I’m 22. Single. Have nothing to do on Valentines day. And it’s OKAY!

This feeling and urge to be with someone escalates during the month of February. Nothing surprising about it, of course. But it’s okay. In fact, it’s for the better.

Just last week I was at Corner House Ice Creams in one of the most happening streets of Bangalore. I was going there after 2 years. Last time I went there, I remember spending more than 3 hours eating ice creams and conversing. I was all set to order the Death By Chocolate, DBC, as they call it. The waiter asked me if I wanted 2 spoons as DBC is often eaten by 2 people. I replied that just one would be fine. That’s when it hit me, all of a sudden. DBC and alone? Something isn’t right here!

I had been okay not be dating someone. But that’s when it gave me a strong feeling that I was “single”. And for the first time in a long time, the feeling wasn’t good. To top it, I could see couples all around me sharing that tub of ice cream. Not a pretty sight, isn’t it?

It’s not like I’ve always been in a relationship. Back in school, no one was dating anyone. As I moved into college and suddenly everyone was dating. There was this peer pressure I had started succumbing to. And eventually I started seeing someone. Did my life change? Yes.

Did I want it to? Yes, I thought then. It was this beautiful feeling. Something I thought I yearned for. But was it beautiful? In retrospection, not so much. I had started living for him. Now, I’m not saying all relationships are like this but most are. There is one person in the relationship who is in love more than the other person. And that person keeps trying to push boundaries to keep the relationship beautiful.

It took me a while (52 books, innumerable blogs) to realise I was not doing justice to myself. I broke up. Drifted apart. I ‘found myself’. As much as this term is overused in today’s times, I actually did find myself. This whole time I was pretending to be someone people liked, my boyfriend liked. I was happy (at least I thought so then) when they liked it too. When you are happy because you made someone else happy, it’s beautiful. There is no bigger joy than that. Well, that’s what I have always been taught.

Now, what if you are happy for who you are. And they are happy for that too. More beautiful, isn’t it? Not so easy. When you focus on yourself, do the things you love, care less about the things that don’t matter to you, you start to look like someone else to the other person. I’ve loved running and in those 2 years of relationship, I hardly ran. Running takes me to a place I want to be alone, all by myself. That was something new to him. Sadly, he did not like it. But I was discovering myself all over again. The thing with doing what you really like is you start excelling at it in your own way. It encourages you to look beyond, start re-discovering your passions, the few that you lost on your way to adult life. Finding them again is beautiful. I had always read about it. I experienced it.

I met a few people who ran in my locality. After a few days, as the faces got familiar, I started having conversations with them. It’s amazing to see how happy people are when they talk about their passions and are pursuing it every day. When you are doing something because you really like doing it, you are more beautiful. Being single is not the worst thing that can happen to you (far, far, far from it). Not discovering your passion and not finding yourself is.

This Valentines Day, if you’re single and have nowhere to go, consider it as a gift. ‘Being single’ in your life is a gift to yourself. It gives you the opportunity to really get to know yourself. Discovering your passion. I don’t hate love. Everyone wants it. I want it. But real love is not common. Even in this age of technology, you can’t order it. You’ve to fight for it. But before you fight for it, you need to know what you want. Unless you discover yourself, how will you discover someone else and truly fall in love with that person?

I am forced to quote Mia in La La Land, my favourite movie this year for a lot of reasons but mostly this one: “People love what other people are passionate about”

“All you single people out there, fall in love. Fall madly in love. But don’t forget to fall in love with yourself first.”

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