The Social Media Spiral

 You know what Social Media is really good for? It’s for posting stories that last 24 hours on your timeline, and then checking back to see if THAT GUY looked at it. And then when you see that he did, it doesn’t matter who else saw the little piece of your brain out there for public consumption, you just smile because your day is a little bit better.

You know what’s even more fun? When you start timing how quickly he sees the post. Once he was among the first 5 people to see it. It makes you think “does he have special notifications on for my shit?” Does he rush to the app to see what you said like you do to see if he read it? I mean, it HAS to mean something right? Even your closest friends sometimes miss your posts but he doesn’t.

And then you wonder- Hmm, should you reach out? You smile to yourself as you stare at his name, thinking you look cute and mischievous but the security camera proves you look like a deranged homeless person plotting to kidnap your neighbor’s dog. Fortunately, this is a very brief phase of madness before better sense prevails. Better Sense reminds you that he could have messaged you too, and not just limited himself to creeping on your posts. Obviously, he’s just not that into you.

Problem solved.

Your self-respect is intact. And ofcourse, he’s creeping on you – you’re fabulous and if he doesn’t appreciate that enough to do something about it, he’s clearly not worth the time you’re investing in him. Now you can move on. You never have to think about him again. What a relief! 

And when you wander around your one-bedroom apartment, you definitely don’t wonder what he’s up to, what his life is like, what – if anything – could be getting in the way of him reaching out to you, dammit!

You take a deep breath, use all the techniques that somatic Yoga has taught you about regulating your emotions and finding your centre – a centre that’s only focussed on you. But if you’re being totally honest with yourself, it IS that “centre” that is focussing on him too, isn’t it? That centre wants him. His sharp jawline, his quirky smile, his amused eyes that are so far off the ground that you have dreams of being a basketball player. And it’s not just that he’s a pretty face and a hot body. He’s also smart but self-effacing in a charming way. Despite being wildly successful in his industry, he jokes about his back up plans of being an Uber driver if things don’t work out for him.

He's sweet and funny and quite lovely. And you tell yourself it’s okay to think good things about a person, without conflating it with desire. After all, you CAN appreciate a man without obsessing about him. You CAN care about someone – after all, you’re a compassionate, empathetic person and thinking about his qualities reminds you of all the other good things in the world.

And that’s when the other good thing about social media comes up. It’s not just about posting your own stream of consciousness, it also offers the opportunity to wander through his feed, look at whom he’s spending his time with since he’s not spending any with you, zoom in to his expression in a grainy group photo to see if he’s happy and where his hands are resting and WHO THE FUCK IS THAT BITCH LEANING ON HIM???

Another deep breath. There’s no need to abandon your grip on rationality. You’re a grown woman with skills and a vast reservoir of peace and you know how to draw upon that as you click on the picture to see who else is tagged. You’re overjoyed that he’s surrounded by so many close friends – like he should be because he’s pretty wonderful - including that Shailene Woodley look-alike who, if you go by her feed, looks like she’s got a bunch of other friends and seems to enjoy the outdoors and honestly, seems pretty cool.

It gives your sisterhood brain a boost to see that she’s into volunteering with dogs, works in STEM and rocks a labcoat, and doesn’t post too much to social media because before you know it, you’re deep in her feed and you forgot that she’s not your friend, that in fact apart from one common friend – yes, THAT GUY – you have no mutuals and how the hell will you explain the traitorous RED HEART you put on her post about completing a marathon 4 YEARS ago???

Ohgodohgodohgod! There’s only one common friend. It’s HIM. She will ask him about you, the STALKER on her post, and everyone who even remotely understands social media will know how and why you reached there! And so, in that moment of adrenaline-and-shame-fueled problem-solving mode, you do the only thing that makes sense. You send follow requests to a bunch of people she follows and hope like hell, atleast a few will accept your desperate plea, just so it seems that there was more than just one person who could have led you to her profile – and that you’re not at all stalker-ish.

Which brings me to the other thing about social media. Very few people that aren’t commercial accounts have more than a handful of people they follow. And usually, those follows are a reflection of real life connections. That means if STEM GIRL ever talks to her friends about weird stalker - you - atleast 7 of her friends will tell her about how you added them as friends too. Now, you’re not just the random accidental stalker on her profile, now you’re the slightly unhinged probably gay obsessive who needs to be blocked.

And if STEM girl cares about THAT GUY, which she would even if they’re only friends, she will tell him about the unhinged person on his profile that he needs to watch out for. Again, that’s you.

For better or worse (it’s worse, trust me), you would have got his attention. After 8 years of no real life contact.

And then you do the only thing possible on social media. You shut down the app, bury your phone under the pile of clothes that are currently adorning the Chair, and you dig deep through your mortification and self-criticism to find the roiling waters of your peace and scream into the void “How stupid are you, you dumb shit! Aaarrrggghhhhh!”

Until two days later, you creep back on to your social media. You discover some of those 7 DID accept your request and you wonder about the fate of these young women who just allow total strangers into their social media lives. After all, you could have truly been a stalker-scammer. You then click open the message tab which has some 10 people pebbling your DMs – all memes – but none from HIM.

You go to his feed. No new posts. No new stories. Nothing. But you're still following each other.

So you post something on your 24-hour story feed. You wait. And after a few minutes, you notice that he’s seen the post. And that makes you smile.

Everything is right with the world. Atleast on social media. 

If only real life was this easy. 

Post Therapy Insecurity Disorder

 This has been a HELL of a year and I see no end to it, regardless of the fast-approaching December. 

It started with the death of my step brother. Then my genetic brother cut off ties with me. Then someone hijacked my work, and other work opportunities inexplicably dried up. Then a lot of what I had worked on over the last couple of years went up in smoke. In my industry, where your next job depends on what you did last, this is much worse than it sounds. Not to mention the amount of gaslighting and ghosting from colleagues and friends which hit me straight in my abandonment issue feels. Then, while visiting my extended family, my father treats me like crap - and for the first time in many years, I realise that perhaps I'd been wrong to think that my family had a chance. Maybe I should have focused on building my own separate dysfunctional family unit and not so much been the glue for the one I was born to. Then another friend died, making me face my mortality - again. And finally someone who barely knows me called me "sweet"! SWEET?? When did I lose my scary acerbic edge and get ground into this polite pulpy mess that everyone feels completely okay walking all over?? I feel like I've lost my grip on who I am, and it's making me question everything about my choices, my supposed talent and my vision (or lack thereof) for my future. It's November and I'm shaken. It's been a messy year.

And so, I'm back in therapy. I say "back" loosely, because the last few times I've indulged, I used it mostly to tackle the visible issues and not THE BIG ISSUE, you know.

For example : Sam dumped me - TWICE! - and Doc, I just want to know, is it a normal breakup when someone takes you on a holiday, makes love to you and the next day says he doesn't feel the love anymore? And then spends the next few months convincing you to get back and then breaks up with you on the day your lease is over and you're moving in with him? Is that normal or as truly horrific as it feels? Or Doc, I tried to kill myself with Vodka and pills and is it normal to feel totally cut off from people and absolutely not expect things to get better ever? 

