When you hear the words resembling ‘one-sided romantics’/’desperate’/’proposed’, generally male gender comes to our minds but no! I am not one but yet those words could be very well used to describe me.
I have time and again, almost like an addicted, fallen for opposite sex, made the horrible clichéd mistake of thinking almost every time that they were ‘the one’ and wound up realizing how far they were in reality.
Yea, reality check is what I need desperately now.
I have had it all, well almost.
I did the ‘falling for teacher’ thing. Well, in my defense, he was the one who proposed and planted the idea in my mind and vanished like ‘puff’. Then I got desperate, tried to talk for long, almost 3 years, got unsatisfactory answers, although I did get a ‘I did love you’ answer once but didn’t probe further into it. I was in second year of graduate school by then. And now, when I am 3 years past that horrible or amazing moment, I can’t really tell, yeah, even now, I came to know he’s getting married, that too a love marriage, that too the wedding is scheduled in my birthday month. Not that, that month’s got any sort of significance, but it’s just that, that’s the month we both had our birthdays in.
Oh! And did I mention? He was the first ever guy who got me close to the term ‘romantic/romance’.
So somewhere in those ‘in-between’ years I had one ‘sort of relationship’ and one ‘well he loved/liked me relationship’.
I will just write them both up quickly since I wasn't really into either of them but just dragged along thinking that I should move on, live my life blah blah blah.
The first of them was pretty weird thing. He was a senior, was going through some family problems. He lost one of his own. We were talking by then, and were in initial ‘talk over phone and chat 24*7’ days. It was pretty good in first 2 weeks. Then he proposed. I was like what the hell. But then thought to myself, “isn't this the new norm these days?” I said yes, yeah, those exact words and probably a loose ‘I love you too’ here and there. But no, I didn't mean any of it and regretted it almost instantly. We had the ‘drifted along’ kind of separation over a period of a year. He did like me genuinely, I could tell. The constant poking over the following 4-5 years were enough of proof. He even suggested marriage which rung a huge ‘block the guy’ signs, in bold neon letters, loud in my grey cells and I did.
I even did the ‘friend who fell for you thingy’.
This was the second one. We were in same class, used to chat, were teased by fellow classmates, were rumoured to be dating, and ended up in same job as well. He always said he likes me but his actions never spoke. Although he did do the ‘drunk and crying over missing me’ thing in front of his buddies that just did the task of portraying me as the bad guy. I wonder if that was the intended intention. Anyway, I was thinking back and forth whether I should go for this person. I did care for him but well, always as just friends. We did hug and all a couple of times. The ‘emotional how will I live without you kind’, but no I never had those butterflies and warmth you are supposed to feel when you feel anything for a person romantically.
So well yea, we drifted as well. But remained cordial, ‘catching up once in a while’ buddies.
And yea, after that first encounter I didn't feel much of anything for anyone till this person came along.
It was almost 6 years past my ‘that first guy’ and I had pretty much moved on. Yea, he was totally out of my mind, which was pretty much a miracle, because I never thought I could. I stalked his fb profile for a long time, many times, wished him on his birthday every year, till now, although I won’t this year which would be my first year. So yea, in a nutshell, I was over positively and in my ‘looking forward to what life has to offer’ phase.
And one fine rainy day, I met ‘him’.
He was cute and a writer, well he could write well, and flirty and charming, you know the dreamy kind. It felt well is what I am saying.
But the pickle was or still is, is that, he is in a relationship. Long distance, not worth it, kind of relationship, but still a relationship nonetheless.
See, well, normally I have always had a clean slate, to the point that I have never even cheated in any of my school exams, so obviously I wouldn't have gotten involved with this person, no matter how much I wanted to.
And I didn't, well not at first.
This was the person I felt attracted to, a lot, like almost the same amount I did for ‘that first guy’, maybe more.
So I did the whole ‘sending him a friend request’ thing. In my defence, we did have a weird heated argument on the term ‘bestiality’ that day. So I figured a mere request won’t do any harm. Boy how wrong I was. Yea, yea, I am getting to the point.
