Jun and Diane have been together for twenty-five years. They were married when they were both twenty-six (although Jun likes to kid around and remind Diane that she's older by a month), when they were still young and unsure of everything but the way they felt about each other.

When asked what the secret to his long lasting marriage is, Jun will happily tell you: grilled cheese sandwiches. He discovered long ago that, for Diane, there is nothing like a good grilled cheese sandwich. And from then on, he's been making them for her. It doesn't matter what time of day it is. If she asks for them really early in the morning or even really late at night, he says he will get up and make them. He's been doing it for so long now that he knows exactly how to make the perfect sandwich for Diane. He knows just how long to toast the bread and how melt-y she likes her cheese and how she likes her tomatoes sliced.

They work twice as great when she's sick or feeling gloomy. Jun has vowed to make grilled cheese sandwiches for his wife, for better or for worse, for as long as they both shall live.

...here's the thing. I have always had problems with the terms girlfriend and boyfriend. I've always felt that for describing someone who is supposedly such a significant part of your life, they're horrible words. They're archaic, unimaginative and completely juvenile. And for words that are supposed to serve as labels to let people know the extent of our relationship they really are not effective, are they? She's a girl who's a friend but more? What? And to make matters worse, I've actually heard people in conversation refer to their gf's and bf's. Ugh! Acronyms! Soon we'll be nothing but acronyms!

You can just imagine the trouble I experienced when I got myself into one of these things they call a relationship. Introductions had to be made to friends and friends of friends and we had no choice but to use the godawful, cringe-inducing terminologies. It's bad enough hearing myself get introduced. Once, he wasn't around and I had to re-introduce myself to one of his friends. I froze. The word just could not and would not come out of my mouth. 

So in the interest of ushering the new era of terms of endearment and relationship description, my most favorite person in the world and I have decided to introduce each other as loveninjas from now on. True, it's a little kooky and it isn't the best term for spelling out your relationship for people out there, but you have to admit it sounds a hell of a lot cooler. Love + ninja. Hell, yeah. It may not work for everyone and if it's not to your liking, I (strongly) encourage you to come up with words of your own. Please, let's do our part to stop the use of such antiquated and inadequate terms. Thank you.


p.s. Many, many thanks to my super awesome loveninja, faithlessphil.
Baby, you're the greatest.

"But," he said as looked at me with a puzzled look on his face, when I told him that I like fruit and nut chocolate bars, "I thought you didn't even like raisins."

"I do! I even buy them in the little bags and snack on them sometimes." I told him, and shot him a puzzled look of my own. "What made you think that I didn't like raisins?"

"You know, that one time. When we ate that Paella Valenciana." he answered. "You picked the raisins off your plate.", he said as he made a small mimicking gesture of me daintily picking raisins off a plate. I thought about it for a while. I remembered. Yes, he was right. But that was a couple of months back, and I was shocked that he noticed such a little, seemingly insignificant thing, and that he could remember it so easily when I had to stop and think.

"Oh, no, honey. I do like raisins." I explained, "I just don't like them on things that aren't sweet."

"Oh." he nodded, the furrow in his brow and the quizzical look in his eyes gone. He smiled again, seemingly satisfied with the explanation. "Okay." All made sense once more.

After that, I could only laugh and be amazed by the cute Chinese boy I have come to love so well. I hugged him, and gave him a kiss, and though I didn't quite say it out loud, in my mind, I said just about the most predictable thing you'd think of saying at a time like this, I can't believe you remembered.

For the longest time, I wasn't a girlfriend. Whereas most of the people around me started right around high school and had had at least two or three ex's by the time we were graduating college, I was blissfully untarnished. I had gone out many, many, many times with people, sure, but somehow I never felt taking it anywhere else. So because I had never gone steady with anyone, I hadn't broken up with anyone either. This put me in an interesting position. Even though I lacked the experience, people in relationships often came to me for advice under the impression that I was sensible or at least impartial because I was untainted and could view both sides of the story with a kind of detachment. Now, I'm told that I was actually some help to a number of people. Somehow, all the years of being a non-girlfriend gave me the ability to spot and point out the unnecessary drama. Making molehills out of mountains, if you will. However, many of their habits puzzled me greatly. I didn't really understand why  remembering dates were such big deals. Or why you'd ask someone to call you later that night if you'd seen him just earlier that day. Even if they weren't really talking about anything! Didn't these people ever get tired of each other? Thus, to many of my advice seeking friends, I came to be known as the anti-girlfriend. Yeah, yeah. I know how that sounds. But I'm pretty sure they meant that in a good way. At least, I hope they did.