And every time I got an answer that made me feel better, and more aligned with what felt real, I moved on. Yes, Sam was a shit and that breakup was bananas. And no, you can't be blamed because you trusted someone who pretended to be trustworthy. Yes, you are depressed because your best friend died and also you haven't dealt with the how your entire self identity got tossed around thanks to Sam being an unworthy tool.

So, the minute I was told that I wasn't insane to be feeling how I was, I moved on and got on with life. I'm not crazy after all, regardless of how many times and how many boys who loved me have tried to tell me I am. 

But this time, after my intensely painful solo trip with my father, I came back into therapy. Doc, is it wrong for me to want a family that behaves well with each other, talks lovingly with each other, so I don't have to carry the load of everyone's discontent? Doc, after so many years of regular interaction, is it wrong for me to expect my father or brother to like me, maybe even understand me? Or is there something truly wrong with me that people look at me and decide "Meh, it's okay to hurt that." Also, I'm in my mid 40s... shouldn't I be done with these childish things? Weeeeeelllll.....

And finally, my shrink and I started on THE BIG ISSUE. And cliche as it is, doesn't it always go back to 'mommy and daddy lied' foundations?  Mostly, they lied about being the grown ups. They lied about being mature self-less adults, or knowing what was best for their kids, and even about raising emotionally secure kids. How could they? No one had done it for them either. As a result, the child figured that this is what a happy family looks like - when someone makes you feel like you have to work for their love or they will go away, when someone explains to you how you're not matching up to their expectations of good behavior and that results in them leaving you to fend for yourself, when someone makes it your responsibility to be the 'bigger person' and forgive endlessly because that's why people will want to be around you in the face of your many massive faults. Sure, there were lots of trips and lots of laughs... and as long as you were laughing, nobody was fighting or crying and it was okay.

This was normal subliminal shit, and explained how Sam or Mocha or Alex or VJ or the myriad others traipsing through my heart and my mind found their way there to begin with and why I ran far from Kappa or Andy or a few others. The former were intense, messy, emotionally manipulative and withholding relationships and they felt like home to me, the others, not so much. The fact that home was a traumatic battlefield never occurred to me.

(If this resonates, please read "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents")

And now I feel homeless. With the hold of my past falling loose from me everyday, and my present day seeming adrift and my current relationships getting reevaluated through the lens of hindsight, I find myself spending almost all my time clinging to the only real steady things I have. My actual apartment, my cat, and stories that bubble into my head that I write down now knowing fully well that no one else apart from me will probably read them. It feels like I'm marking time, while dissociating from the terror of limbo as I go through my days of breakfast and coffee and housekeeping and gym and reading / watching / writing fiction while I wonder what the actual fuck I did or want to do with my life.

Separation Anxiety

 I remember the first time I consciously created a separation in my mind when it came to people. 

I was around 4, my brother was 7 or so, and my parents had had some kind of blow up about something related to him. I'm not sure if the words were ever said out loud, but it became clear from the argument that my brother was the 'problem' child and I was the 'considerate' one. I remember my brother and I were in our shared bedroom at that time overhearing this. That was the moment when I decided that I didn't care what my parents thought about my brother, or why, because those reasons didn't apply to me. I became the 2 foot wall between my parents and him, I became the supplier of my pocket money, I became the holder of secrets that would otherwise have got him a much-deserved thrashing. Because as far as I was concerned, he was and continued to be my favorite person, no matter what the others said.

This one action, very early on, taught me to separate my judgement of an individual's actions and their resultant impact on others, from what I considered "who" a person was. You did a bad thing, but that didn't necessarily make you a bad person and on the flip side, if you did a good thing, it didn't mean you didn't have nefarious motivations.

This single point ability has been my compass as I navigate my personal relationships. As compasses go, it's not ideal but it does explain how I'm friends with people who can't stand each other, how I can attempt friendships with exes, how my cousins and I remain on decent talking terms despite our parents being estranged from each other, how I have independent, functional relationships with my very dysfunctional family etc. 

It's also why I have a very compartmentalized way of having conversations about my relationships with people I'm in relationships with - platonic, romantic or professional. 

 One broad separation is : Since there's no point talking to people about others they don't know, that immediately eliminates large sections of overlap. For example : my mother's family doesn't know much about my father's family, and my paternal step family barely knows anyone in my original nuclear family and my ex-maternal step family knows only 3 members of my maternal from-birth family. Similarly, my School friends don't know my Undergrad friends who don't know my Masters friends who don't know my Work friends who don't know my multiple Families.

Add to this the interpersonal dynamics. Subset Family I can't stand all the members within it. Subset Work Friends can't talk openly about other members in the same group without impacting possible future earnings. Subset Exes who Work Together - Well, that's a whole different dynamic and yep, I can't talk about one to the other. I'm not even sure they know that they belong to the same subset to be honest.

Tangentially, I now have a Subset of Dating App Hook Ups, a small number of free-floating, often fun, professionals who sometimes happen to wander into professional meetings I'm having with Subset Colleagues. Not just that, once it's over, they also send a message like "Hey, the meeting went well, and here's hoping we can work together" right below a series of sizzling sexts that have been exchanged a few weeks prior with no follow up from either end.

While this isn't what I specifically want to talk about, I do wonder if a 'double thumbs up' emoji is an adequate response to communicate "I accept your bid to pretend we don't know each other and also yes, I too hope working together will be more fun than other shared activities" ? 👍👍

But coming back to why I started this piece : Today I find myself at a full-circle point where I've been cut off by my brother. This sounds way more dramatic than it actually is because (a) this isn't the first time he's cut me off and (b) not talking to each other for years is a family coping mechanism. But it is the first time I'm seriously considering not letting him back into my world - and I'm shocked at how clinically I'm weighing the pros and cons of this.

To offer context - the reason why it's been so easy for me to develop this compartmentalized personal relationship style is because most people I have personal relationships with have often not been in the same city or even the same country as I am. And for the most part, this was an expectation that was set up in me from the very beginning thanks to an Army life upbringing. 

My nuclear family unit would move every 2 years, make new friends to leave them behind every 2 years and repeat the cycle. Along with that, we had the routine of traveling every summer vacation to another city to be spent with different extended family members. The expectation of having all the people you care for in the same place or even within driving distance is so alien to me that whenever I find myself within families for whom this is normal, I think it's a real life movie playing out in front of me. 

Anyway, we knew we would see others when we would see them and, in the time of expensive long distance phone calls, the only input I would get of these people (mostly family, hardly ever the left behind friends) would be from my mom who would read out relevant bits from intermittent letters addressed to her. Underneath all that was an ever present philosophy : "It is what it is".

And when my nuclear family imploded too, consequently sending us all to different cities and countries... well, we treated each other how we had learned to treat all those other connections : intermittent desultory updates while apart, keeping all our excited energies for when we would meet. And this is where we badly miscalculated. 

All that excited energy turned to rage when we realised that it just wasn't the same. It wasn't us four against the world anymore, it was mom against dad, dad against brother, dad against me, mom against brother, aunt against dad, uncle against brother, all of us against the baby-sitter (another story but you get the drift), everyone fighting about money and distance and separation and betrayal and disrespect... and none of us being able to hear what the other was saying : 

That we no longer felt safe in this world. 

That in a world where we had so blithely left behind connections in the wake of our family, we didn't like being among those left behind by our own. What was worse is that while we had very quickly learned to let go of external bonds with the farewell wave of "it is what it is", we never quite learned how to hold on to the bonds when they were ours, through the bad bits or even pull each other back. We never quite learned "I'm sorry, please let's fix it."

