As I post this, I am inside a coffee shop, just like one of the chanarcters in Marla Miniano's novel, Table For Two.

Incidentally, I’m about to celebrate 30 months of being single in less than 24 hours.

30 months. That’s exactly two and a half years.

Lately, I have been receiving a bunch of different comments from people. Not the offending kind but rather the wake-up call type. Months after my best friend from grade school got married, she said I should already be in a new relationship especially since my friends and former batch mates are now either in a relationship, if not hitched to their respective partners. A colleague at work even commented just recently that given my age, I should have started building a family of my own.

And it’s not today that I receive comments like that. I tend to encounter those things daily.

Not about giving in to peer pressure but to be honest, there too are times that I think they are in a way right. There are times I would suddenly think of it and I’d tell myself, this hiatus from not being in a relationship is long (if not too long) enough. A week ago, I remember talking to another best friend over breakfast about my plans. This pause had been that lengthy and even then, there had been moments that I would just tell myself that maybe, I won’t enter a relationship and get married anymore; thinking that I’m not destined for it. I’d say I would just be a spinster for the remaining years of my life and take care of my parents. After all, they are getting older, and anyway, there’s no problem with me being alone.

It also came to a point that I’d think that maybe, I’ll just give in to my former thought of entering the convent. Thing is, my family is against it and I understand where their objection is coming from.

There too were times I would feel that a worthy relationship that would lead to marriage is something I hope to have. I knew that I deserve for that too. And to be honest, lately, it was something that I was praying for. Especially when my best friend told me that she is seeing me get married in the future. She said that I too need to move on after that failed relationship that lasted half a decade. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I can’t let go. I am doing perfectly fine with my current status. However, right now, there is one conviction that I fully believe in:

Love is not a feeling. It is a conscious choice.

I know that I could eventually fall for someone in the near future. I am not closing my doors to the possibility. But then, I want to take things one step at a time. Most people take the definition of love based on what they feel. But from my end, I want something realistic and not confined in rose colored glasses of illusions. I want to make a decision based on that conscious choice – that when this person comes, into my life, I would be able to accept him for what he truly is; regardless of his physique, his intellect, even his religious beliefs -- whether he is a Christian, Catholic, Agnostic or Muslim (after all, I might have my own negotiable list but it’s the personality that’s what’s important to me now).

Regardless if he is just the Mr. 80 percent of what I really want.

Some things are worth the wait. It’s another thing that I do believe in. The way I see it, conscious choices entail acceptance. I know that once I get to learn and to accept someone without the need for me to modify his being, I can definitely say that this really is love – because I went to defy some of its oddities yet I still went on to decide to pick the option of creating a wary choice instead of dwelling on feelings alone.

It will make love all more worth the wait -- at least for me.