Happy Valentines Day

Am not one to post about Valentines day but I just had to post about how profound the video on google's home page right now is with regards to love and relationships. Google usually changes the header of its home page to celebrate the day's special occasion, this time its valentines day.

In the video you see a boy wanting to win the affection of a girl seen skipping rope. He gave her a lot of things but none would interest her. In the end when he tried skipping rope beside her was the instance that he won her affection.

I say its profound because I learned this same thing from experience. I've been with my wife for more than a decade already. Everyday I Thank God for having been given the chance to meet her and win her affection. That's because with her, to borrow a cliche, I feel complete. It's our mutual shared interests that makes us not get tired of each others company, then there is our love also of course.

Prior to my wife I was in an almost 7 year relationship with my highschool sweetheart. In those seven years we finally discovered that we weren't meant for each other because we were worlds apart. Our mutual interests were school and friends, but that quickly faded away once we settled into work-life and friendships were put on hold because of geographical variables.

With the experience on my failed relationship I cooled down for a year, to heal my broken heart, before embarking on another relationship. And when I decided that I wanted to court my wife I sat her down and told her all about myself; my history, interests, pet peeves, bad habits and buried skeletons. That way if she decided to accept me as her significant other, all the cards were already on the table and there wouldn't be anything to surprise her about me as the relationship progressed.

I guess the point I'm driving at is that mutual shared interests and honesty are important in a relationship so that a person won't have to change much in order to fit into the relationship. And entering into a relationship with the consolation of thinking that you can change a person is a huge gamble that is great when it succeeds but disastrous when it fails. Then of course there is that other saying that says that you should accept people for what they are *snicker*

One reason too why I always recommend being in a relationship for more than 2 years before deciding to get married. You can learn alot about a person in 2 years.