I think this was especially true of what went on between my brother and I. Everytime he would inexplicably cut off contact with me, I would just helplessly watch as that tenuous bond of communication would slip out of my hands. And since we never learned to talk to each other about all the terrible things that happened in our multiple compartments, or how they affected us, we just started afresh every time with something that sounded like "Hey, what's up?" which was almost always met with some version of "Hey, you wouldn't believe what my dog did today!" And years of silence and resentment was pushed under the Carpet of Relief that somehow, miraculously, that broken bond had come back within grasp.

Except this time, it feels different. Maybe it's because I'm in my mid-40s (and women in their 40s are a whole different kind of beast) or that a quick glance through this 18 year old online therapeutic diary has revealed that I've barely ever mentioned my brother except in the context of an awful argument between us almost 16 years ago ago. I went through posts to find some affectionate allusion to him but nope... and this isn't because he's not an affectionate man, it's because in the last 18 years, I've mostly had about 12+ years of silence from him broken up with periods of great laughs. But what was even more revealing was that some of my closest friends I'd made over the last 2 decades didn't know his name. The final nail in the coffin? When I told a few of them that my brother wasn't talking to me again, ALL of them said "Wasn't he already not talking to you? For years?"

There's a term for this kind of silent treatment, rooted in family relationships. It's known as "withholding affection" and is an emotional-abuse term. What was truly revelatory however was that it was one of my favorite people in the world who had subjected me to this while gaslighting me for other things. 

And I find myself falling back on my tried and tested method of understanding people - family or friends. You can be a good person who did awful things, or you can be an awful person who did good things. But at the end of the day, I think what truly underscores my relationships is an examination of how they treated ME, specifically, for how long, and why. And while some exes and friends get some kind of a hall pass, because god only knows what kind of trauma they went through, and the gravity of their mistakes, my brother doesn't really qualify for that kind of forgiveness. 

Because we both went through what we did, in the same home with the same parents, and we only had each other to count on for understanding. Atleast that's what I always thought. To discover that that same kid (now pushing 50, married with a 5 year old of his own) who got my unearned loyalty, decides that I'm once again not worth his attention is... heartbreaking.

Maybe I'm not being very clinical about this at all. Maybe I'm just done being treated like shit.  

One Night Catch and Release

 Recently I was watching a Netflix special where the whole crux of the one-hour stand up routine was to examine the concept of 'tension' in comedy. How you set up the joke, build it, play with the audience's emotions until the tension in the room can be plucked like a guitar string, creating its own unique note.. and then you drop the punch line. The act of dropping that punchline releases the tension which is seen in the laugh. Greater the tension, bigger the release, louder the laugh.

Like an orgasm at the end of a successful one night stand.

A successful one night stand like most stand up situations starts way before we reach the main punchline. The opening I'm-cute-AND-funny banter, the I'm-offended-haha-just-kidding overtures, the casual-but-intentional contact with skin, then the body-slam of some lacerating personal trauma that shines a wholly different layered light on all the revelations of the night, to finally end up with the last laugh. And boom, suddenly you're naked with the comic and the punchline is the release of all that sexual tension - and it's fun!

Now, what would happen if, when it's all said and done, the audience is leaving the theatre, discussing where to grab a bite and checking if they have all their belongings, and the comic comes back on stage and says "So... to continue what I was saying..."?

That's what the three-day-later phone call from a successful one-night stand feels like to me. To mix metaphors, Elvis has left the building and my partner has just asked for the menu to see what to order next. 

I've heard it said that a successful one night stand can be converted into a viable relationship but it feels like a lie. Can you imagine the same level of attention and intensity of a stand up routine that continues across an extended period of time? Not an hour every day, or even 4 hours at a stretch, but days or months or years and decades? That's what a viable relationship is but if one had to live it at the same level of intensity, it would destroy me, make me forget laughter, and most likely lead me to murder.

Or one deliberately dials back to pace oneself, thus changing the very nature of the sexy, unplanned, non-viability-testing beast that got you going in the first place. 

So what does one seek or expect on the second night after the first night already covered the first few steps from getting to know you banter to skin contact - and done it well? What fills that second hour of distance run if one has to avoid the inevitable disappointment of trying to recreate the magic of the first night?

All these thoughts go through my head as I see the comic's caller ID pop up again on my phone which sits next to where I'm typing my confusion. I suppose it's only polite to answer, while wondering fruitlessly why I'm responding to the promise of another sexy encounter with politeness and tremulous anxiety about longer-than-another-day viability.  

Bleagh.

More than Words, FFS!

I've pretended for a very long time that this was one of my favorite songs. Why? Because this happened to be the song an ex played for me on his guitar when he was still trying to get me to come undone for him. I'd always thought it was a bit of a wanker song because the singer was just wishing-and-hoping-and-thinking-and-praying that someone would read his mind and do the things he wanted. What happened to communication, right? 

Today, when it played on my alexa, I realised Mr Extreme was me and every other person left hanging after a "Let's catch up" text that had no further follow up. And the reason this song is so popular is because there is absolutely no shortage of No Plan Dans in this world.

A No Plan Dan needs no explanation. He opens a conversation with "When are we catching up?" and continues the conversation without even suggesting a date-venue-time or even an activity, leaving the onus of the "plan" on you entirely even though he initiated it. Then he gaslights you with "But I keep asking you out!"

Lately I find myself infuriated with a couple of No Plan Dans in my life. And the reason it's infuriating is that.. well, they're also my friends and I wish they weren't so weak and wishy-washy. If they actually asked me out, I'd say yes or no, and it would be the end of that particular conversation line. Instead, I have an insidious little worm in my brain that wakes up every time I'm hit by the "hey" message.

"Saying I love you is not the words I want to hear from you..." 

No shit, sherlock. There are only so many times you can say the words without action. Don't tell me how great I am, or how much you care for me and then do the "how about we catch up" and then... nothing. How about we don't catch up? Ever. Would that significantly change your life or mine? Probably not. So then just stop.

Because words are easy. In the world of text messages and memes, saying things has become the easiest zero-accountability activity in all of time. Anyone can say anything - complete lies have gotten people elected to powerful offices! - and have zero meaning. 

The downside to all this is - doing something often enough creates a habit. So if I'm getting used to not believing you, or going out with you, because you're 'Dan'ning it up regularly, then that's a neural pathway that is being worn down deep in my brain. Next time you ask me "how about a movie?" (even if now it's a specific movie), my reaction would be an immediate walk down that specific pathway to the "no". Unless the plan becomes a group plan in which case, your specific presence is never important. And the neural pathway gets deeper.

However, on the flip side of No Plan Dan is the Haranguing Harry.

As the name suggests, HH is the one who thinks the polite refusal is a "maybe". He doesn't think about why there's a refusal to begin with, only that the 'maybe' can be changed to a 'Yes' if he's persistent enough. Ofcourse, he thinks that the reason it was a no to begin with is because the no-sayer doesn't really mean it, doesn't know her own mind, can't visualise just 'how much fun!' it would be to hang out with HH. He doesn't notice that if only he put a fraction of the effort he puts into haranguing the no to yes, to actually making a yes-worthy plan to begin with, he'd hardly ever get a no.

