By Büm D. Tenorio, Jr.
Oct. 19, 2014. Mid-afternoon. In a cafe near Jardin des Tuileries in Paris. Inside it were two people, total strangers to each other from the start.
“It was my last day in Paris. I was touring the city after my four-day extension. I was supposed to fly out on an earlier date except that I missed my flight back to Singapore. I was on vacation with my mom. She was able to fly back to Florida on the day I missed my flight. I missed my flight because there were three airports in Paris and I went to the wrong one,” begins Christian Mark Jacobs, a business developer for I Can Read, an American company that builds schools in Asia.
Inside the café, Christian was nursing a glass of red wine while reading a book. He was also studying a subway map, wondering which destination to go next in the city. Unknown to him, his next destination was just the table beside him. There, in an instant, he knew he found love.
At the next table was Francis Libiran, a famed Filipino fashion designer. He, too, was whiling away his time, gingerly sipping a glass of red wine.
“It was also my last day in Paris. I left my friends in the hotel. I wanted to go solo so I went to a café inside Jardin des Tuileries. We had been touring Europe for a week already. We went to Madrid first before proceeding to Paris. We were flying next to London. In all the churches that we visited for the first time in Europe, I would stay for 15 minutes inside this or that church or chapel to pray specifically for a partner,” Francis begins, a sweet, timid smile on his face.
It seemed that Francis’ prayer was heard. Instantaneously. “I was specific in my prayer — a partner who was taller than me, had a different eye color and someone self-assured,” he recalls.
“In the café, I looked over beside me and I saw a handsome man who was also by himself,” Christian, now 30, remembers. “Because I was definitely less shy than he was, I talked to him first.”
“There was no pick-up line. But Christian asked me where I was from,” says Francis, who was 40 when they met.
“When Francis said he was from the Philippines, I thought it was perfect because I was based in Singapore,” Christian says.
And the ball of romance started rolling. There was an instant connection and the two spent the whole afternoon together chatting, catching up like old friends. But they knew inside them, it was their souls connecting. So connected were they that when they transferred to the next bar to drink mojitos, they were still so much into each other.
Their mid-afternoon chance meeting melded into night and gave way to “instant intimacy,” though at that moment in time they refused to be pigeonholed as lovers. When night dropped its cloak, Francis and Christian were assured that something beautiful was brewing between them. Christian asked Francis to write his mobile number and email address at the back of the receipt and guarded that piece of paper with his life. Christian flagged down a cab and as it moved away, Francis was left with a stinging sensation inside him as his sight traced the path of Christian’s careening cab. “This is too good to be true. Will I still see him again?”
In the taxi, Christian thought to himself, “Am I really holding on to his correct phone number and e-mail
address?”
The air of uncertainty hovering above them evaporated when, just a day or two after Francis came back home from London, a dozen white roses arrived at his Quezon City home. Not only that, nine days after they met in Paris, Christian landed at the Terminal 1 of Ninoy Aquino International Airport, his first time in Manila, to prove his love for Francis. “I was thinking, will he ever show up in the airport to pick me up?” Francis showed up and the rest is history. “Our first meeting was intense, more so on the second time we saw each other. It was surreal,” shares Christian.
Two weeks after Christian’s visit to Manila, Francis visited him in Singapore. Every two weeks they would see each other with an arrangement that Francis would fly to Singapore to visit Christian and two weeks after Christian would visit Francis in Manila.
They became “weekend lovers,” a workable setup, alright. But the two wanted to elevate their relationship. So, on Oct. 19, 2015, exactly a year after they met, Christian proposed to Francis at Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, the very park that witnessed their instant love affair.
On March 17 this year, in a ceremony in Boracay, Francis and Christian will celebrate their union before their respective families. (Francis had to fly to the US, where his whole family is based now, to get the blessings of his father.) Their families are excitedly looking forward to their union on the beach. They have also discussed the possibility of getting married in the US. Francis’ two adopted sons, 18 and 17, who now call Christian “Pops,” are also eager for the two of them to settle down. The couple wants to adopt a baby girl in the future.
After their wedding, Christian and Francis will live under one roof. Yes, Christian, who was working on his permanent residency in Singapore before he met Francis, will settle in the Philippines. Christian is now the president and COO of the Francis Libiran Bridal, a one-stop-shop wedding store in Greenbelt 5, a business partnership among him, Francis and their dearest friend Arsi Baltazar. Christian, a foodie, will soon open a bakery named Naked Patisserie in Metro Manila. (Christian also supports Wine to Water, an advocacy that provides water filters to communities in Davao that have no clean, potable water.)
“The best part about being with Francis is the small things that he does for me — like the ‘Good morning’ text messages. It means a lot that I am the first person he thinks about every single day,” says Christian, a graduate of Counseling Psychology in Atlanta and a son of a Southern Baptist mother. He was five years old when his parents separated.
“It’s always harder when my visit with him ends. I don’t wake him up to bring me to the airport. I don’t leave his place in Singapore without sticking love notes in the mirror, in his drawer, in his shoes. I put my love messages everywhere,” relates Francis, a licensed architect, in between laughter.
Christian does the same. “I put a card on his pillow before I leave Manila.” And every time they travel, Christian hands Francis a card and Gummy Bears. In the card are his love and gratitude to the person he will create new memories with.
Two peas in a pod they are, and together they learn the ropes that help them fall in love with each other all the more. From Francis, Christian, a very expressive and vocal person, has learned composure. “Francis has the knack for dealing with situations that are unpleasant. From him, I have learned how to hold back.”
“I have learned from him how to be expressive and communicative,” says Francis, who adds that it is always Christian who breaks the ice every time they need to patch things up.
“We don’t really fight often. A lot of it has revolved around the distance. Both of us have high-pressured jobs. But both of us reconcile because we are willing to work it out,” Christian says.
Their love affair is a series of vignettes seemingly taken out from a romantic movie. Who would have thought that a missed flight would give way to an opportunity to love? Theirs is a fairy tale made real by two people who, by virtue of serendipity, have consciously decided to have a happily-ever-after celebration.
For them, love is romance.
This article previously appeared on PeopleAsia’s February-March 2017 issue.