So we started chatting, a lot, and even though he wasn't much of a ‘breaking the ice’ kind of person, which would have turned out to be the best for me, now that I think about it, but no.
He was genuinely into chatting or interacting with me. We chatted about a whole lot on almost every topic we could possibly think of. Did you notice how I made ‘we’ as bold? Well that’s because I do too take the responsibility of this chat which makes me a lot responsible for what I went through later.
Anyway so coming back, we constantly chatted for 48 hours straight. Now watsapp was also involved since his girlfriend read our chats on fb. Now that I think of it, it was a sign to shut my mouth. But noohh.
In my defence he did say that theirs’ was a ‘too rocky’ and ‘complicated’ relationship and that I wasn't going to come in between anything. See, I was feeling guilty, not because I thought I was coming in between anything, well probably a little, but mostly because I was feeling this ‘deep connection’ with him. I know so clichéd right. But I was. I know I believe in ‘fairytale’ and ‘love is a magic’ kind of things but I did feel right and good and well ‘not alone’ when we talked or spent time.
We had a lunch and realized it’s not that easy to talk among all these mutual friends we shared, so we thought let’s meet, just the two of us somewhere.
I know, my being nervous about my first meeting alone, ever with some, well any guy, should have been a second sign to back off, but well nooohhhh.
We met alone, and not in a public place, so so should have been, but nooohhh, and I ended up having my first kiss, that too on my first real meeting with this guy.
Gosh I feel so embarrassed at times, who does that. I was such a judgy, goody-goody girl. And from that I turned to this ‘making out in first meeting’ girl.
But boy, he how good he was. I am secretly glad that he was my first. At least I got good in my first.
Anyway we (notice bold letters) realized that we both cared for each other and didn't just fool around, I was sure I didn't fool around, but apparently this was his realization.
After this, what followed were a few weeks of ‘I feel guilty’ to ‘I am the other woman’ thing. Through it all, he convinced me otherwise, and that how I was an important part of his life and that I could never ever be ‘that woman’. I believed him. I can’t really point when the moment I fell for him was or pulling apart became difficult, almost impossible.
We fought, argued, and still ended up making out every weekend.
We almost spent all the time together except for nights of course.
I got closer and closer to the fact that he wasn't accessible in certain hours of the day since those were booked for video calling this ‘not good relationship’ girlfriend.
But I left my entire world and ran to him when he had his panic attacks or utter chaotic phase in his life.
I even dropped my big office presentation to just spend few moments with him in cab on his way to airport. He was leaving for a month and was going to his girlfriend.
I know so desperate. But I always saw those moments which mattered. Those ‘feel so good just want time to stop’ moments and I could go any lengths to have those.
It wasn't all me you know. I have my limits and self-respect. I know hard to believe at this point but I do.
He was genuinely happy to spend time with me, I could see that. Okay call me delusional.
But the way he accepted in front of his friends here, that he likes me and we are intimate proudly, though in fear of being judged, which he so hates by the way, but accepted nonetheless and didn't feel ashamed or kept it a secret and the way he used to keep his arms around me everywhere, that too, in public, he hates public display of affection, by the way, I so loved it. It was like I am his. The way he genuinely used to feel at peace when I was just in his proximity and he was in some pickle, just melted me.
His apparent tearing up, to the point he ignored his family matters, just because I made an attempt to part our ways.
We were in 'almost relationship' you know, the 'going away on weekend', in a group of course, he cooked for me, etc.
And most importantly, probably that wasn't a big deal, but the way that he never tried to force me or taking our ‘making out’ further, even though at times, I gave my eager nod in affirmative, he was always firm on ‘not doing me’ no matter what.
It was probably his own conscience or he could have cared for me, I can’t really tell now.
Anyway, so that’s my story.
P.S. I wrote him an ‘ultimatum letter’ with a mention of ‘mature talk’ about us but I think we are pretty much over.