"... how easy, it would be to show me how you feel..."

The fact that after HH has worn down the polite woman's will, so that she says yes just to shut him up, by the time she starts that event with him, she's already wishing it's over. She resents him, and with every passing moment of 'so much fun!', she's thinking of how to never ever go out with him again, how she will always say she's out of town or busy with someone else whenever she sees his name in her chat list, while mentally preparing herself to be downright rude if needed, because politeness landed her in this shitshow to begin with.

And that's where No Plan Dan and Haranguing Harry meet and exchange notes. No Plan Dan is frustrated that the woman won't go out with him,  that he's such a nice guy and still she's always meeting other men and HH will talk about how all women be bitches, how she tried to pay for her half as if he wasn't man enough, then didn't even sleep with him for picking up her tab! The audacity!

"Now that I've tried to talk to you and make you understand..."

... it won't make a difference. The gang of NPDs and HHs will go forth and share the hurtful wife / girlfriend jokes and the ball-and-chain and the doesn't-know-her-own-mind and meant-to-be-in-the-kitchen podcasts and interviews and memes and the multiple other ways of blaming the women for the absence of women in their lives, instead of changing their approach, and this will lead to the creation of more NPD and HH archetypes until sooner or later one or many of those will decide to 'teach women their rightful place' through violence and... We have the present day world.

Recently I read somewhere that heterosexual women are the only people who have to date their natural predator. Is it any wonder then that more and more heterosexual women are choosing singlehood and celibacy - and leading reportedly happier lives - than those shackled to the Not-the-One?

At the end of the day, it needs "...More than words to show you feel that your love for me is real..."

And somehow, almost everyone missed the memo.

Being Tamed by a Fox

I did something bad 8 years ago… give or take. I ghosted an absolutely wonderful guy named Andy. He was gorgeous, sweet and made me feel…safe? Seen? And obviously, not believing that that was at all possible, instead of waiting for the other shoe to drop, I scrambled out of there, knowing I would regret it. But he didn’t call me back… and I took that to be proof that I was right, that I had avoided the inevitable heartbreak. Yaay me.

I’ve never forgotten that moment that made me terrified. You know that song “What did the fox say?” It’s an insane, ridiculous bop that appealed very deeply to my chaotic soul. Andy played it for me one day. I walked into his home, a bit out of sorts anyway, and he said “I have to show you something.” And he took me to his bedroom and played this song. I watched it in total confusion-changing-to-amazement as he stared at my face.

Now, to be clear, songs have been played to me before. I have been serenaded from rooftops, I have been mix-taped to within an inch of my life, I have been tik-tocked to kingdom come. But most of those songs have been love songs. They have been the “more than words”, the “blowers daughter”, the “why couldn’t we be friends”, etc. But that evening, as Andy watched me watch the song, I felt that I had inadvertently left a window open to my brain that let him see the lateral convoluted internal combustion vat of day-dreaming fumes that ran on freaky laughs – and he gave me fuel to run it.

I can’t even explain the fear. I call it the “Blood and Cinnamon Everywhere” syndrome. Without going into specifics, it references a macabre story of a man who died – and it was hilarious. More fuel for the chaotic brain and when another boy had shared that with me, I had taken it to mean that he really got me. That it wasn’t just a fluke, that he really saw me. And once you see me, how can you leave, right? But he did and many years later, I didn’t want the cute fox with language problems to say goodbye. So instead, I walked out. I regretted it almost immediately but I just couldn’t find the courage to go back and explain my vulnerabilities.

Many years later, Andy and I reconnected on social media. It was a birthday message and then a what’s up message and then congratulatory message and then a covid message and then other messages. They were kind, and playful and finally I gathered my courage and apologised for my shitty behavior so many years ago. It was text, I didn’t look at his face and he didn’t see my remorse. But he accepted it with “Don’t worry, we have all been weird with people before. It’s okay, I only remember the good times.” That sounds like a goodbye, right? Like closure? It sounds like “Thank you but you’re not welcome back”, right? That’s what I thought. And it sucks! SUCKS SO MUCH because I want another do-over.

Anyway, about 6 weeks ago, after months of denial and procrastination, I asked him out. It was albeit after two whiskey shots in the privacy of my home while talking to my girlfriend who offered more courage by saying “If it goes to shit, you never have to see him again.” And in the 10 seconds it took him to text back, I had already gone through my spiral of dark despair leading to belligerent threats of killing that friend who forced me to text under the influence. But when he replied, those threats turned to songs of loyalty and forever friendship, especially because he said he’d love to get a drink once back in town in a few weeks. It was on text. Didn’t see his face. He didn't see mine.

It's now been more than a few weeks. And he's been in town for a while. He hasn’t called. And I’ve devolved into a teenager who’s putting every text we have ever shared through the increasingly unscientific but obscure litmus scrutiny of analysis by friends to come to the conclusion of “Did he forget or is he just politely letting me down or is he just not that into me anymore or was it always a nothing or...” Yep, it’s not pretty and no amount of reminding me that I’m a grown up is going to change my winning strategy of overthinking and playing out increasingly depressing but non-existent scenarios. Or writing a blog post. Or basically anything except reaching out again with a more serious and vulnerable and heart-on-my-sleeve invitation.

Why? Because I can’t imagine any winning combination of words that someone who left me could possibly say to me that would make me seriously consider letting them back in my life so many years later. And if I won't allow that disruption, how can I expect someone else to allow it either? I think about Andy’s life, about the people populating his world (as seen while clumsily browsing his social media) and the affection he gets from everyone and I find myself wondering “Would I be able to offer that consistently? Does he deserve an ex saying the "right" things to be welcomed back into his life only to discover that it wasn’t him she wanted but just SOMEone to scratch an itch?” After all, if you're trying to reenter a life you'd abandoned quite awfully, isn't the only meaningful reassurance you can genuinely offer is that you won't repeat your behavior and instead try to make up for the damage?

Eight years ago, we dated for just a few weeks. And while it was enough to make me trigger-jump ship, it really wasn’t enough to get to know him, even with all the momentum and excitement. But it was today, when  I found myself checking out an astrology website for romantic compatibility that it hit me - what I want is reliable data! Because despite years, weeks and months of therapy and solitude later, I have to say I’m no closer to really knowing if what I want resides within a relationship with him (or anyone specific), or if he's just an attractive mental distraction from my large piles of work, and just how many of my walls - his and mine - I’m going to have to bring down to get the information needed to make that decision. 

Like another cute fox (synchronicity!) says in The Little Prince, "One only understands the things one tames. If you tame me then to me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world. I shall know the sound of your step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow...and we shall need each other... You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed...."

Basically, it's only after going out with Andy and feeling the feelings and encouraging his attachment will I discover if I want to go out with him, feel the feelings and take responsibility for the attachment. 

The possible carnage of dating seems completely antithetical for mental peace and emotional health, no?

 

Pay Attention, The People Are Speaking

I consider Kerry a dear friend of mine. He’s a serious man, but ironically, we hardly ever have serious conversations. Most of the time, we’re batting the breeze, talking about superheroes and what our choice mutation would be in the world of X-men. So it was a surprise to me when he called out of the blue to discuss ‘the state of the world’. It was a serious conversation, mostly about how we need to ‘woo” the fence-sitters towards “us” in this on-going battle for our Constitution, and possibly our humanity, in the spirit that it was intended.

