Phenomenology of Giving Up

By: Ken Carlo Capco 1J-MT

What I will be doing in this reflection is a detailed phenomenological way of realizing what
really happened 2 years ago. What I did before became a major part of my life and required the use
of my best efforts but led to results that I was not expecting. This is not your typical love story. I
dont think anybody can do what Ive done in this day and age and most of the people who have
heard my story mostly felt pity for me. Most of my classmates already know this story and so I will
gladly share this with you. I remember almost every bit of it and I cant help but to laugh at my
previous self yet Im not sure if I have truly changed. This is an experience that will forever be
instilled in my being. This is the story of my very first love and heartbreak.
The day that the spark happened was a very boring day. It was a week before our intramurals
on October 2012 on my second year of high school. The day started just like any other, assembly in
the morning but most of our classes that week were free time since we just finished our quizzes on
all of our subjects. Everything was going the usual way it was supposed to be until Danielle talked to
me. Danielle was our top 2 that year and I didnt really like her on our first year but we were friends.
She approached me to talk about some random stuff which surprised me since she mostly talks to her
peers only. She took the seat on my right side and we conversed until my original seatmate came. My
seatmate then told her to move to the chair to my left and she did the last thing I thought she would
do, she sat on my armchair and proceeded to talk to me. I know this may sound clich but at that
moment, the sun was shining on her and the wind was blowing so gracefully and that made her look
so damn beautiful. That is how everything began. I started courting her after our intramurals and
what happened in between was one hell of a roller coaster. I kept on receiving signs that she liked
me, then that afternoon she would hate my guts. I talked to all of her closest friends and asked for
advice and help on how to court her. Most of them told me that I should just stop because we would
never be together. I tried to defy everything they said and kept on courting her. I would take every
chance I could get to do some moves to get some pogi points from her. The first time I was rejected
by her was our theme party. We have that kind of party annually before our semestral break. That was
the first time it hurt to get rejected and I was almost used to rejection. From that moment on, I knew
that I loved her. I wouldnt get that hurt if I didnt. The last thing that made me realize that what I
was fighting for was already lost from the beginning was because of the incident at prom. Prom
night, one of the best nights of your high school life. Everything was planned, everything was laid
out and I was just waiting for the right time to execute them. My first plan was to give her the first
dance she wanted with the song she wanted to dance to. That song was Enchanted by Taylor Swift.
She told indirectly that she wanted that song to be played on her first prom dance. She told me that
on December 2012. I remembered it up until that day. I saved the song on my usb and put it on my
coats pocket. After the program was done, the party started. I went to the sound system and then I
gave my usb to the DJ and told him to start playing the song inside. When the song started,
everybody was already pairing up with their respective partners. This made me really happy until I
saw her stand up and then go to the door when she saw me coming towards her. I chased her and
when I caught up with her she said she was just going to go to the comfort room and then she came
out after the song. That was when I said I was done. This was supposed to be the night to remember
and she made it memorable by doing that. I actually made a new kind of zone that night; it was made
by my batch mates when they knew what happened. I was CR-zoned. I was actually going to try to
fix it since I didnt want to waste more than two years of my life courting her. I still loved her even
after what she did. Then on April 4 2014, I chatted her and she broke me into a million pieces. She
sent a long message and the last part said You should find someone else. The only reason she

would say that was if she didnt really love me the way I loved her. I told her that I was okay even
though I wasnt and told her I would just give up.
After sharing you my extremely heartfelt story, I know start to separate myself from any
biases that I may have and suspend my judgement on whether or not I should have given up. I will
bracket all emotions I have to be neutral and to fully dissect the experience as to see it from the
spectator point of view. I aim to attain a better understanding of what had happened before. I will
now merely look at the story as the process of giving up.
After assuming the role of a neutral spectator, I will now try to manipulate the factors which
had caused the experience and then ultimately lead to the attainment of its essence. The same event
will be presented but with variations to attain the essence. Did I give up because I thought all hope
was lost? Yet how did I manage to maintain courting her for the time presented? Why did I only give
up at that time? Perhaps I thought it would still lead to the end I was hoping for. Was it possible that I
was merely tired of waiting? Although if I truly loved her, I could have waited for her even longer.
Would I have given up if she treated me differently? Yet I fell in love with the way she interacted
with me. Would I have done the same thing if I was older and more mature? If I were older, would
the effort given increase or decrease or maybe even stay the same? The time when the experience
happened was possibly full of naivety since I was merely getting prepared for college. Would
everything have been different if what happened at prom was the way I planned it to be and we could
have been together now? Should I have taken the hints before and quit early on? Was it possible that
she thought that I wasnt really in love with her and she couldnt take the risk of investing her
feelings on something that could not be real and would ultimately lead to heartbreak on her side if I
were to leave her in the end? Were her words You should find someone else for her or for me?
Could it be that she thought I was too good for her and she didnt deserve the love I was giving her
given the way she was treating me? Was I really in love? Could I have been in just a slightly deeper
feeling of infatuation? How could I prove that it was really love? I had no experience before this so
everything was a first for me. The only reason I could probably say that I did was because of the
pain. The pain is the only thing I know that is completely and utterly real. And here I stand
wondering what the true cause of the experience is. I must first affirm the essence of giving up and
using the factors above, I could conclude the one true final essence of giving up would be doubt.
Doubt that everything you were doing could have been false.
Having finished reducing the possibilities which had led to the experience, I now fully
acknowledge my place as being completely conscious of the act. Reminiscing myself at that span of
time, I have come to the understanding that the factors werent too much to ponder on as the final
decision was mine to make. The final reduction of the experience that I have perceived first hand is
that I gave up simply because I wanted to. It came to the point wherein I was solely focused on her
that I started to forget about myself. After the given amount of time, one might think that she should
already answer me since not many men can do what I have done yet I didnt even get to the stage of
MU (mutual understanding) wherein both are aware of how they feel about another. I then came to
the conclusion, being able to unbracket all the things that set aside before, that if she could not show
the same level of affection after those two years of faithful courting then she does not deserve me
anymore. Selfish and proud as it may sound, truly being able to love someone means being able to
love yourself first and that includes knowing what youre truly worth. And that is my
phenomenology of giving up.