define kilig: Before Sunrise, Sunset, and Midnight

I was chatting with my lovely friend Joyce today, and as girlfriend chats usually go, we spent so much time discussing boys and relationships. Inevitably, we landed on the realm of kilig.

You may not encounter this term everyday (and maybe never in your entire life if you don’t speak Filipino), but kilig is one of the best, sweetest, most positive feelings that anyone on this earth can feel. Or maybe that’s just the closet romantic in me.

Let me try to define and illustrate it with the help of a notorious kilig-inducing weapon: romance flicks. But because I’m very cautious of anything saccharine, I’ll use the subtle kilig factor of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight.

[Minor spoilers ahead!]

From Before Sunrise. "I like to feel his eyes on me when I look away."