He was speaking about his friends who ‘were genuinely unsure about what to think’ about the current socio-political situation in the country. It was sweet how he had unconsciously taken on the burden of educating them, to literally bring them to the light as it were. As if he had access to some special rice in his diet that made him a more informed and empathetic human being. However, the unfortunate truth is, if someone voted for a party - left or right wing - then they’re not fence-sitters. They made a decision and undertook the effort of waking up in the morning, standing in line and punching their name next to a party logo - all to back their decision. Now, either they continue to be satisfied with their decision and there is nothing to discuss. Or they regret it, in which case, their minds have already changed. And the ones who didn't vote? Apathetic, uninvested, and probably further along the evolutionary arc than we know. But more on that in a bit.

The uncomfortable truth is that all those people - our friends - asking for reasons to change their mind - while countering with arguments the ‘other side’ have made - are simply looking for a way to maintain appearances of being open-minded, involved and caring people. Or maybe this is their way of forgiving themselves for changing their minds - or not being able to, despite 'trying'. That way, the burden of their decisions don't lie with them but on you, the 'more evolved' human being, the more caring, the more empathetic. If even *you* couldn't change their minds, then it's totally on you, isn't it?

But the truth is, you can’t logic people into caring about others, to be bothered by others' pain. Everyone who has ever ended a romantic relationship will recognise the futility of those “Why don't you understand? We’re in such a good place... just be with me” conversations. All the facts and figures of the world will not teach love or empathy, nor will it teach kindness. This disturbing trend is visible the whole world over, where we’re seeing a global democratic shift towards exclusionist, hard-line ideologies… Could it really be possible that the whole world became sociopathic at the same time?

Or is the change much larger and more fundamental than any we've imagined?

The human population is at an unprecedented high when it comes to sheer numbers. Every day is a little more uncomfortable, with extreme weather, or rising prices, or the steady stream of invective that is the online life. We have the imagination as a species to understand the past and extrapolate into the future, so we also know that as a species, we’re a dangerous one, and due for an extinction event. Given this scenario, could it possibly be an evolutionary advantage that we learn not to care about each other? Caring about each other will only ensure we don’t run our fastest when that tsunami comes, caring about another may ensure that we don’t sacrifice them in our bid to head to the nearest space station. Caring about another could very well mean our own death. 

In the battle for survival, could sociopathy be the mutation that our species is undergoing in order to survive? 

"You're So Great, But..."

People ask me sometimes why I think so much about relationships and examine my past and analyse what people could really mean when they say things. The truth is, when the same questions get asked of you over and over again, you have no choice to keep thinking about it until you find an answer that rings true.

For example, just recently two people I regard with some fondness asked me the age old question - “Why are you single?” This was inevitably followed by - "I mean you're so... (insert a list of my apparent best qualities - smart, attractive, fun, cool, etc). Sure, you're also... (insert a hopefully shorter list of my obvious ‘problem' areas - commitment phobic, too many exes who are still friends, not 'wife-material’ in the pleasing-mom-in-law and cooking well ways, etc). But still... Why are you single?"

The standard defensive, conversation-stopper responses popped into my head but the truth is, as I mentally scanned through my romantic history, I realised I had never yet come up with a response to that question that made sense.

After all, why was I single? It wasn’t for lack of opportunity nor an adventurous spirit. It wasn’t even for a very hard-to-achieve preconceived notion of romance. After all, as long as there was laughter and chemistry and mutual respect and communication, it was as good a place to start a relationship as any. So then why was it that with this winning combination of traits and quirks, I was single?

Because none of my relationships worked out.

This reminded me of something someone famous once said (and I’m probably paraphrasing) which was - If there is a problem with every relationship you’ve ever had, then you have to consider that the real problem lies in the one common element i.e. you. Or, in this case, ME. And looking back at my romantic history (yawn!), I have to agree.

See, the problem has always been me - or rather, my feelings of insecurity in its fairly literal sense. I have, quite simply, never felt safe with anyone. This goes back to some deep-rooted stuff. Like for example, my father whom I adored left me when i was not even in my teens and for the longest time, I thought that it was because he didn’t like me. Sure, over time and distance and increasing maturity, I know that couldn't possibly have been true. But deep down, I have to admit that that’s my psychopathy - the fact that I believe that people I love will reject me once they get to know me fully because then they will discover something about me they won't like. I mean, if my father discovered something about me that made him leave his wife and two kids and even his country after 12 years of being around me - then I can hardly blame anyone else, right?

This insane belief was reinforced subtly by everyone I ever was with. There was always that one thing about me that someone didn't like. 

My college boyfriend thought everything about me would be perfect if only I wasn’t so angry and aggressive. The one after that thought that I was great except for the fact that I couldn’t love (him). My next boyfriend felt I was wonderful but if only I was more ambitious and the list went on. If one wanted me to be more grounded, another wanted me to be more feminine or more tactful or less commitment phobic or not-so-needy or friendly or fucked up in some other way. And this was when I was pretty much on my best behaviour!

The thing is - when someone says the same thing about you over and over again, you start to think that this stuff matters. When it's someone you love and trust saying the same thing, you start to think there's something seriously wrong with you. And then you start to think - "sooner or later he's also going to know that something is seriously wrong with me - and then he'll leave. Because that's how it is."

And thus, I never felt safe with them. It always felt like there was a Damocles sword hanging over the relationship because sooner or later they would discover the quality that they didn’t like or that I couldn’t change fast enough and they would leave. And they did. I wasn’t blameless in that equation because I helped speed us the process. After all, I'd rather know what the breaking point was sooner rather than later. So if someone worried that I was sexual - bring on the Nymphomaniac! Someone felt I was unemotional - Voila! I bring you the Sociopath! Someone thought I was not ambitious enough - I present to you - the Couch Potato! 

I'm not proud of it, but somehow being single always felt better than being with someone who was working out his insecurities by stirring up mine.

The thing is - being with another person is hard work. It requires you to be mature and accepting, sensitive to another person's needs and all those things. Entire scientific studies have indicated that people in relationships are stronger and more stable, and thus more prosperous and more adventurous than single people - probably because of all that character-building hard work. I buy that entirely. After all, we're always better together, like the song promises.

But at this point, not knowing what the future will bring, or even knowing if my epiphanies have the power to change my neural pathways, I think the real reason I’m single is because the only time I feel safest is when I'm home, with my cat, in ugly pjs, eating messily in bed and not caring for a second that someone I love is somewhere saying a sentence that goes like - “She's great you know… except for one thing…"

The Shape Of Our Lives

I’ve been thinking of what the last 4 minutes of La La Land were really about. I mean, logically, if Ryan Gosling had kissed Emma Stone the minute she stepped into that club where he was playing the piano, that would be sexual assault. But somehow, despite our knowledge of that, our having witnessed the lives they lived otherwise made that sexual assault and everything that followed so much more preferable. I think it’s because deep down, we know we’re fuck ups who continually cock up our lives because we don’t have the fucking balls to fully embrace the possibility of the other. And we know that sometimes, we really need criminal assault to get us out of the ruts our lives our in.