So you can imagine the commotion of sorts that occurred among many of these people when last year I finally did become someone's girlfriend. Came the questions like, "Hindi nga? Talaga?" or "Ows?" or "Seryoso yun?" or even "Anong nakain nya?!" from the people who have known me the longest. I think there might have been some people who thought I was just making it all up, to see if they were still paying attention. I assured them that I wasn't. I couldn't make that guy up if I tried. There was one girl (who I actually did go out with for a while) who said in a very relieved tone of voice, "Well, finally! Some sign of normalcy from you." All I could say is if he was supposed to be my sign of normalcy, I was doomed.

Seriously though, folks. He's awesome. I mean, I don't think I'll ever meet another guy who's willing to teach me a complex mathematical equation in Sesame Street's Count's sing-songy and accent-y ways.

Anyway, now that I am one of them, I got to thinking. What did I learn from the years of listening to the concerns and issues of boyfriended/girlfriended people? Well, let's see. Here are some of them. I've learned that problems are unavoidable, but drama is optional. And anniversaries can be really cool. And it really is possible to talk to someone on the phone even after you've seen them earlier that day without getting tired. In fact, talking about nothing can be a  lot of fun.

And I've learned that if you've heard one love story, you've heard them all. After all, no matter the differences in time, place and setting, perhaps every story is about love.




That said, ours is still my favorite.

Nervous. I suppose that's what I should have been. After all, I didn't really know him. Which was strange, because I felt like I did. At least, I felt like I knew enough about him to put me at this incredibly lovely yet inexplicable ease. You know how you get warm on the inside when you think about your favorite things? Well, that's exactly what happened to me every time I thought about meeting him for tea. Every time I thought about him. It felt like I was going to see an old friend. My closest and dearest old friend. Which was strange, because I didn't really know him. A few days before this, I wrote him a letter. I asked him about his dreams. He wrote back. He told me that he had dreams about cats who told him about his future. But this was the first time we would ever meet in person.

I walked to the old Mocha Blends in Shangri-La where we'd agreed to meet, fairly sure that I would be early. It was only half past five and we'd agreed to meet at six. I like being early. The wait is part of the experience. You can imagine my surprise to see him there, waiting, already halfway through a cappucino. I wondered then how long he had been waiting, and if he was nervous, and as I walked to the table where he sat I could kind of tell that he was. I couldn't help but laugh a little. He looked at me, with his tiny charmed eyes that I loved even then. I was going to say hi, and then I realized that I had never even heard him speak before and I wondered how his voice would sound. So yes, I suppose I should have been nervous. But I wasn't. I held out my hand and said, "Give me your hand." And he did. And when he took my hand, I understood immediately why I didn't have to be nervous, and why it didn't matter that I had never heard him speak before that moment. "This," I told him, "is just so I know I'm not dreaming. So that I know you're real." His hand was warm. I gave it a light squeeze.

"I'm here." he said, and I felt a squeeze on my own.

I sat next to him for the next few hours. I asked him about many things. All the time, I felt the universe shifting. Maybe two feet to the right. It went unnoticed by most people around me and I knew that things would never be the same again. Shapes and forms were going by, songs were fading into the background, lights were going on and off, stars were dying and being born and somewhere a dream was ending. But I knew, from then on, that things would be better than any dream. I knew it from the moment he took my hand and squeezed right back.

I had mistaken his eyes for stars, you see, and so I followed him where he went. The sight of those stars made me dream, and the dreams were beautiful, but not more beautiful than the light of the stars that I thought I saw in his eyes. I chased the stars down to where they stopped and stayed still. He saw me, finally, and he said, ever so gently, I'm sorry, you've mistaken my eyes for stars and they're not and I said, Oh, I see that now, and maybe I should have been sad, but I wasn't, because he was looking at me, and I found that I couldn't be sad when he was looking at me. They were not stars, but they were just as bright, if not more so. I know now that they're not stars, I told him, but I like them. And I think in another minute I will love them. Can I stay here, to look at them? I asked him and he smiled and said, ever so gently, Yes, you can stay here and look at them. So he let me stay and here I am and here I will be until he tells me to go.  

We had walked in just in time. Having missed the trailers (and really, the trailers are the best part), we hurriedly found our seats and settled in for the movie, which by this time had already begun. Don Cheadle said something about how we all long for the touch of other people, how we miss it so much that we're willing to crash into people we meet along the way, to bring about some kind of feeling from the contact with someone else. I thought about how lovely and sad this was for a beginning, and hoped that the rest of the screenplay would be just as cleverly written. Then I realized that he had one arm around me, and that it didn't feel strange at all. It probaly should have, since we'd known each other for less than a week and we'd gone out only once before. But it didn't. So, I snuggled closer. It seemed like the thing to do. I saw him smile. Then I realized that I wasn't exactly watching the movie anymore.

"I'm sure this movie is fantastic." he whispered, "But right now, I don't really care."

That night, I went home, heart pounding steadily in my chest, like a little bird trying to break free from her cage. And I still get that way now, when I remember how he first kissed me in the dark.