BASED ON A TRUE STORY
The Most Lucky Unlucky Guy in The World
Story of a guy madly in love
“You know why I am the luckiest guy in the world”, he asked his best friend.
“Because you’re a fool who is gonna give me some shit about love”, the friend laughed.
“Come on, be serious for a while”
“Okay, tell me how am I sitting with the luckiest guy in the world?”
“Because I am going to marry the love of my life”, he answered with a calmness in his voice.
“I mean”, he continued, “How many people you know manage to carry long-distance relationships to the verge of marriage?”
It was a rhetorical question, of course. He was in love. I think these lines don’t do enough justice to the feelings he had at that moment. He was happy, of course. He loved a girl who supposedly loved him back. And she too was almost dying to marry him.
Seemed like all the luck in the world was with him. But as I said, It only seemed so. You know there is always a long story behind the one-line title.
Let me take you a year back from when he told me he was the luckiest guy in the world.
After 2–3 years of college love, my friend and his girlfriend had to part ways. She went for preparing for competitive exams and he was looking for jobs. This, however, didn’t change a thing between them. They met every weekend. They called each other regularly. And since both of them had already told their families about their love, they quite frequently mingled with each other's families as well.
Things, however, took a little sharp turn when he got a job quite far from the city where she was preparing for competitive exams and then, a quite sharp turn when she also got a job at a place very far from the old friends and family.
Long-distance relationships are hard. There is lack of intimacy. There is no warmth of the body — the feeling you get when you crisscross your hands with your better half. No phone call or video call can beat the feeling of their warm breath when they whisper something in your ear. No ‘I love you’ text can replace that hug which makes you feel like the safest person in the world.
After all, at the end of the day, we all need someone to hold.
And most importantly there is a lack of physical presence. When you are with someone, your all senses respond to their presence. Your eyes drink to their sight. Your ears get in the habit of getting high to the nectar of their voice. Their distinct aroma makes your nose go awry in search of that same intoxication again and again. And then there are those goosebumps your body gets to their touch which makes you stand on your toes.
You get the moon when you feel lost. You get the stars when you need guidance. And you get the sky when you feel the need to break apart and fall.
She went to a stranger city with all these things lacking. And there she met a guy who had nothing to lose but had everything to offer a girl who had felt whole and content her entire life.
Every guy who comes as a third person in such love stories seems villain at first. But he, he was something else. He was very different — kind of difficult to categorize. Among all the guys in her vicinity, he was at the topmost rung of the ladder in every possible way. He was fit. He dressed well. He was brilliant academically. He played excellent guitar. He was good at sports. And above all, he was a writer. The heartfelt poems he wrote could entice any girl in the town.
The confidence he had, and the way he carried himself made every woman there desire him. She too noticed him but she was not interested in him, at first.
She never meant to come even close to him because, for her, the relationship he had was everything she ever wanted. God or that guy, however, had some other plans.
She already knew his name as he was the talk of the town. He too knew that. Still, he very casually introduced himself to her and very subtly asked her out for a coffee.
Slowly they both started enjoying each other's company to the point that they loved only each other's presence. They were present on the same premises every day. They lived near each other. This started a chain of rendezvous — meeting every day, eating together, spending every spare minute of the day together, going for a walk in the middle of the day and then sitting under one blanket every night and talking.
This cosying up in the bed every night led to cuddling which led to sleeping the entire night together in one bed.
He treated her like a princess. She loved getting lost in his arms every night. He was a perfect gentleman in bed. He never made a move on her. Slowly, she started feeling so comfortable with him that sleeping with her head on his bare chest became the only place where she found her peace at the end of the day.
Every night she started snuggling in his arms with her one leg on him and arm around him hugging him tightly.
Ask yourself. Two young — man and lady — in a bed together every night. How long do you think they can keep their hands off each other? So, came a winter night of dead cold. It was pouring heavily. She wanted to come to him but rain messed up her plan. Nevertheless, he came to her room that night, soaked wet. She gave him her clothes to change.
He was in her bed that night. A woman is always more comfortable in her bed. She knew she has committed to someone else far away from that place. He also knew she was with someone else.
But comfort is a bitch. It makes you feel so home-like in their arms that for that moment all your world shrinks to them. He also spooned her like a baby so both of them almost forgot if any world exist outside that bed. They both were facing each other. Breathing became heavy.