Like the other day, I bumped into Mark. After years of not having spared him a thought,' I met him just out of the blue. It happened as I was driving towards work and I saw him waiting for a cab. Instinctively, I stopped and offered him a ride. He said something nonsensical, I berated myself mentally for having presumed too much, and finally after 4 long interminable seconds (yes, seconds) of an interaction, I drove on, feeling stupid. And cowardly.

And then just a couple of days ago, I met him again at my job. He’d come to meet my boss and I was just leaving her room. I wasn’t unaware that we may see each other, so I'd had time to mentally prepare myself for a better interaction. I knew exactly how the conversation would go. He would be shocked to see me there, and his entire body language would change setting to ‘Implode’. He would frown as he examined the floor or the walls trying to settle his facial expression to neutral asshole - rumour has it that it's his go-to expression when dealing with others. I can’t really complain since I believe I had a hand in making him who he is today. 

In any case, I would stop in front of him, smile and say 'Hey!’ Given the norms of polite behaviour, he would say Hi and I would explain to him that his meeting has been delayed by 15 minutes and would he like to wait with me outside. Looking at the sea of strangers around him, and the confidence that I naturally exude on my home turf, he would say Ok. We’ll step out and as we wait awkwardly over coffee for a few minutes, neither knowing what to say, I would blurt out my congratulations for his film that is doing well, and then explain how I still had to go watch it. He would smile and nod and look impatiently at his watch, wondering how quickly he could politely excuse himself and get away from me. I would take that opportunity to say that I felt really silly about leaving him on the road side the other day and how I should have insisted but was afraid I was being presumptuous. He would smile awkwardly, disarmed by my candour, and say that he understood - and will acknowledge that even he'd felt weird. 

 We would smile briefly and then he would be called in for his meeting. We would look at each other - a hug too intimate, a handshake too silly - and then we’d wave to each other as he went in to work while I took a breath. On his way out, he’d ask my colleague if I was still around and she would say yes and call me and I would come downstairs and he’d tell me that he needed my number because he had to send some literature across to me to read, as my boss had said. 

A few days later, he’d call me and instead of talking about the expected literature, he would ask me if I’d want to have coffee again. I’d say yes. And we would meet and it would be just a little bit less awkward, and maybe we would laugh once. Like we used to. We would both know that we couldn’t possibly go back to who we used to be, but maybe we could reintroduce ourselves, see if our grown up versions, the people we both had a hand in shaping, if we would stand up to the test of being scrutinised and appraised. And if, for just a few moments every day, we would dare allow the other to affect us again. 

These coffee meetings would lead to early dinners to hanging out with significant others to house parties and dancing and there will be laughter. Incrementally, but surely, there would be a dropping of our guard. And maybe, just maybe, one day we would tell our story to a third party friend who will sit across from us and wonder what it takes to build a real friendship in today’s world of social media alienation and we would say, looking at each other, that you have to let the important ones shape you, and then forgive them if they fucked up the design, but still allow them to shape you, and then learn to love the shape of you that the other made. And vice-versa. 

I knew all this in those 3 seconds as I walked towards him when he entered my work place. And I smiled and said Hey! And his brain imploded when he saw me, and I said that he would have to wait for a few minutes before my boss would be ready to see him. And he said, “What? What does that mean?” And I said, “You’ll need to wait…” And he said, “I don’t understand…” and suddenly something struck me. I said, “You’ll need to wait for a few minutes - not necessarily with me…” And his body language setting changed from Implode to Relaxed Neutral Asshole and he nodded and said Ok. And then my colleague said, “Let me show you to the conference room” and he said OK. And I nodded, and we walked away from each other towards two separate destinations. 

Maybe at that time some assault is exactly what was needed. Not the kissing kind - *shudder* - but more the assertive Bitch Taking Control kind where I would have stopped him from walking away and said, “No he’ll be waiting with me outside where we shall be having a long-fucking-overdue conversation, Even if it kills us.”

Maybe it’ll still happen. At this point however, I feel really bad for that third-party friend who will never hear this awesome story of friendship and redemption and how something amazing can still be salvaged out of our meandering repetitive lives and then there will be nothing to stop him from making the same stupid mistakes that we already lived every excruciating fucking detail of.

It’s really him I feel bad for. Otherwise, I’m fine.

Committed to Sadness

Last night, I asked VJ out. I did part of the whole "date" shabang (I say "date" because I'm not sure any of us date anymore. But - another post, another time). I made a phonecall, invited him out, got dressed up, made reservations, arrived there early, etc. In my head, he was always locked away as the one who got away, the what-if, the One-if-only-I'd-had-the-balls-to-put-myself-out-there. And it was nice. There was conversation, and some laughter, and good food. At the end of the day, I'm not sure if the dinner plan was a good one (we've never really ever had a conversation so I wasn't entirely sure about what he enjoys except his work) but I was happy that I had created that opportunity. Later my friend asked me how it was, and I said - it was nice. Nicer than many other situations I've found myself in. 

And therein lies the problem. The Nicer. The Better. The Comparison.

 Just recently I was having a conversation with my friend Rob about his marriage. It was on the rocks, and as part of the alimony, his lovely wife was demanding to be knocked up. And Rob was considering it. Now, I'm not a particularly maternal person, and I’ve never felt the call of my womb to be filled with alien dna or the desire of my vagina to shoot out a watermelon-sized spawn into the world. That said, I do know that some women still do - what baffled me was this woman’s need to do all of the above with someone who was not interested in sticking around, and whom she despised enough to legally eject from her world. 

And yet, she wanted a piece of him inside of her, and around her, for as long as the little one survived. He, on the other hand, just saw the sperm as the next step, not someone who would become a living breathing embodiment of parts of you you didn’t even know existed, but just something he had to get over with so he could get his freedom.

A recipe for disaster, right? Maybe. 

But the roots of this gigantic mess lie in the words “She’s not like the other girls….” And thus starts a story with its foundations in quicksand. The problem is - Rob (and possibly many others out there) made a choice about a life partner based on all their experiences of other people out there. In today's world of dating, there is no lack of options. If you’re reasonably attractive, clean, well-mannered, well-spoken and even passingly employed (or have prospects), it won’t be hard to find someone to hook up / hang out / netflix and chill with. It’s easy, and that’s really great. 

The downside to that is the sheer empirical knowledge that there is someone better out there. Of course there is, so why bother investing in this person in front of you when a better one is right around the corner, right? And in this world of spotting the best deal, you meet The One. And she’s great.

She’s not like S who was a vegetarian and always made a face when you ordered a cheeseburger.

She’s not like A who used to hog the sheets and didn’t like football.

She’s not like D who had hang ups about sex.

She’s not like N whose parents hated you

She’s definitely not like E who was always smoking up

And not like SS who - well, something was off about her. Total Psycho.

But The One - She’s not like SADNESS at all. You’re not quite sure what she is about, but since she’s not like the others, it’s a good place to start. The problem with this method of elimination is that you spend more time thinking about your experience of SADNESS than you do about The “One” in front of you. Sure she doesn’t hog the sheets, but she doesn’t brush her teeth either before breakfast. Ofcourse her parents really like you but they insist that you join them for morning prayers every weekend. And for sure she doesn’t smoke or imbibe any kind of hallucinogens, but her closest friends are ex-heroin addicts with whom she may or may not have had some kind of sexual history.

