GEN Z LOVE?
“When it comes to love, I seem to be going around in a circle. The ones I want, don’t want me, and the ones who want me, I don’t want.”
I was 15 when I first fell in love. He was a senior from school. As a kid back then who wasn’t really confident about herself, I wasn’t really sure about approaching him. Nonetheless, my best friends tried their best to motivate me to pursue him (that’s what best friends are meant for after all).
After weeks of texting each other by staying up all night, getting on lengthy calls, and experiencing the best of a teenage crush on a senior, I finally decided to ask him out one day. To my surprise, the day I thought I would mention this to him he had already dropped in a text.
He tried his best to explain the feelings he had harbored for me and YES, HE DID ASK ME OUT! before I could. The feeling was just out of the world. It was going to be my first ever relationship. It was definitely daunting yet exciting at the same time.
My dad just got re-married a year and a half ago and I was staying with my folks back then. Things were a little, in fact very chaotic and unpleasant at home. With constant arguments at home, I finally found solace in him.
Initially, things started on a good note but both of us were just teenagers. It couldn’t have continued long. An end was inevitable.
Things eventually came to a halt after 7 months of us being together. He dumped me right before my board examinations, without providing a reason.
As a hopeless romantic to date, I tried my best to reach out to him in whatever way I could. He never answered my calls, nor did he reply to my texts.
Since life never stops for anyone and anybody. I decided to move on in my life too.
It took me two good years to get over him since he was my point of comfort back then. He was the one I relied upon when my life came crashing. I had no one else to turn to and share what I was experiencing back then. After all, it was MY FIRST TEENAGE LOVE; not to make it dramatic enough, it came to its periphery.
A couple of years passed and I met this other boy. We started seeing each other and with him, things were extremely easy from the onset. It never felt as if we had just met. Now that I think about it, I can undeniably say that he genuinely loved me. He went out of his way to make me feel special on multiple occasions. In fact, no one ever loved me the way he did. A kind person at heart yet extremely territorial in nature.
We started with our uni and had to go our own separate ways at the end. We did try making long-distance work but it failed. He eventually started seeing someone else and this ‘someone else’ became his point of comfort in due course.
I went out, and met other individuals but never felt the spark I was looking for deep within.
Met this other man, we went out for a brief time, he asked me out and we started dating at last. He cheated on me once and I forgave him even though forgiving him wasn’t easy.
But who else can better understand what it means to lose a loved one than an individual who lost her own mother at a very young age?
I decided to give our bond another chance and move past it. After our respective universities opened after the pandemic, he flew back to Bombay and I stayed back in Delhi. We mutually decided to work it out even though it was going to be yet another long-distance.
After a few days of him settling in Bombay, he went out with his friends and things got messy. He cheated on me yet another time. This time I couldn’t handle more and I was quite sure to call it off.
I had almost given up on what people call ‘LOVE’, but being a literature major can you honestly lose hope in romance?
A month after this fallout, I came across this one really nimble-witted man, we saw each other for a bit, and I started feeling for him and he started feeling for me too (at least that’s what I believe).
The so-called ‘honeymoon’ phase kicked in. We loved hanging out with each other, acting all in love. He met my friends and I met his. This time, things were genuinely speeding up but I liked it somehow.
You know how ‘love’ makes you feel? Acting all crazy and mad in it. I was head over heels in love with this individual. Never saw this coming though, it just happened, I guess.
However, nothing lasts for long. Frequent quarrels became a regular affair. Things became toxic. His friends cum ‘council of advisors’ (that’s how he used to put it up at least) suggested him to end it with me. My friends did the same.
I lost my mother when I was 12. She was diagnosed with brain cancer when I was 8. As a kid growing up, I knew somehow or the other I might eventually lose her in my life even though I was optimistic about the fact that she might make it. She was a strong woman and she fought for her survival for 4 years.
But now that I retrospect, maybe I never processed her demise the way I should have. As a result, I acquired abandonment issues over time which now reflected in my bond with this new person.
I just couldn’t let go of him. He wanted to end it even though we never ‘dated’ each other but nah, it was difficult for me to do so.
I asked him for a ‘closure meet’ and I am glad I did so. We met and had a good talk. Both of us got emotional a bit, he told me about his narrative and I told him about mine. But we knew, ‘US’ just couldn’t happen now. We are just two opposite individuals to be together with each other. And we didn’t wish to hurt each other anymore. Thus, that was an end.
But I am glad I met him. I will always remember him as a good person with a low ‘EQ’ maybe (joke intended).
It’s time for me to move on in my life for the nth time and I know it’s imperative.
With this recent heartbreak in my life, I realized that only if I learn to let go of things, I’ll be able to love myself even more.
“Letting Go” is crucial. Yes, it is tough but all worth the try.
You cannot stop yourself from getting attached to someone, but in order to remain attached to yourself, one needs to be kinder towards oneself first, and it’s only then that you can reciprocate the same love out there.
