My guy friends cannot believe what Trader does for me. They think it’s an abonination the lengths that Trader does to show how much he loves me, and how important I am to him.

“I don’t prescribe to long-distance relationships,” my refreshingly honest GGFBN (gay-guyfriend-but-not). “It just doesn’t work. You’ll just live parallel lives so if you want your relationship to work, one of you have to move to the same city as the other.”

“Well, that’s definitely an inevitability,” I responded. “But cut him some slack. We just started dating over a month ago. Moving takes a lot of time and effort and we have more than enough time.”

I think long-distance relationships are funny. Why start a relationship with someone who lives a gazillion miles away when you can find someone from your backdoor and you can see on a daily basis? Seriously, there’s a lot of hot-looking cool women in Singapore. Why not just find one from that pool?

“Bonita, you don’t get it!” GGFBN screams (yes, he can be so annoying at times). “He likes you. He adores you. He loves you. He doesn’t care where you are. Love is irrational so just shut up about it.”

My friend who visited this week ask me if I think that Trader and I are compatible. “Do you think you really fit each other?” he curiously inquired.

Personally, I don’t think that Trader and I make the best conventional “fit.”

He is a private person who socializes on demand when the situation calls for it. On normal days, he’s quite happy staying at home doing his laundry, reading a book and talking to me. When he goes it, it’s once in a blue moon and with a specific group of close friends.

My group varies all the time. My friends come from all parts of the world. Many I meet for the day and never see again. Some I forge friendships with. People who meet me the first time say I’m a super strong extrovert. “That’s the best and worst thing about you,” GBFBN says. “You just shine. You just be. But you’re just too out there.”

I rate 88% on the extroverted scale — super, duper extrovert. “Ang lakas ng dating niya (she makes a super big impression),” Trader’s friends consistently comment when I saw them last weekend. Really really different from Trader who chooses to reveal himself only to a few selected people.

I’m much more analytical and pragmatic while he’s a lot more emotional and in touch with his feelings. It took me weeks before I even knew that Trader was interested and this was not without GBFBN’s prodding.

“The guy’s interested and heck, even in love with you!!!” GBFBN insisted. “No guy calls you long distance and talks for hours — and not be interested!”

Of course, GBFBN was completely right, and Trader’s completely grateful to him for hitting my head with a stick and opening up the doors for us getting into a relationship. Seriously, I was too insensitive that I was more or less clueless on whether Trader was interested, despite all the signs being there.

Anyway, now that we’re finally together, Trader does a million things that guys cannot help but stare agape in disbelief. “He brings shame to the male race!” they would say, and you wonder when being sure about a woman and cherishing her had been a crime? 🙁

For example, from the first week, Trader has already been vocal on how he felt for me. Four days at most after we started dating, he was already quite expressive with his “I love you.”

And from that day on, never has a day passed when he tells me how much he loves me, misses me and cares for me. Of course, it did take me some time to reciprocate his sentiments but what girl wouldn’t in time? 🙂

This is however something really crazy for most men to grasp.

“Love is something that grows over time,” they insist. “I know that you knew each other in college, lost touch and re-met again but seriously, how can you be in love with someone that you just started dating? It sounds very insincere. How can you love someone before you spend time getting to know them?

Good question. 🙂

I do think that Trader is sincere, and he really really loves me. It’s only when you’re in the midst of it that you cannot stop but let it show. He is happy and it shows. He is in love and it shows. And he shows it not just in his face and his words, but also his actions.

Trader and I communicate a lot given our long-distance status. I ask him about this, not because I doubt his love, but rather of curiosity.

“You say that you love me, but how do you know it’s really really love?” I asked.

“Before I asked you to be my girlfriend, I gave it a lot of thought,” he answered. “I asked myself whether you’ll be the girl I’d like to share a meal with today, and tomorrow and in the years that follows. The answer was a clear-sounding, ‘Yes.'”

“I love you — the entire you — and I knew what I was getting myself into,” he continued. “And the answer was, here’s a girl for keeps and I will do everything in my power never let her go.

My friends think that Trader is so serious about me that most girls would freak out when listening to him. “Too soon! Too soon!” they shout.

“Sigh, maybe that’s why you and Trader fit each other,” GBFBN conceeded. “He’s super mushy and serious, and you for some insane reason, don’t mind.”

The other thing that Trader does that bothers the hell out of my guy friends is that he stated his intentions from the get-go. A mere week after we started dating, Trader looks at me with all seriousness and says, “Bonita, don’t be afraid but I just want you to know that I’m serious about you. This is it. You’re my last stop. You’re the one.”

“Huh, what do you mean?” I asked, caught aback with the seriousness of the moment in a Sunday morning.

“I don’t really want to find anybody else,” Trader confesses. “Of course, it will take a bit of time but I do want to make you mine permanently. I want to spend my life with you.”

Umm…. was that just a proposal?

“How can he want to marry you when you guys had just started dating?” my guy best friend said when I shared this. “He has to spend time with you and get to know you better first! Maybe he’ll find out how psycho you are.”

Guys consensus: They don’t think about marriage until well after the relationship develops. “At least over a year of dating please,” Carlos said. “Not before that of course because how do you know that she’s just the right person for you.”

Trader is unaffected.

“You’ve changed a bit over the years but I think I know you well enough to just know,” he told me. “You know, I gave it a lot of thought before asking you to be my girlfriend. And the consensus is, I love you and want to be with you. And in time, permanently.”

“Being with you was a decision where the heart and mind agreed on,” he continued. “I just knew. Everything fell into place.”

My guy friends insist that Trader is more of the exception than the norm, if not crazy.

Personally, I don’t find an issue in declaring that you’re serious about someone at the beginning of the relationship. 

Unless you’re looking for something casual, don’t we always aim for something long-term when we begin a relationship? Isn’t marriage the end-goal of dating — to find out if this person is really we can spend our lives with? Trader was just a bit more vocal with his intentions on the get go, that’s all.

And besides, my friends freak out becuase they think that Trader wants to get married tomorrow, which is absolutely untrue. Trader and I are just dating and enjoying the experience. But that doesn’t mean that we’re aiming just for the short term. We’re looking to building a future together so our relationship has purpose.

“Wait, does it mean that you want to marry him now?” my friend chastised. “I didn’t think of you as a girl whose end goal was to get married?”

Ummm… that’s a bit unfair.

That’s why we’re dating! We keep marriage in mind, but that’s still in the far off future. But at least, you have that intention. If in any case it doesn’t work out, it’s still fine. 

 Honestly, I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with knowing what you want and actually following through, which is what I liked the most with Trader. Compared to multitude of guys who randomly date as if they’re throwing darts at the wall and hopes that something hits, Trader was very clear on what he wanted — me, and just me.

And it was this high conviction call that bowled me over.

Sure, I was used to male attention and enjoyed it, but never had I met someone who is so sure of his decision and is consistent in carrying it out. And because he loved me, he made it his purpose to make me happy, it’s inevitable for me to feel the same and adore him.

“You’re more than enough for me,” he told me last night.

Hahaha, anyway, sorry for being mushy. I know that many of you may never meet someone like Trader and would even find him slightly creepy and needy. How can a person love a girl so much and want to marry her? Realists would just shake their head in disbelief.

However, it’s not you who are dating Trader. I am.

I love the guy for who he is, what he does and what he represents. In a relationship, it doesn’t really matter if you’re bothered at what you see, as  long as the two people involved agree on the feelings. Sure, some people may think that Trader and I are moving too fast, but if it works, then who cares?

So long as Trader and I agree on our style, then that’s the most important thing. 🙂

Anyway, hope all is well. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!