My point is this -  When we talk of commitment, what exactly are we committing to? My friend Rob said, “I married her right? That meant I was committed to her.” Did it though? Does signing a piece of paper - that can be negated by signing another piece of equally available paper - mean you’re committed to un-sexy things like a person’s happiness, well-being, growth and future? Are you committed to even changing yourself if that is needed to achieve all those things? Is that even possible when all we know about them is that they’re NOT SADNESS?

And all this makes me worry. 

I worry about Rob and Tom and Alex and all the others out there. I worry about myself too. I worry that we have all lost the ability to see a person for who they are and make the effort to discover that something which is extraordinary about them. Not just that, I worry that even when we find something amazing about them, we find it almost impossible to commit to it, to provide the active participation needed to nurture it and see it flourish. And further, I worry that if someone does in fact recognise the beautiful and unique in us, and volunteers to provide the care we need, we refuse to accept their particular brand of nurturing because - well - there are better, warmer, more charming, more networked nurturers out there.

Most worrying is the simple truth that even when we sit across from the potentially amazing at a dinner table, all we see is how easy or difficult it is for us to be around them, whether they love us for who we are without demanding the exact same thing from us, if they validate our illusion of ourselves without expecting that we do the same for them.  And in that process, we manage to deal ourselves out from the wonderful that they are and we could be because we preferred to minimize them to what we had known and thus, who we had become.

And that's what's really sad.

At the end of the day, I worry that in the process of running from all the SADNESS in our lives, sadness is the only thing we're comfortable committing to.

Diamonds and Rust

In the last 16 years, my cellphone number hasn’t changed. I've hardly ever switched it off. I think about that sometimes. Having never been the proud owner of any kind of landline, my cellphone has been the only consistent way for anyone to reach me regardless of time of day or night. Maybe I’m sentimental, but I also do think that if anyone wants to reach out to me, they should be able to, no matter how long it’s been. 

Like Mocha did the other day. After many years of silence, except for a memorable 45-second phone-call he made from some freezing part of the country just because a song played on the radio that reminded him about me, and the diamonds and rust that we were. And then suddenly, a few years later, he called to say he was in my neighbourhood and would I like to catch up? And just like that, I dragged my ass out of bed and went to meet my first love. 

I was nervous, wondered if the years had changed us, if conversation had dried up, if disappointment that rode the fumes of nostalgia were all that we would have. And just like all those years ago, we surprised me. He looked great, and the minute he opened the door with that crooked smile on his face, I was back to 13 years ago, the in-between years becoming irrelevant. What was meant to be a quick drink lasted for 6 hours of laughter and conversation and so much yearning. Long looks and the not-so-innocuous hand holding were the order of the night, even as we caught up with the banalities. First loves are like that - they remind you of who you were and make you fall back in love with yourself.

And then you wonder why you don’t have this in your life right now. It makes you question all your choices and wonder if all those deal breakers really were that important after all. It makes you wish. It makes you want. And then when you hug each other goodbye, and there is that moment when you think, “If I just lean forward... just a little… one kiss and I could have this again, if only for a moment.” And almost immediately you think, I deserve more than a moment. I deserve a lifetime of this feeling. And then you remember why it ended. 

Regret is a powerful thing. No matter how much peace you’ve made with it, it’ll spring back at you when you least expect it. It could be a movie, a song or a line of poetry and suddenly it takes you back to La La Land and makes you wonder “what if…” And the only way out of that whirlwind, is through. 

As this year thankfully comes to a close, I’m thinking of the many things I regret. This year has been one fairly long traumatic soap opera of sorts, but one thing I don’t regret is my sentimentality. I have loved many people in my life and been fortunate to have been loved by quite a few. I am lucky to have a family and some friends that profess to adore me and, while it isn’t remotely close to perfect, I’m lucky I don’t live in a place as war-torn yet as so many other parts of the world. There are many things to be grateful for - and one of them is knowing that deep down I’m a sentimental romantic fool who probably loves me more than most people I’ve met. 

Things could be worse.

Political and Sober

Recently, a lot of my literary input has been about the chaos in the USA thanks to the Trump election and, closer home, the move of demonetizing approximately 80% of currency by the Narendra Modi government. I react to both from a place of cynicism of leaders with histories of bad choices particularly when it comes to the common man or woman. It also comes from a place of being genetically and socially programmed to stand up to bullies, who’re picking on the little guy and making him pay them to bully him further. 

I fucking hate it. 

But the bigger distress comes from the inability of some of my friends to see this bullying and respond to it as such - with rage and strength. Instead, I hear them say things like (I paraphrase of course) “it’s always been this way, chill!” or “Hey, people we know are not being bullied so relax” or even “Look, it’s for everyone's future, because the little guy will build character and we will have a strong nation in the future… If someone dies, that’s just “survival of the fittest” which is the law of the jungle…” (Suddenly, it’s okay to ascribe to the Law of the Jungle even though we live in cities built on man-made rules). All this while, the little guy cowers in the corner, his present survival taking precedence over an abstract future. 

I’m quite appalled by the lack of empathy that exists among a lot of the privileged fucks I call friends who dare to sit in their 2-bedroom apartments while calling themselves “average citizens”. I mean, there’s an entire internet available for reading, a skill that they all have thanks to fairly expensive educations and there are several credible sources on it who are leaning in on these two major issues with their thoughts, all of which and much more additional material is available to us to ponder upon. And yet, it seems for many, bullying is okay, because it’s always been around, because it builds character and because, ultimately, it’s not really affecting any of ours.

They ask me why I’m afraid, why I’m “panicking" - after all, it’s still early days and who knows what will happen in the future.  I’m panicking because I read. I’m panicking because I remember my history lessons and I’m panicking because things like “post-truth” (a disdain for facts) are becoming the norm. I’m panicking because when I look around at people I consider(ed?) friends, imagining them to have the same approach to bullying as I, I find them fielding for the bully’s team.

While I am among the privileged few that neither the US election nor the Indian demonetisation has affected in the slightest, my life has still changed. I’m furious with this nonsense because now, the number of people I could hang out with over a casual drink without wanting to punch them has plummeted even more. I'm afraid of picking up the phone and talking to someone and meeting them because sooner or later, something will be said that will put them firmly on one or other side of the conversation or worse, make them "ambivalent".

Mark Twain wasn’t that far off when he said that as much as he gets to know people, he increasingly prefers the company of his dog.

In my case however, it appears to be just me and my cat.

Airport Musings

The last two years - maybe more - has put me through the wringer. I have been forced to confront disappointments, insecurities, borderline financial crisis, loneliness and isolation. I have been through one meaningless relationship that went one step further in cementing my fear of being incapable of really connecting with another person and thus being alone forever. I have questioned my talent, my professional capabilities, my abilities to forge any kind of meaningful relationship. I have also forgiven others and myself a lot - so that’s one good thing. 

But right now, on my way to a much deserved break, I find myself sitting at an airport, hearing multiple languages being spoken around me as I sip wine and notice I haven’t uttered a word apart from ordering said wine… And I find that I’m scrambling to find an identity. Back home, my my biggest conceit is that I always have a story running through my head; fictional characters whose fate lies in my hands, so much more interesting than real people. At this moment, however, I’m hard-pressed to come up with anything remotely interesting. On the contrary, my thoughts revolve around how easy it would be to just start again - new place, new people, new job, new identity, new friends - a chance to reinvent everything I am and could be.

