I remember watching it on YouTube. It was September 18, 2008. Dr. Maya Angelou, one of my favorite poets. She was giving a short warm-up-the-crowd type intro talk for Michelle Obama. Dr. Angelou said that while much is said about her husband Barack, Michelle was also quite amazing herself, as the best person to speak of how a great man he is. Who better that to say this than his wife?

"I believe that only equals fall in love."

She said that and the crowd applauded. Of course, in the context of her talk, she made mention of how somebody like Michelle was more than a match to her man.

But at the same time (and I find this with Maya Angelou poetry) there's a lot more to it.

See, apply it to the people you've loved, or more specifically, fallen in love with. Now, be honest. Not many of them worked out. And that makes sense. But the ones that do, and stick?

I'll use for an example a relationship that did stick. Growing up, I used to wonder why my Mom and Dad got together. Dad was class valedictorian in UP Los Banos, editor of the school paper, and was accelerated and graduated early. But he didn't have much by means of a social life; my sister used to joke "Dad was a loser dork back then" when we talk about it.

Mom? She was Homecoming Queen. Not stellar academically (she didn't pass med school), but popular, with orgs and sorority activities 24/7. Tita Mandy (Mom's dorm roommate then) used to tell stories of the dozens of suitors after Mom, at the flowers they left at the dorm, and how these boys would keep asking her after Mom. Mom shrugged them off the way you try to hide the story about the time an elephant pooped in your backyard while your next-door neighbor told friends about the smell.

So when they told me that the way the "dork" won over the "crush ng bayan" was because of a stray day when Dad sat besie Mom in Cell Biology class, I had to admit being perplexed. "That's it?" I'd think to myself. No sweet talk? No flirting? No GAME? The only major "move" Dad did, apparently, was when he saw Mom depressed at one point, and he spent time with her "being a friend".

Mom's story corroborated it. "He was just so nice to me. I felt he liked me but never said anything, then when I confronted him about it, he told me he liked me. And I liked him na rin, because I got to know what kind of person he was."

NGEK! And to think I wanted a story of riveting passion and romance and a fairy-tale happy ending.

But life isn't like that. And no, Mom and Dad aren't 'equals' in certain ways, it sort of evens out. Mom is the type who lives to experience the world and has helped open up my Dad to new and exciting experiences - new food to taste, new places to visit, new friends to make. Dad, being the stable, predictable rock he has been all his life, has been able to build the strong foundation that my family has grown on. Dad used to say how it was weird, him being "thrifty" and Mom being the spendthrift she was, but now he sees how his wife has become something of the budgeting maven, working the family account like clockwork, like how Dad pulled those 1.0's for his GWA, both in UPLB and in Med school.

Theirs is a love that has endured claims of infidelity, bouts of tempers firing, around a quarter of a century of married life, health crises on both ends, and yes, even children acting a damn fool. It's still stands.

And yeah. Dr. Angelou must've been onto something, saying how people, no matter how different, belong to one another when they know that in their love, they meet their equal.

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I tell you this, for my life is interesting lately, particularly when it came to the women I've met, cared for, and even loved. I am blessed, I guess, that years ago I had found people I knew I could spend my life forever with. And also doubly blessed that my friends are true friends - true friends must be always there, even when you don't realize you need it - their loyalty has come to bat everytime a girl catches my fancy, or when it's me who finds admirers.

My peers have split one another to two sides. On one hand are some of my longest-loving confidantes, adoptive sisters and brothers, some of the wisest and noblest people I've met. Theirs is the belief that love is love is love, that if Raph so chooses to love somebody, then she must be one of the luckiest women around! That if there was anybody who could care and love and nurture a relationship, you'd do a lot worse than Raph (never mind that he's not the physically sexiest man).

Others are different. I nicknamed them "moveonraph.org". They too, number in my deepest, most valuable friends, the kinds I spent hours awake on the phone on, or who have come to my rescue countless times. They still continue to throw my life preserver hoops, albiet a different way - they believe that if somebody was to be loved by Raph, she must deserve it. She must love me in the same endless, no holding back kind of potential that they've seen me in with some girls from way back.

How do you know, who deserves it? How do we tell that somebody deserves another?

And the most important part, I guess is...

...who are they to say whom I should love? :)