A Great Love Story Unwritten And Unread

Sometimes I can imagine myself attending my parents’ wedding and shouting at them, “please don’t. Don’t do that. Please do not create a hell for yourselves and for others.” And they heed my warning and believe me and part their ways, happily staying friends ever after, happily living their separate lives knowing that they are wrong for each other.

Nobody will consider this a love story, but it is. It is a love for humans rather than institutions, a love for flawed beings, a love for the courage to defy a belief, and a love for me, their child who is not going to be born to the doomed task of writing about them in a therapeutic fervor.   

And recently I watched a video about such a love story between two people. Since they are real people, two celebrities in certain circle and certain culture, I am not at the liberty to mention their names. So I’ll call them Poy and Soa. They met ten years ago and admired each other. Poy has a sweet exterior and a suave manner. I have watched several historical dramas with Poy playing the main character. I guess the directors really understand Poy and this is why they always cast him as somebody who is young, heroic, idealistic, passionate but uncomplicated, with a lot of bravado and not much nuance. He plays those roles well. About ten years ago, he met Soa in a setting in which the two played lovers. Poy played his usual handsome young man, simplistic, risk taking, rash of judgement, quick of anger. And Soa played an innocent girl who fell for him. It was one of the first three roles Soa played and it didn’t demonstrated Soa’s real character—a woman who likes to be in control, who is independent and unyielding. However the two did feel attractions to each other and Poy even proposed, but Soa had to turn him down, which is an act of brilliance. Poy did have a lot of endearing qualities, notwithstanding his international experience and multicultural background. However he is not likely to listen to Soa. His sweetness is predicated on the assumption that his partner fits in an imaginary role imagined by him. Soa would never fit in. Soa knew it and Poy was brought to the same understanding too, I guess. I think this is such a love story. They have since become good friends, happily ever after their mutual understanding of the impossibility of living together.

Now Soa is living happily with her husband, Cho, who listens to her skewed and austere managerial strategies of family finances. The couple are living a happy life, but their fans don’t like it for some reason. The fans think Cho listens to Soa too much and Cho doesn’t even hide the fact that he listens to her, which is against the social convention. The fans try to provoke Cho into some rebellious act, but to no prevail. The fans even laugh at Cho for his lack of manliness. To prove himself, Cho takes on a risky directorial project and fails miserably. After such an up and down, Cho is back to his happy self of being a good listener and good lover to Soa. Life is back to normal again. So this is another love story.