DEAR EMILY,

I’m in my mid-40s and this is about my first love.

I met her while I was working for a large Philippine food chain. I was 22 and fresh out of college, while she was only 19. Our instant attraction was mutual. We were called a pretty and promising couple, and both our families approved. It was true love, intense and intimate.

A year after, she relocated to Canada with her family. We agreed she was going to finish her studies there, then decide if I’d follow her or she would come back here. It was her call. Despite our being apart, we celebrated an anniversary that turned out to be our last. She stopped replying to my letters or answering my phone calls. A few months later, she wrote a short letter with just the words, “I love you and goodbye.” No explanations. Further calls and letters were likewise unanswered.

I took it hard because everything I did was toward our plans of being together. Then someone told me she had gotten married shortly after she dumped me. I felt extremely hurt and stupid because I was faithful and passed up opportunities to go out with other eligible prospects then. She now has three kids.

Hesitantly, I moved on, dated a bit, then married a wonderful woman. We now have a daughter.

A few years back, I received a friend request from her in social media. While my wife was fine with it, I felt there was no need to accept. I already have a great family and career. I didn’t know she also made this request to two of my siblings, one of whom is also in Canada. I thought maybe she was just curious to see how my family and I are doing.

My brother has already had two failed marriages, and is currently on his third. My mom visits him regularly in Canada and tells me how it is there. She said the houses are kilometers apart, and one has to be with someone or lose one’s mind. I got my mom’s point, but it’s all in the past now.

Probably the environment became very lonesome for my ex, so that she craved the intense and the intimate. But I was lonely, too, when she left, and lonelier when she dumped me. The communication she wanted would have been welcome to me then. But no need for closure now. She did not even apologize then.

But I will, and just send her what she sent me: “I’m sorry. Goodbye.”

PHOENIX

Bravo! Good for you. Fortitude is so attractive in a man! She crushed the life you had planned together and didn’t even cushion the blow by being generous or honest enough to say why it was ending. She just left you bewildered and shaken with three cruel words—and with nary an apology! Little words that are still reverberating to this day. How is that for love gone awry?

But your heart that used to be full of love has turned cold and indifferent. You’re not even tempted to look in your rear-view mirror at the plume of the crash she caused in your life, which she apparently wants to revisit with you. You’re past her now, and she’s clearly not in your life anymore. You’ve moved on to a more secure and steady relationship, and that’s all that matters—a good wife and a child.

In her present state of loneliness, she’s probably holding on to the warm memories she had with you—and is banking on how you’d want to reminisce with her about the good old days of your relationship.
You were the “promising” couple once, intimate and truly in love. But hey, it’s not like someone pointed a gun to her head to choose this life and leave you. She was a big girl when she made the decision, and it’s just too bad she totally misread the tea leaves in her cup.

Whatever is said about our third world country—Manila in particular having horrendous traffic, wall-to-wall people,
paper-thin living arrangements, with sounds of neighbors fighting or having sex seeping through the walls, and more unabated aggravations coming and going on all fronts—someone like her can unbelievably miss the din, in contrast with the stark, desolate environment of a wealthy first world country like quiet Canada.

Keep your stead and consider her a past you’d rather not revisit. Some pasts belong where they are—in the past. She turned her back on you and the future you planned. Isn’t it poetic justice, what’s happening to her now?

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