... And Let The Reason Be Love

Part Two

Now, with all that background information out of the way, the next question is, how do we utilize it?

And here’s the bit of reasoning and extrapolation that I’m proud of. Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, the secret method of utilizing this information, lies in… DOTA.

Yes you heard me right. DOTA.

DOTA, Defense of the Ancients, the Warcraft game that’s the bane of all you poor girlfriends out there. *patpat*

Look, just think about it. You call your boyboy when he’s playing DOTA, and he’s a million miles away from you. There’s nothing you can do to reach out to him, to connect to him. You could walk right up and flash your boobs at him, and he’ll just wave you aside and shout, “Argh I need the money to buy Eul’s Scepter! Don’t disturb me!”

And that’s pretty hard for you to accept, yes? You think of that special moment he confessed his feelings for you, when he said he needed nothing else in this world except you. Your own love for him may give him a certain leeway in playing DOTA, but it often reaches a point when he almost seems like a different person to you.

ITS. THE. CHEMICALS.

DOTA INHIBITS THE CHEMICALS.

When he’s playing DOTA, you’re a girlfriend to him. You have certain strengths, certain weaknesses. You bring enumerated joys to his life, you are important to him in specific ways. You are human, only human.

When he’s NOT playing DOTA, you’re a goddess to him. You’re the sun, the moon, the stars. You’re on such a high pedestal he’s confident of fashioning huge monuments of love from your, er, waste. You know the feeling.

How do you utilize this? Simple. Assuming he’s wholehearted about this reflection process, you give him a list of questions to answer HALFWAY through a DOTA game. Stress that he’s not answering the questions to please you, but to give himself a chance to think about the whole thing properly.

The questions can include:
1. Why me?
2. What do we bring to each other’s lives?
3. What are the obstacles we face?
4. Are the obstacles worth surmounting? Do the efforts outweigh the benefits?
5. Is staying with me now worth it, or should we both look elsewhere first?

For you, the girlfriends of all the DOTA boys out there… I can’t think of any equivalent method by which you can really distance yourself from the relationship, for those few minutes of lucidity. Perhaps, perhaps you could try those quiet nights when he’s busy with DOTA, or you could also go to a soulful, restful place like a church to think about things?

Before I end, this post honestly won’t reach out to many of you. There are just so many different approaches taken towards relationships – some of us want relationships for the long term, some of us want them for the immediate benefits they bring.

Some of us really don’t mind taking the wait-and-see approach, and see no problem with just living the present to the fullest. Why be so fatalistic, Hanting? Why worry so much about making the wrong choices sometimes, why be so fearful of getting hurt? We’re all young, there’s so much to explore!

Maybe it’s just because I feel that blind, indiscriminate love tends to dilute the meaning in every relationship I have had. If I love you, it’s not because of the chemicals in my brain or the headiness of the moment, it’s because… you’ve earned it, by being the person you are.

And if you happen to be similar to me, the sort who prefers to parcel out love in controlled limited-edition quantities, the sort who wants to give his all to a relationship grounded in sturdy, rational foundations, then it would be good if you could just take a short 5 minutes to think about all this yourself.

Wouldn’t you rather have someone learn to love you over a period of time, than to have them love you completely, irrationally right from the start?