TOGA rebuttal

as promised....

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TOGA
By: Ariel

The concept of "The One Who Got Away" is all fine and dandy when you see the story unfolding on the big screen. A bucket of popcorn sprinkled with white cheese and your 5th can of diet soda for the day in hand, you watch--- wide-eyed, lost in a haze of what seems similar to pot-induced reverie--- as the plot unveils the hero or heroine, “The One Who Got Away”, the principal character the story revolves around, the one person the film director was hoping would bring out the hopeless romantic in you. Enraptured, you smile, you twiddle your fingers, you heave a sigh of melancholy...then you burp. Reality smacks you like a Pacquiao left straight and wipes that silly, saliva dripping grin off your face. The truth of the matter is, “The One Who Got Away” is a figment of your winged imagination whom you romanticize and create because you can't stand the fact that either you're not happy with the person you're with, or you failed in your previous relationships. Simply put, someone fucked up big time, and it pains you to admit it may have been you.

You say “The One Who Got Away” is this person who was great and seemed perfect, whose only flaw was his/her less than impeccable sense of timing. This has got to be the stinkiest piece of cow dung I’ve ever heard in my life. I mean, seriously, are you describing a lover, or Jesus Christ? Circumstances beyond your control, you say, prevented what might have been an eternal commitment to come to fruition. Ah, the classic, default excuse of couples who thought they were happy but end up parting- that they were merely victims of circumstances. I guess it’s a painful, bitter pill to swallow, to admit that what really happened was you or your partner, or you both, were afraid to take your relationship to the next level, to clear a couple more hurdles to get to your coveted finish line. You were the poker player who had two high pairs after the turn card and had a chance for a full house on the river, but instead of taking chances, you copped out and folded when the stakes were raised. Was it a case of immaturity? Maybe. Was it a case of bad timing? Perhaps. But what cannot be denied is you guys chickened out. Cowardice knows no age, no rhyme, no reason, no season.

“The One Who Got Away” seems near perfect only because you choose to look at him/her that way now. I bet you didn’t look at him/her that way when you were together. It’s almost like how things are when someone dies and people start singing hosannas to extol the goodness and virtues of that person. Makes you wonder why you didn’t hear these praises before. Well, I guess it’s because the person wasn’t dead before. It’s rather convenient to gloss over a person’s faults and misgivings if you’ve had the luxury of months or years to get over the person and move on with your life. Time and distance have a way of altering how you look at someone from the past. It makes it easier to fabricate a revisionist history and make believe you had it all good with this person. Never mind the lies, the spats, the annoying quirks. These all seem minor, almost inconsequential and negligible now. But when you were together, these things actually conjured in you visions of voodoo you wanted to inflict on your partner.

Obsessing over “The One Who Got Away” is asymptomatic of a life that’s sad, lonely, and discontent even if on the surface, things seem generally calm and happy. Why else would you be thinking of someone else if all is well on the home front? What you refuse to admit is that the truth isn’t what you want it to be, that your picture of a perfect relationship is but a snapshot of your innermost desire, of a deep yearning for an ideal that apparently is absent in your life. We all have “what if” questions in our lives. We all have moments of youthful wonderings. Every so often, you should give yourself the liberty to ask these questions. The experiences and people from yesterday form part of who you have become. But you cannot, you should not, linger on these thoughts and allow them to consume and secretly possess you. You reminisce, you allow yourself a bit of this indulgence, then you move on and let go. Letting go need not mean relegating the past to irrelevance. You acknowledge its significance in your life, then you pour all your thoughts on the present, on who you’re with, because he/she is the only person who should matter. Unless, of course, you believe the one you’re with now is not good enough for you. This tells you that you once again, you fucked up and made a bad choice of partner, hence, this longing for “The One Who Got Away”.

“The One Who Got Away” got away not because of uncontrollable circumstances, not because he/she should have been “the one”, not because you still might have a 2nd crack at love someday. He/she got away because he/she does not exist. He/she never did. People choose to believe “The One Who Got Away” does exist. But the truth is, “The One Who Got Away” is but an escape and diversion from what is unpleasant and ugly in the present. “The One Who Got Away” is the opium for lonely hearts which lack some romantic highs in their lives. “The One Who Got Away” is the perfect formula for a feel-good romantic film. However, as is often the case, life rarely imitates art.


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what do you think?

i might be biased... since a friend of mine wrote the article...

but i think he does make more sense.

time to wake up guys.