Remember Romeo and Juliet, those famous star-crossed lovers that had a tragic love story? In hindsight, they might have been too young to fall in love!
Now, there is a story circulating on social media recently and it looks like it might be just as dramatic as Shakespeare’s famed couple, but without that deadly ending of course!
A young man, presumably from Help University, wrote a long post describing the relationship he had with his now ex-girlfriend and it went viral in less than 24 hours. Basically, he had fallen in love with this girl and wanted to ask her to officially be his girlfriend.
“I brought her to Genting Highlands, hid some semi-wilted flowers in my backpack and when I asked her to be my girlfriend, instead of crying tears of joy, it was tears of sadness. I found out that her parents disapproved of us. Her mother wants someone from a rich family, her father wants a Christian boyfriend. I was neither,” he wrote.
They decided to be rational adults and talk the whole thing through to see whether there was any solution for their love. Unfortunately, there was no other solution even though they were very much in love. Finally, they came up with a means to an end, by deciding to get together and set a time limit for their breakup, which was one year.
They continued like any other couple but kept their relationship a secret from the girl’s parents, but after an argument, he decided to change his perception as they had limited time together.
“From that point onwards, I stopped attempting to fit her into an ideal ‘mould’ of a girlfriend in our relationship. From simple things like ‘you need to reply me within x hours’ to larger things like ‘you’ve got to build a sustainable career in future’.”
“That’s when everything shifted. We stopped arguing, we started appreciating. We stopped looking at what’s missing, but what’s there. We started loving each other again even more than before. The next few months, it was as if it was back to the honeymoon period,” he wrote.
One day, his girlfriend was being moody on their date and then they sat down to talk. “She felt guilty. She felt that she was cheating my feelings – by having this expiry date. She couldn’t bear having me still treating her so nicely during our dates. I guess I knew it too. We both knew it. It just wasn’t the same. But we both ignored those little things as we were both not willing to bring it up,” he said.
On that day, both of them decided to break up even though they still had eight months left but the guy asked her for one more day. With the blessing of the girl’s parents, they went on their last date, to Genting Highlands where it all began.
“We did a replay. I asked for her to be my girlfriend again – just this time around there was only 10 hours left.”
“We celebrated our future birthdays by blowing bubbles off the mountain, future Valentine’s Day by sitting on a bench munching on chocolate and our future anniversary by watching a video compilation of our pictures together that I spent a while to edit.”
There were no tears on that last day and since they could not go to prom together, they had their own mini-prom. He brought her out to a fine restaurant and treated her like a princess. After that, he read to her a speech that he had prepared as she had taught him what love was and how much he treasured the memories of their relationship.
That’s one rollercoaster of a relationship, man! Of course, it was what he said at the end that got everyone in the feels.
He wrote,
“That single realisation where I could end the relationship at any time – was a game changer for me. If we were to zoom out, I think a ‘limited time’ applies not only to my relationship but to every relationship too. Your partner will die. You will die. I will die.”
“Instead of spending all that time being unhappy about how our partners don’t understand our needs, maybe we should consider thinking about how we can give more to them, and just enjoy ourselves being with our partners. True love gives. For those of you who can be in a relationship where you both are able to be with one another happily. F**k you guys. You guys are very lucky. Love is a beautiful thing. Treasure your relationship.” He’s right, though!
At the time of writing, the post has already been shared more than 5,200 times and people were noticeably touched by the story. Many of them commented on the sad story and sympathised with the guy. There were also a few of them who were doubtful and said that it could be fake.
Regardless of whether or not it is fake, the lesson at the end of the story is still relevant! Be thankful and appreciate your loved ones while you still can!
Also read: Malaysian Girl Shares Sweet Tale of How Her Grab Driver Became Her Boyfriend