Reacting to It
Ok... so I said I have So much to say.
Well, I do.
Funny that I should start my active blogging on this note... but I believe that 'You dont write because you have to say something, you write because you have something to say' (sounds like something out of a Book of Quotes? Well, ok. It is :) .
More seriously, ahem, onto the topic at hand.
When I met A.M., I was going through a time of intense confusion.
But let’s go back in time to understand the situation. I was… am a 24 year old girl working in Bangalore. I was enjoying my independence.
I was also 24 years old. A time when, it’s time for a girl to get married. I wasn’t particularly worried about it but my parents were. So I’d been meeting guys through parentally arranged meetings (after a short listing of profiles). The problem was - I couldn’t relate to them. I couldn’t talk to them. I couldn’t marry them. And I said so. So it was no after no after no.
Did I want to get married? Oh yeah. To the right guy and in the right way. I still wanted to fall in love. I still wanted my Love Story.
Which brings me back to A.M.. We met on the bus. Was it love at first sight? Absolutely not. We talked and talked. And talked. He was everything I was looking for in a guy. He was mature. He was sensible. He had a sense of humour. He could sing. And I could be me with him. He could handle me (ok, perverts, Time-Out.)
We met over coffee several times. We talked. I met his friends. We talked some more. And something like friendship started growing. For his graduation, I bought him a tie. A whole episode in itself. Should I? Shouldn’t I ? Will he think I’m in love with him? Am I in love with him? What will his friends think? Will a red one be sending any wrong messages? Is a tie too personal? Phew, you’d think I was buying him.
And then my birthday conveniently came along. Now there aren’t too many things I hope for on my birthday. Sure, the main things like a cake, a few calls. But at every birthday, I ask for just one thing. The one Defining Moment of that b’day that makes me smile like I will never stop. And usually I know exactly who I want it to come from. And this time, I wanted it from him. I waited and waited and waited. And then in the night, he called me. And we talked. Oh… like old times. And when I asked him, he sang a song for me.
And I got my Defining Moment. SIGH.
I wish the story ended there. It doesn’t.
I fell for the guy. Badly.
I decided that I needed to ask him if he loved me like I loved him. Because he hadn’t said anything specific till then. And I needed to know. If it was a no, that would hurt, but it would be better than the uncertainty I was going through. So over 3 days, I wrote a letter. (Redrafted and then some!) Met him in the evening and gave it to him. I was SO scared, I thought I would pass out. When they say fear paralyzes, I can vouch for it.
I gave him the letter and went home. I was dying a slow death. I was tensed and relieved and scared and worried. And all these feelings running at different levels of high. I had mentioned in the letter that I would be really worried, so PLEASE call as soon as you finish reading. But he didn’t call. Not that day, not the next. By evening, I was getting bugged. Say No. I don’t care, man, just SAY SOMETHING.
Finally I sent him a message. And then, then, he was kind enough to spend 1 and ½ seconds to send a reply. He had taken offence about something I had said in the letter. And then “The answer to your question is no”.
That’s it. No reasons. No other words. Just that. The anger, the hurt, the pain, the indignation just rose up and drowned me. I didn’t know whether to be really angry at the way I’d been treated, very hurt at losing him or just plain hopeless. I crawled into bed and howled into my pillow.
Man, it hurt.
It hurt that he said no. But what really hurt was that he didn’t care. He could have spoken to me. He could have said, ‘Hey, I don’t think it’s working out and this is why’. I wasn’t asking for much more than that. Whenever anyone has offered love to me, I have ensured that I have put them out of their worry and been nice to them. It takes guts to declare your love for someone and put yourself up for rejection. The least one can do is be kind.
All I could think of was the way he had handled it. I probably didn’t write the best letter. But I did it the best way I knew. I was prepared for negativity but I wasn’t prepared to pick the pieces of love offered off the floor. He didn’t have to throw it away like that.
It hurt that the one guy I really thought I could make it with didn’t give a rat’s ass if I lived or died.
And that’s why it hurt.
And now, I'm past it. But I'm still trying to understand 'what exactly happened back there?'
Someone who I thought I knew, suddenly becomes this non-talking, un-understandable, totally indifferent person who I (like the total idiot I am) still continue to like.
Beats me.
Do tell if any of you can figure it out.