They kissed.
And it was so slow, so intense and intimate as if they had been longing for it since the beginning of time. The unthinkable thing happened. Lines were crossed. Hands caressed each other’s bodies as if both wanted to devour each other completely.
They were lost in a world of each other where they found each other.
The next morning was a very new morning for both of them. Nothing has changed, yet, everything felt different. The guilt trip started. They talked about it. They agreed to maintain a distance but as they say, distance only increases the craving. It only makes you feel as if something is missing. Something that was always there before and now’s not.
‘Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great.’ — Roger de Rabutin
Very soon, the old casual walks and talks started. And that pushed them into the bed even harder. The sex was amazing. It was the best they both ever had. Of course, it was. Anything taboo in society is enticing. As Nietzsche says,
“Morality is just a fiction used by the herd of inferior human beings to hold back the few superior men.”
They both were having the time of their lives. They were doing something hidden from both their families and friends. That’s what spiced things up. Society for us is never the people we do not know. It is always the people we know and who know us. And what’s funny is that both are afraid of each other. Secretly, however, both of them want to do what the other is doing. But secretly.
They went on trips. They saw sunrise and sunset together. They smoked, they drank, and they laughed with each other.
While this was happening for months, my friend was dreaming about his marriage and how in a few months, she will be hers again and that too forever. Ah! How beautiful this word sounds. Forever. He thought he was the luckiest guy in the world, having his dream of marrying the girl of his dreams being fulfilled very soon.
Sometimes we think the universe is acting against us while in reality it is acting for us and keeping us from harm. While other times we think every god on earth and every possible luck is with us and the reality is that life is fucking us in a way we cannot even imagine.
Was he really lucky? At that moment when he asked me that rhetorical question, I really didn’t think so. I didn’t know at that time that he was being cheated on in ways he cannot even survive after knowing. Call it my sixth sense or whatever, but I had my doubts.
Long-distance relationships don’t work and if they do, somehow, remember that these things might be keeping them going.
As of today, however, I think he was quite lucky back then. He really was because something happened when they met once again.
After years of being apart, he flew to her city. They spend the whole day together. She felt surreal. She put every effort to be with him that day and so, effortlessness was missing. He sensed it and asked her at the end of the day.
“Today was the nicest day in a long time, No?”
“Yes,” she replied with a smile
“What’s different then?” he asked with a fading smile
She smiled and then laughed as if she was busted.
“Nothing” she replied
He didn’t say a thing. He just tilted his head in a wait for the reply.
“There is someone else’, she said.
Tears started flowing like the downpour of a waterfall from his eyes. But he didn’t break down, not yet. He was smiling. He had sensed all that a long time ago but still listening to something like that was almost unbearable. All the pain in the world found a home in his heart.
She retracted at once, “ No, there is no one”
He took a small breath when she added,
“but”, He became numb.
“I cannot be with you anymore”
At that point, I know he felt as if she was being selfish and not thinking about him at all. She was saying the opposite of everything he ever wanted. Heck! She said everything that he didn’t imagine even once.
“You found happiness with someone else”, he smiled and said, “ Then be with him”.
She left him, then and there. For a quite long time, he thought he was the unluckiest guy in the world. But looking back to that event which happened 6 years ago, I can say that he could have been the unluckiest guy in the world had he married her and lived in ignorance whole his life. She couldn’t have possibly fulfilled him, because she was not meant for him, and he for her.
Yes, they were together for years, families were involved yet the bold step girl took was in favour of everybody. I don’t know whether she’s still with the guy he met back then or not. I cannot tell you that side of the story.
But I will definitely tell you this side of the story. That incident took a toll on my friend’s mental and physical health for quite along. For years he was depressed. But as they say without an abyss, there is no existence of mountains. He fell into an abyss which was necessary for the development of his character and life.
It took time, but he got himself up, dust himself off and cracked the Indian government exams. Now, he plays the guitar, he writes for international publications, and he plays sports. He is living in mountains — a dream we all share. He goes on trips every now and then and I can assure you that what seemed bad 6 years ago was the best thing that could have happened to him as he is now having the time of his life.
He seemed to be the most lucky unlucky guy in the world. Had he married her, he would have been. But the universe came into play at the right moment and now, as far as I am concerned he is the most unlucky lucky guy in the world.
“Remember that Sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck” — Dalai Lama
