IT’S BEEN a few days since February 14 and while everyone else has gone back to regular programming, here I am still floating in post-Valentine’s nostalgia that only a hopeless romantic from the 80s can understand.
Back then, we learned love the old-school way; not from TikTok or DMs but from MTV, OPM ballads, Betamax tapes, and the movies and love teams that defined a whole generation.
The boys back then pretended to be tough but secretly memorized Chicago’s You’re the Inspiration, Air Supply’s Making Love Out of Nothing at All and Spandau Ballet’s True. And yes, some of us truly believed Phil Collins wrote Against All Odds for our classroom crush who never even learned our names.
Our hearts were shaped by OPM gems—Ric Segreto’s Don’t Know What to Do, Odette Quesada’s Friend of Mine, Kuh Ledesma’s Till I Met You, and Sharon Cuneta’s To Love Again. We even danced to Gary V’s Growing Up and the entire batch cried to Raymond Lauchengco’s Farewell on graduation night.
And the movies?
We cried like fools over Somewhere in Time, believing love could defy time itself.
We cheered for Daniel in The Karate Kid, because every Filipino kid knew a bully and wished for a Mr. Miyagi.
And after watching Back to the Future, we dreamt of time travel to undo our most awkward moments with our crushes.
We grew up with John Hughes movies – Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club. We believed in John Cusack and his boom box in Say Anything. We wanted a Dirty Dancing romance, minus the dangerous lift.
And of course, Filipino love teams kept our hearts beating. We rooted for Aga and Janice, Gabby and Sharon, Maricel and William, Albert and Snooky, Alfie and Dina.
And then there were the mixtapes, considered our masterpieces. Side A for hope; Side B for heartbreak.
We waited for the radio to play our chosen songs, praying the DJ wouldn’t talk over the intro. If he did, our whole romantic plan collapsed.
Saying “I miss you” meant writing it on scented stationery and sending it through three friends and a suspicious teacher. Breakups meant crying to REO Speedwagon’s Can’t Fight This Feeling, Joey Albert’s Tell Me and Keno’s I Want You to Cry Too, then taping back together the letter you tore in dramatic fashion.
And what made the ’80s magical?
We believed in effort, in waiting and walking someone home under dim streetlights after a barangay dance party, with heart pounding but hopeful.
Today, love is fast, loud, digital and disposable at times.
The ’80s taught us something timeless: love deserves effort. It deserves patience, sincerity, and a soundtrack you rewind with a pencil.
Being an ’80s hopeless romantic might seem outdated today, but I see it as a gift. We are the keepers of a gentler kind of love – the kind that lingers, rewinds, and believes that feelings are meant to be felt, not swiped away.
So yes, I’m a hopeless romantic from the ’80s. And if that makes me outdated, hand me my Walkman.
Because like the MTV hits, the OPM classics and the movies that raised us, true love never goes out of style.