Barring a few exceptions, at this moment, I could disappear from my life and not miss a single thing. After so many years of living, I think that’s a terrible state of affairs.

"Fucked Up"

I’ve been called that a lot. Sometimes, I’ve even said it to myself. And at this stage of my life, I do believe it to be atleast partly true. But just this morning, I thought about the first time i heard someone call me that. It was my first boyfriend. Have you noticed how the most terrible things that have been said or done to you have been by people who supposedly loved you? 

So, back to my first boyfriend and his usage of the descriptor that I have since learned to accept as truth. And I wonder what he saw in the 19-year-old me that would cause him to say that. Let’s see - he was my first real kiss, my first love, my first time… I was in a new city, among totally new people, no real family to speak of in the country and terrified about this whole new thing called “love”, having had only my parents as an up-close-and-personal example of what it looks like, or is supposed to… And he called me Fucked Up.

Because I didn’t trust him. 

He was right to question that. After all, I was 19! At that age, you’re supposed to be whole and unscarred and trusting and swept away with words such as Forever, Love, Together, Girlfriend, etc from a person you met for the first time 3 days ago and were going to be sitting in class with for the next two years. You’re supposed to believe that love is everything and will conquer all. 

You’re not supposed to be thinking about the Father who loved you for 12 years before he walked out the door without a backward glance, about a Mother who loved you for 19 years and used you as an emotional crutch, Parents who loved each other for 16 years and still couldn’t stop saying venomous shit about each other whenever they got the chance… After all, with Love like that going around, how do you possibly trust someone who showed up yesterday and promised a lifetime together without all that terrible stuff?

And that made me fucked up.

So when he couldn’t browbeat and harangue me into trusting him, I picked the kinder choice and left him. His parting words were, “You’re so fucked up, you don’t deserve anyone who loves you." So now, I had another person who had supposedly ‘loved me’ who believed that I didn’t deserve love. Increase fucked-up-ness to level 2. 

Boyfriend #2 believed that “Life was fucked up” and sex should never be confused with love and so what if he already had a girlfriend, we should fuck or I will just be proving to the world that I was like all those other emotionally needy fucked up women out there. 

We didn’t fuck. But it proved I was “fucked up”.

Enter Father after a 7 year silence. A father who feels bad about having left. A father who’s surprised that I didn’t turn out to be as fucked up as my mother. A father who still ‘loved’ my mother but couldn’t stand to speak to her. A father who believes that him leaving a pre-teen daughter around the time that she would be forming her enduring impressions about men, love, respect and relationships isn’t his problem. That it’s just grown up to Grow Up. That WAS fucked up, even if I do say so myself.

Enter boyfriend #3 who, no matter how many times he said that he loved me, I couldn’t quite believe it. Until one day I returned home to find him packing. 

Boyfriend #4 who was sure he could convince me to love him, and if only I wasn’t so fucked up, I’d see that he’s the best person for me. 

And so on and so forth - every person who loved me because or inspite of me being fucked up. With every damnation, with every bewildering split, with every hurtful thing done because of “fucked up”ness, I became more so, and thus even less inclined to believe the words of reassurance and love and passion spilling out of the next someone’s mouth. With every increasingly passionate appeal to my sense of affection, every reasoned argument that I should love them because after all, I wasn't so amazing, I became just a bit more removed from them, steeling myself for the inevitability of love ending, often dramatically, amidst words of hate and anger...

... and lately, with barely a whisper.

And end, it did. And each time it did, I became just a bit more relieved, cared just a little bit lesser.

 Because I guess I’ve become fucked up like that.

When Break Ups Feel Like... Nothing At All

This is it. I’ve really and truly tipped over to the dark side. I go out with someone. I tell them I love them. One day i decide that I don’t feel loved… or whatever. And I break up with them. And then… nothing. I go back to work. I give my clothes for dry cleaning. I call a few friends. I make plans of travel. And once in a while, I think of him. 

Have I become so good at break ups that they take nothing from me? Or is this me letting my inner sociopath flourish? Or have I actually lost touch with who I am and what I need that I can’t even identify it if it’s right in front of me? Or… and this is the tough one, is what I need so unrealistic that I’m doomed to live an unfulfilled life always craving for something that really doesn’t exist?

Let’s examine that for a second shall we? Need. Why has that become a four-letter word? “To need someone means there’s something missing in you. You shouldn’t need but surely want.” “Is he too needy?” “Don’t operate from a place of need - that just signifies ‘lack’” yada yada yada.

The simple fact of the matter is - I need people. Not just any people but a specific kind of people. I need people who are whip-smart, who can make me laugh in an uncontrollable kind of way, I need someone who makes love to my whole body, from my brain to my toes, whom I can have late night conversations with, to play with, to tell stories with, who’s better at friends than I am (which by the way would be anybody), I need people who know what the fuck they’re talking about when they talk of relationships, I need someone who sees me…. I need… I need someone who needs stuff and can make it okay for me to need stuff as well. And … I guess I need these things to exist within one person who isn’t a huge asshole and, in the context of this rant, preferably someone who thinks I’m awesome.

That’s all. That can’t be an unachievable list, can it?

Recently I read somewhere that intelligent people are lonely the world over. It’s only to be expected because “intelligence” is rare. But then that same person (or similar people) went on to describe intelligence as “the ability to comprehend the environment and make the smartest decisions of survival”. By that logic, I’m among the dumbest critters that exists. 

I take a good, fun guy, turn him into the most boring, serious person out there and then crib and whine about it after the fact. Or, alternatively, I make what I THINK is the smartest move, pick a guy who isn’t too complicated or too much of an overt asshole, hope like hell that he’ll find a way to help me live outside my head, and then am bored by those very qualities… Somewhere I forgot my own game plan of “normal” and that makes me very very dumb.

The tragic part is - in my attempt to find “normal”, I’ve pretty much rejected people with those very qualities I need because of minor issues like them being obnoxious assholes or unreliable assholes or just assholes who broke my heart. But sitting here, nursing my sociopathic heartless self, I feel - assholes are also people right? And who knows, maybe I’m the asshole. (No wait, I KNOW I’m one kind of asshole).

But here’s the thing. All these years I’ve been going on about “Where are the good guys?” right? And I find one. Only to discover that it isn’t a “good guy” I’m looking for, but a guy who can engage my mind and my body and my heart. Someone who makes me want to live outside my head by giving me something more fun than my imaginary friends and revolving cast of characters to think about. Someone who sees my strengths and can teach me to be better, kinder, more loving, more friendly by probably showing me the advantages of being so. Someone who, in a world filled with people telling me that I’m not enough, makes me fall in love with myself.

(Note how I make a distinction between 'loving' oneself - which one does all by oneself and one must - and "falling in love' with oneself - which is generally an other-person thing. I think.)

Ok… that DOES seem like a tall order, maybe one that even I can’t fulfil by myself for another. And yes, it does come from a place of lack, probably. And obviously, despite having spent enough time “working on myself”, it’s not something that my harshly critical Inner child has learned to shut up about. 

And yet… the heart - and an active imagination - wants what it wants. And, until one gets that (or deserves it?), maybe it’s okay for it to always be Netflix and Chill for one.