why is she always on your case with regards to why you talk to your officemates about who the better number 1 fantasy pick would be (Garnett or Lebron James) and not about the things that matter to your relationship. And why does she get into a major fit when she calls you on your cellphone during one of your nights out with your guy friends, obviously stoned out of your mind, on the verge of losing a bet you made with your friends that you can fly using blankets and several yards of nylon? Can’t she just let you live your life for once? That bitch. Clearly, this is the beginning of the end.

Phase 3: Falling apart

Your routine has taken it’s toll on your relationship. The steamy sex you usually have in your parents’ bedroom when she comes over to visit has been replaced by Andok’s Lechon Manok and a DVD Marathon of Heroes. The usually spontaneous out of town trips you used to take have been replaced by scouring Greenhills for cheap imitation Crocs and generally not having sex because both of you are “too tired” of all the walking. The blowjobs she give you while you’re driving now exist only as a single video you secretly took with your camera phone when she last gave you head almost a year ago.

Slowly and painfully, the idea of being inlove which made you blush many a time is beginning to lose its figurative glory. Right now, you’re seriously entertaining thoughts of cheating or getting a low-maintenance masseuse/mistress to fulfill all the fleshly duties your girlfriend is failing to fulfill.

A feeling of impending doom engulfs you and you cry while masturbating to some starlet on a sexy magazine–just like you used to before you got a girlfriend.

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I want to dedicate this post to my girlfriend Maffy who has been nothing but lovely and supportive of me in the few months that we’ve been together. Baby, you are my shining light; the single floating rose in the fetid oil spill that is my life. Sure you can be a brat and a pain in the ass most of the time, but I want you to know how much I love you and how I can’t get enough of you. Happy second baby.

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