All those who believe John Lennon when he says all you need is love should be whipped in public and hung upside-down over the nearest town square.

Alright! Now that I’ve got your attention, we should proceed to the real post. I don’t quite agree with the last paragraph, but I think it raises some good points. So what are they?

A few days ago, I met an acquaintance of mine. I won’t name him – he’ll just be called ‘J’. I don’t consider J a friend, but he’s nice, and every time we meet, I get to hear a bit of his ongoing soap opera. This is the latest chapter.

J has been in love with a girl for seven years. (Yes, you heard right – SEVEN!) He confided in me about four years ago, so I can testify to those four at least. Anyway, after seven years, he proposed to her last week.

Now, she is a rather studious girl, and both of them are studying right now, so she said that she won’t consider anything for the next two years. He thought that this answer was bloody unfair. He wanted a definite ‘yes’ or a definite ‘no’. I said to him that it was a definite ‘maybe’. He started laughing. But I was serious.

Now, this chap expects her to be able to predict her feelings two years from now. But consider this:

If she says yes today, and changes her mind later, he will be waiting for two years, and then when he opens his arms to her, he’ll be left with open arms and nothing else. And if she says no right now (the only reason being that she doesn’t want to say yes), but she later starts liking him, what’s she supposed to do?

I think that ‘maybe’ is a completely valid answer in this case. And I don’t think it is unfair of me to say so, because I myself have been on the receiving end of a ‘maybe’.

When I was thirteen, I proposed to a girl. She was a schoolfriend. When I proposed, she said she didn’t want to think about that now. Fair enough, we were only thirteen. But I think that if she had said a simple yes or no (and a no would’ve been much, much more probable), it would’ve done a lot more damage.

In my friend’s case, he is still young (not yet an adult), and if she says anything definite (yes or no), he’ll want to either sit in cafés with her making eyes and mumbling sweet nothings over coffee, or sit in cafés alone trying to drown himself in coffee. And she doesn’t want that, and neither, I believe, should he.

He wants to give her an ultimatum (an ugly word and usually an ugly practice, I think). I believe that he shouldn’t give her an ultimatum and try to be done with it. It’ll be senseless, and a waste of all his seven (still can’t believe it, can you?) years of secret love.

So I think that she was right, but this guy is moping into his pillow and not sleeping. Fair enough, it's his fault, not hers. Next time I meet him, I’ll asked him what happened.

This originally inspired my outburst. But that’s only till the next time I myself fall in love. Luckily, right now, I’m only in love with myself (do not infer anything unseemly from that, please), so I can spout words of wisdom while watching other people from far, far away.

I am a bastard, aren’t I?