COMMENTARY | Bare Minimum, Maximum Kilig?

“I love you too.”

*sent 48 hours after your last message*

The notification finally showed up. The wait is over.

The wedding bells are already ringing in your mind, all doubts flew away.

There's no need to rant to your best friend anymore—at least for now.

Congratulations!

You have been acknowledged. You have acquired validation.

You have found your soul mate, or at least someone who remembers you exist.

Ready the lechon, cue the confetti, today's a fiesta!

This isn't just a text message, this is peak modern romance.

It's time to post a 15-second TikTok slideshow with a background music of a slowed-down OPM ballad, and a caption: “Worth the wait, TYL.”

However, once the screen goes black and the post gets shared, the kilig subsides, leaving us in a reality where we realize that the bar for love is far from low, it's already buried down under.

Nowadays, we tend to romanticize the bare minimum. Small gestures are seen as exceptional, and “at least” has become our go-to relationship prefix: “At least hindi ako sinasaktan” or “At least hindi cheater.” While those are non-negotiable, we've come to normalize “not being a terrible person” as an “extra mile” effort, when in fact it should be the basic foundation of human connection.

This trend knows no exceptions, even for individuals like me who haven't experienced romance. We develop crushes simply just because someone is… kind? polite? or maybe punctual? They helped us carry our bags and held the door open once, and suddenly, time stops and Hanap-Hanap plays in the background like it's our Wattpad theme.

It's amazing how we treat good people with admiration, but it's sad to think that kindness, a value we are taught to embody, is treated as a mythical encounter rather than a basic human act that we should receive and do regardless of labels. Maybe it's time for us to ponder why we are so emotionally invested in a “rare green flag”.

I once talked to a good friend of mine, and she shared how she settled for the bare minimum in a toxic relationship because she believes in a dreadful line from The Perks of Being a Wallflower: “We accept the love we think we deserve”.

This is not limited to romance. In friendships, we stay in a circle we don't fit in because they greet us hi or hello. In work, we avoid saying no to a person because we feel like we owe it to them for telling us that someone is talking behind our back. These are sad realities on how we settle for the bare minimum, treating it as our form of validation, when it only undermines how deserving we are for so much more.

For most of us individuals, love is a one-in-a-lifetime limited opportunity. Growing up, it's normal for us to receive affection as a form of “reward”. If you are “unremarkable”, receiving love is a “blessing”, a relief pack where you are lucky to receive “something” rather than left with “nothing”. So much so, that you treat your partner's lack of effort not as their shortcoming, but the embodiment of your own lack of “worth”.

My friend realized that what she labeled as a beautifully tragic romance, is nothing but a series of broken boundaries and erosion of her self-respect. After months of no-contact with that person, she was able to finally hear her own thoughts and feelings without the need of someone's permission.

In relationships, when we receive crumbs of affection after a long period of neglect, we are provided with a clear sense of accomplishment greater than what we immediately receive in stable relationships. This behavior is what we normally romanticize, mistaking it for the passion and intensity that we see in media-portrayed romance, that follows the same routine as how we normally receive love from our loved ones.

This is the danger of settling for the bare minimum. After already using most of your energy repeating the same cycle, you lose your ability to hear your own intuition due to the noise of justification: “Ok lang, hindi niya naman ako minumura,” or “Sapat na nga bag-sosorry siya sa mali niya.”

What's sad is that we can't blame ourselves entirely. We are put in a situation where asking or expecting treatments beyond the bare minimum is misunderstood as having “unrealistic expectations”. We are labeled as “maarte”, when there is a greater difference between someone who simply buys valuable gifts and someone who knows how to participate in the relationship without materiality.

But making our standards higher isn't villainous. Settling beyond what's bare minimum is not about excluding other people who aren't able to provide impossible amounts of attention or presents. It's about ensuring that whoever comes is willing to stay and treat us as precious equals. We spend our time, effort and money on high-maintenance hobbies, valuing it, caring for it, and building it to last long. Why should it be different when it comes to our hearts?

We have spent so much on fitting inside someone's pocket that doesn't even intend to carry us towards the future. It's time we re-evaluate standards in relationships, where having higher expectations is not treated as a barrier, but as proof that love would indeed show up if it's right for you. One should not be starved at a table when they are promised a feast, the same way that one should not be treated with disrespect after showing them basic kindness.

It's the little things that matter in relationships. We should stop treating text-backs as a gift, nor see loyalty as a bonus feature. Respect is not a grand gesture, it's a simple thoughtful act of humanity. It's time we take out the “kilig” in basic decency—it shouldn't be a luxury—save it for other matters: consistency, connection, growth, and love so unconditional that it doesn't make you beg for it.

To love is to be seen, heard and considered. Bare minimum is not a milestone, it’s the starting point. So next time the reply arrives 2 days late, skip the fiesta. Love shouldn't be a reward for enduring neglect.