Lessons From a Former NBSB

In highschool and college when most of my friends were starting to go out on dates with their first steady partners, I remember feeling very left out and pressured especially when labelled as an NBSB or someone who hasn't had a boyfriend since birth.

I was young and naive and thought relationships were something out of a Drew Barrymore movie or a Sweet Dreams novel for that matter, one that was filled with "kilig" moments, a special first kiss and the usual brief complications of LQs or lovers' quarrel. Hearing the stories of girl friends as they exchange notes on their love life made me familiar with the concept of "going steady" with someone, yet for a time its application was something that seemed quite alien to me.

I guess it was that same feeling of pressure and wanting to catch up with the rest of them that I snagged my first boyfriend. A week before college graduation and a day before the baccalaureate mass, my name was finally stricken off the list of NBSBs and was immediately initiated to a world I thought would at least resemble some of the scenes from my favorite romantic stories.

A Julia Roberts-Richard Gere starrer it wasn't, but it lasted close to five years.

In my first lesson as a relationship newbie, I realized that things are not what I had hoped it would be, real life is much more complicated than a movie. The sparks tend to wear off a bit more quickly and the real work begins even if after the "kilig" moments have gone and both of you still realized you would still want to be together. In my journey to this exciting, irrepressible period of my life, I've learned a lot and that includes going through and passing the utimate test which is heartbreak.

I have learned that experiencing your first heartbreak is not just a turning point in your life, it is also a graduation of sorts, an ending required for people to level-up to the next round which is probably more gruelling, more complicated but all the more exciting. It's a fact of life that all journeys have to end at some point. There is always a time for a stop-over, a break from a long, endless trip. During this brief respite, we need to get up, stretch our feet, and wait calmly for another bumpy ride that would most likely take us to another destination. It also allows to reflect on our past accomplishments as well as mistakes. It also gives us a few moments to review our iteneraries in life, where we've been and where we are presently heading. Sometimes though, it takes time for us to want to go out again, feeling it too risky, too soon, too tiring.

Is this so called trip even worth it? All the agonizing, sleepless moments when all you can ever think about is the why's and what-if's of life.

It all depends on how you bounce back from a temporary setback like losing what you once thought was the love of your life. For some people who thrive on action and can never be bothered with the dramatics, the sooner they bounce back, the better. But for a few hesitant and cynical people like me, it requires years of meditation before we let friends drag our feet back back outside the real world and allow ourselves the indignity of another potentially disastrous match-up.

I can say that I have come a long way from the NBSB I used to be and the person I am now. The lessons I have learned along the way have entitled me to move a few wobbly steps forward. Where I was once a newbie, I now consider myself more prepared. Where I was once so eager, I am now more cautious of my actions. And when someday I may find myself stumbling yet another time, I will know when to get up, brush the dirt off my knees and continue with my journey.