Ephemeral Romances and Cultivating Self-Love
Romantic relationships aren’t candy canes and rainbows. They aren’t all pure, sweet or fluffy as we are falsely led to believe by Disney or the average romance flick. They don’t always last. They can get off to a good start, but some curve-balls like adultery, disassociated wants or unexpected pregnancies are thrown in to veer them off course and crash so suddenly. Yet people stubbornly pursue multiple ephemeral romantic relationships in their undying quests for love before they eventually discover their right partner, or not. Others choose to remain cautious and not make haste entering into another romantic relationship. Others realize they don’t have an emotional need to have a romantic partner at their side, and instead, continue leading their lives being single. Titular protagonists, Nana “Hachi” Komatsu and Nana Osaki, of the classic Japanese shoujo anime and manga series, NANA, endured ephemeral romances in their personal journeys through life, and they serve as a cautionary tale to those wishing to dive off head first into the tantalizing world of romance.
Hachi’s helpless, naïve and emotionally immature. She easily falls in love and becomes dependent and clingy to those around her. Her inability to be a good judge of character leaves her unable to find the right partner. It’s so painful and frustrating to watch that I can’t help but stand up from the couch and yell common sense at the TV every time she dates a different guy. Whether that’d be Takashi Asano, who’s an older married man; Shouji Endou, who ends up committing adultery with Sachiko; Takumi Ichinose, a possessive and manipulative prick who eventually becomes the father of her unexpected child and consequently her husband out of stability; or Nobuo Terashima, who exudes a hero complex. She reminds me of people I personally know in real life who are condemned to the same tragic fate. I can have my doubts of the partners they’re dating or marrying all I want because deep down I worry for their well-being. However, they're adults — only they can decide how to lead their lives. All I can do is just sit back, grit my teeth and hope they’ll make the right decisions.
Nana, on the other hand, is independent, prideful and enigmatic. Underneath her punk-rock appearance lies a kind heart and a strong loyalty to her friends. Unlike Hachi who’s been involved in multiple romances with different men: she’s only been involved in one romance with Ren Honjou, who was the original bassist in her band known as Blast. Although they share lots of similarities, their intimate conversations reveal stark differences between them. Ren seems to be more open with his love for Nana and the idea of asking for her hand in marriage and raising a family. Nana, however, rejects the idea because she doesn't want to be the dependent wife who makes miso soup for her husband all day and her pregnancy to cause trouble for their careers as musicians. She’d rather continue pursuing it and live her own life. This prompts Ren to move to Tokyo to ensure Nana’s own happiness, even if meant breaking up with her and joining Trapnest as their new guitarist. Their shared passion for music united them together and yet it separated them. How ironic.
When Nana started narrating her story of her past ephemeral romance with Ren, a certain excerpt unexpectedly struck a chord with me:
After a year and three months of living with Ren, right around the beginning of spring before the snow had completely melted away, it was over. We never actually said it was finished, but we both knew that living apart would mean the end of our relationship. We could’ve phoned each other or written letters. But if you can’t be there to hold each other close, what’s the point? I could feel his loneliness deep inside me as I there in bed without him, night after night. I felt it deeper than anyone else ever could. I still miss those times. Ever since he left, it feels like I’ve been wandering around in a dream, especially on a snowy night like this. When it’s cold outside, I can’t help but pray that someone is there keeping him warm.
I've tried so hard for the longest time to pluck out this unpleasant memory from the back of my mind and toss it away like it was a feather from a pillow, but now it has resurfaced and I’m compelled to painfully tell my own tale of ephemeral romance:
Long ago, I was once involved in a long-distance relationship with a girl living on the other side of the globe. It was my first and only romance to date. The vast distance between us made physical intimacy impossible. We couldn’t hold each other's hand. We couldn’t embrace in each other’s arms. We couldn’t make sweet kisses on each other’s lips. We couldn't have passionate sex between the sheets. We couldn’t do it all. No emojis, photographs, stickers, video/voice calls, or written messages exchanged between us could ever amount to those tangible moments. We used to talk often, almost every day in fact. However, it wasn't until about a year and three months into our relationship when I had a moment of clarity that would greatly hasten its bittersweet end: I realized I wasn't truly happy being in this romantic relationship like I thought I was.
I spent too much time catering to her demands without giving a second thought to myself. I was confusing this emotional imbalance growing inside me with romantic love. I found nothing beyond her aesthetic qualities to be attractive in the slightest. I had difficulty admitting this fact to myself for the longest time because I didn't want to cheat on her. There were so many times when I wanted to become unreachable for days on end, because interacting with her on a daily basis was a chore and I couldn't be left alone in peace. Those realizations influenced me to grow more distant from her. She took notice of my change in attitude and demeanor and interpreted it as being too busy. Regardless of the accuracy of her assessment, we both saw the writing on the wall: Time for communication had diminished as our individual lives became busier and the immense strain from the long distance had become too heavy for us to bear. As a result, we both made the mutual decision to break up. Now I could finally breathe a heavy sigh of relief — not just from all that anguish — but also from her because just like Hachi: she was dependent and clingy to me. After four more months of further communication, she had written to me on the date of my birthday that she was getting married. I was apoplectic over the inconsiderate timing of this news and decided to permanently cut her out of my life without hesitation. I wasn't afforded the chance to say a heartfelt goodbye. At this time of writing, six years has past since that day and my above-average long-term memory curses me to remember this unfortunate event every year until I no longer can. Part of me to this day still hopes for her to discover what truly brings her happiness and I know it would do a better job at it than I ever could.
And you know what the funny thing is? I wasn't seeking romance to begin with, I was seeking friendship. Making new friends in my offline life has always been a constant struggle for me since birth, so I looked to the Internet as a beacon of light to guide me the way — that was how I met her. We started off with some friendly chit-chat, but that was when I was the happiest. We were both on even ground and my boundaries were respected. Once we started dating, I knew I'd lose the chance of making a new friend. I could have avoided walking down this treacherous path altogether and spare myself from the anguish. So why didn't I listen to my instincts like I usually do? Well, I was under a lot of pressure from an increasingly high number of newlyweds in the family to join their ranks. I also wanted to bear witness to the hype behind long-distance relationships and discover for myself if they're even worth pursuing at all. This all made me naively optimistic to even consider the possibility of meeting up with the girl in-person and further evolve our relationship into something more so I could avoid ridicule and shame for wanting to live alone as a single person. But that's not all.
I always knew I was heterosexual. However, I was confused about where I landed on the romantic spectrum. I recall having crushes on girls when I was kid attending middle school and high school, but they were fueled by hormonal lust and nothing more. I wasn't inclined to ask them out on a date or for their hand in marriage. I just thought they were either aesthetically or sexually attractive, or both. So I tempered my carnal desires with a laser focus on achieving academic excellence, landing a stable career and living alone in peaceful solitude with the comforting presence of a cat to ease any remaining loneliness I had inside my heart. Without anybody telling me, I somehow knew I didn't fit into society's heteronormative mold of how an individual should lead a decent life and that there were other valid paths to choose from. Yet I carried out this ill-fated romance experiment because I wanted to prove to everybody that I wasn't crazy or dishonest for acknowledging the fact that I couldn't grasp nor resonate with the idea of romance and marriage. Now having grown wiser from the lessons I've learnt from that experience: I not only understood where Nana was coming from and could relate to her character; I could also cultivate my own self-love by becoming more confident in listening to my personal feelings and priorities and not caving into peer pressure. If Nana was ever a real person, I would have liked to meet her. I imagine — with our similarities — she and I could become great friends.