Well, I do.
Funny that I should start my active blogging on this note... but I believe that 'You dont write because you have to say something, you write because you have something to say' (sounds like something out of a Book of Quotes? Well, ok. It is :) .
More seriously, ahem, onto the topic at hand.
When I met A.M., I was going through a time of intense confusion.
But let’s go back in time to understand the situation. I was… am a 24 year old girl working in Bangalore. I was enjoying my independence.
I was also 24 years old. A time when, it’s time for a girl to get married. I wasn’t particularly worried about it but my parents were. So I’d been meeting guys through parentally arranged meetings (after a short listing of profiles). The problem was - I couldn’t relate to them. I couldn’t talk to them. I couldn’t marry them. And I said so. So it was no after no after no.
Did I want to get married? Oh yeah. To the right guy and in the right way. I still wanted to fall in love. I still wanted my Love Story.
Which brings me back to A.M.. We met on the bus. Was it love at first sight? Absolutely not. We talked and talked. And talked. He was everything I was looking for in a guy. He was mature. He was sensible. He had a sense of humour. He could sing. And I could be me with him. He could handle me (ok, perverts, Time-Out.)
We met over coffee several times. We talked. I met his friends. We talked some more. And something like friendship started growing. For his graduation, I bought him a tie. A whole episode in itself. Should I? Shouldn’t I ? Will he think I’m in love with him? Am I in love with him? What will his friends think? Will a red one be sending any wrong messages? Is a tie too personal? Phew, you’d think I was buying him.
And then my birthday conveniently came along. Now there aren’t too many things I hope for on my birthday. Sure, the main things like a cake, a few calls. But at every birthday, I ask for just one thing. The one Defining Moment of that b’day that makes me smile like I will never stop. And usually I know exactly who I want it to come from. And this time, I wanted it from him. I waited and waited and waited. And then in the night, he called me. And we talked. Oh… like old times. And when I asked him, he sang a song for me.
And I got my Defining Moment. SIGH.
I wish the story ended there. It doesn’t.
I fell for the guy. Badly.
I decided that I needed to ask him if he loved me like I loved him. Because he hadn’t said anything specific till then. And I needed to know. If it was a no, that would hurt, but it would be better than the uncertainty I was going through. So over 3 days, I wrote a letter. (Redrafted and then some!) Met him in the evening and gave it to him. I was SO scared, I thought I would pass out. When they say fear paralyzes, I can vouch for it.
I gave him the letter and went home. I was dying a slow death. I was tensed and relieved and scared and worried. And all these feelings running at different levels of high. I had mentioned in the letter that I would be really worried, so PLEASE call as soon as you finish reading. But he didn’t call. Not that day, not the next. By evening, I was getting bugged. Say No. I don’t care, man, just SAY SOMETHING.
Finally I sent him a message. And then, then, he was kind enough to spend 1 and ½ seconds to send a reply. He had taken offence about something I had said in the letter. And then “The answer to your question is no”.
That’s it. No reasons. No other words. Just that. The anger, the hurt, the pain, the indignation just rose up and drowned me. I didn’t know whether to be really angry at the way I’d been treated, very hurt at losing him or just plain hopeless. I crawled into bed and howled into my pillow.
Man, it hurt.
It hurt that he said no. But what really hurt was that he didn’t care. He could have spoken to me. He could have said, ‘Hey, I don’t think it’s working out and this is why’. I wasn’t asking for much more than that. Whenever anyone has offered love to me, I have ensured that I have put them out of their worry and been nice to them. It takes guts to declare your love for someone and put yourself up for rejection. The least one can do is be kind.
All I could think of was the way he had handled it. I probably didn’t write the best letter. But I did it the best way I knew. I was prepared for negativity but I wasn’t prepared to pick the pieces of love offered off the floor. He didn’t have to throw it away like that.
It hurt that the one guy I really thought I could make it with didn’t give a rat’s ass if I lived or died.
And that’s why it hurt.
And now, I'm past it. But I'm still trying to understand 'what exactly happened back there?'
Someone who I thought I knew, suddenly becomes this non-talking, un-understandable, totally indifferent person who I (like the total idiot I am) still continue to like.
Beats me.
Do tell if any of you can figure it out.
posted by rosie | 12:12 AM
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3 comments
