to the one you love or to the one who loves you?

in february 1999 during a toastmasters meeting's table topics, i had three people role-play based on this question:

would you choose the one you love or the one who loves you?

that time, i had a formula as an answer to that. if you're a woman, go to the one who loves you; but, if you're a man, choose the one you love. i used to believe this based on "my" premise that a woman falls in love easily. a man who goes to the woman he loves, with the latter falling in love with him in time, will be a happy man. a woman who chooses the man who loves her, with the latter adoring his beloved, will fall in love in time and will be a happy woman. it's a formula for a happy ending. it was even validated by the result of my toastmasters role-playing game when the lady i asked to choose between two guys chose the one who loved her (the one who promised her devotion and love) instead of the one she loved (the other who promised her sweet nothings and excitement with no strings attached).

this time, though, i'm thrashing this formula. it is outmoded and filled with loopholes. primarily, it does not serve the homosexual and bisexual scenarios! ;) apart from that, having observed a lot of people (myself included) who are/were in an uncompromising situation of having someone to love and someone who loves them (or at least someone whom they think loves them) and choose between the two, made me rethink what i believed. even if i put myself in the shoes of a woman, it is not easy at all to choose. no matter how special you are treated by someone, you always go back to the one who is special for you.

i'm no longer banking on my old formula. it just might turn out to be a formula for disaster rather than for happy endings. i'm already in limbo as to how to answer the question i posed many years back. the times have changed. people's cultures and mode of thinking have changed. people have become bisexuals and trisexuals. it is not easy to choose between the one you love and the one who loves you when you're intent on becoming truly happy with someone. it's just difficult!

well, no matter the difficulty, in the end, we just have to make a choice and never regret when looking back. for me, it still holds true that happiness can be born out of a choice one makes.