When a Black Girl Falls in Love
Loving someone can be the best feeling but at the same time it can be very difficult.
Hello everyone I am a black girl and yes as the title says I fell in love. No it did not matter if the guy was white or black the only thing that mattered was me being black.
Here, in India marriage is a sacrament, it is treated as a divine thing, but love is scary, you cannot and should not fall in love before marriage. Your marriage has to be decided by your parents and the choice of your better half depends on your parents beauty preferences.
I did not just fall in love before marriage I fell in love with a fair guy, ironically he loved me too. We were so overwhelmed by the feeling of love that we almost forgot that its not just us, who have to accept our relationship but our parents too have accept our relationship, for it to sustain.
I never in my whole life thought that someone can love me for who I am but that had happen and I was on cloud nine, enjoying the few weeks of my non acceptable love.
Here is how everything happened…
It was the second week of march , I got a message on my phone saying, “hey you up?” it was midnight and I was about to sleep but seeing the message I felt pit in my stomach it was him, ‘my crush’. Within no time I replied “yeah, what do you want” the black girl in me refused to let my excitement lose in the fear of getting refused.
For a while I was trying to tell you something, is this good time to chat?, he asked.
Now what you must know here is I was a zero confidence girl, I use to run back to the bus as soon as the classes were over and never participated in anything and also I was not allowed to use my phone after 10 p.m , but it was him and I could not refuse. So I replied with a thumbs up.
For the longest time, I was thinking to talk to you about something but it never was a good time, he said.
I replied, today it is, you can talk.
What are your thoughts about love-marriage?, he asked.
I, hiding all the nervousness replied, well for that you need a lover, I do not have any and so I do not have any thoughts about love marriage.
he replied with a smiling emoticon,
well how about we find you a lover? he said,
curling my toes and wishing it was him I said, well that is not that easy, is it?
He said why not, anybody would love to have you as his girlfriend.
I replied with a thumbs down and frowning emoticon.
he said well I do not know about anyone but I would love to have you as my girlfriend, the question isn’t about me the question is to you, will you be my girlfriend?
My heart almost skipped a beat, my excitement knew no bar and in a moment I said yes.
that is how it all began, my crush whom I use to stalk on social media and dream about him all day had asked for a relationship, I was on cloud nine.
He called and we spoke till 5 am in the morning, it was hard for me with all the family rule and restriction but somehow under the blanket, I whispered all night.
The next morning was the best, because I was not waking up as a single anymore I was in a relationship, that too with my favorite person.
But little did I know that was just until we had to seek validation from our families.
Till June everything was fine we were in love and had nothing to worry about, but then semester ended and so did our law school. We both were visiting our home town until the results were out, there were promises to return back to the city and start law practice together,
He was very passionate about me and wanted to tell everyone about us, the first person he choose to share his joy with was his mother. He told her everything about me, expressed his intention to marry me and how deep he has fallen in love with me, it went for a good 10–15 minutes she seemed happy and excited to know that her son has fallen in love with someone and she was excited to know about me.
He showed his mother my picture, now suddenly all the excitement turned into anger, the questions like how can you? why did you? and what did you see in her? were raised along with statements like she does not suit you, you deserve better, she is so much darker than you.
He was shocked, he said, mom you always taught me to judge a person by his/her character then by attire or color, in anger she shouted yes as a friend not as a girlfriend and surely not a wife, she is unacceptable and I will never let you marry her! she exclaimed.
He was devastated, he was in love for the first time and his mother, who had promised to support him in any of his decisions, has refused to consider his love for a girl only because she was black.
His faith in the family was crushed as his only confidant had refused to consider his feelings. Seeing his mother’s reaction he had no ray of hope for the acceptance of his relationship by his family.
He called me and told me he is not going to return to the city ever and he is thinking to settle at his native place with his parents and that I should take my independent decisions and not wait for him for anything.
I had so many questions, he had no answers. I died a little that day, I felt like someone had stabbed a knife in my chest and my heart is bleeding.
Now one thing you should know about me is that, I never was liked by anyone my whole life, let alone a boy. All my extended family had always told me in some way or other that I am not an attractive girl and it would be very difficult to find a guy who will marry me, so my confidence had been trashed since my birth and my only fault is that I am black. One thing about the people who have been treated like me is that we are weak when it comes to attention, so even if someone just smiles at us, it makes our day.
I was not only given a little attention I was termed as a “girlfriend”, hearing him asking me to move on was just not acceptable. I hanged up the phone and locked myself in the room for hours, I was feeling nothing, I was numb to the limit that I could hear my heart beats aloud. I was shocked to my core that I was not even able to cry, you know that state, where the pain is so much that you can’t even cry.
The only thing that was bothering me was how did I let myself so loose, I could have controlled myself from feeling like this. I was regretting saying yes, I was regretting getting into the relationship, I was regretting being born.
I stayed up all night thinking all the ways to move on. I get it, you might wonder it was just few months of relationship, but it was the first time for me I had put all my heart in it, irony is, so did he. I did not even know why he asked me to move on what had changed in few weeks that all the feeling and promises we shared ended.
I was thinking of things that can help me move on and the only thing came to me is getting married. I was in age to get married and my mother was very much eager to find me a guy. I thought the only escape from this was letting my mother find a guy for me to marry. I had it all planned, I had decided that in the morning I am going to tell my mom that I am ready for marriage and she can begin her search for me. Wondering how everything will be and staring at my ceiling fan I fell asleep around 3 in the morning.
At around 4:30 in the morning my phone rang, I woke up to see who was calling me at such hour, it was him. I picked up the phone and tears rolled down my eyes,this was first time I cried after he told me to move on, I again had so many questions but I wasn’t even able to say hello,
“how are you” he asked, the only reply I could give was ‘hmm’,
You do not have to worry he said, I did not mean a word I said, will need sometime to explain you everything. I just called to check how you are doing. I love you and will always love you remember that. I cannot talk right now just hold onto me I will call back ASAP.
Now I was crying like a child, I did not understand anything but I had faith in him. I got calmed by his words, I cried and then again fell asleep. At around 8 a.m. I was woken up by a knock at my door, it was mom she was calling me for breakfast.
I had breakfast and was passing the time, constantly checking phone, checking if I had sufficient network, is my phone charged, that was the first time I sat beside my phone while it was charging doing nothing but just starring at it.
He did not called that day nor for a whole week. It is not that I did not try to reach him but he had blocked me on his phone and was not active on any of his social media handles. Almost after six days I called up our common friend and asked him to help me with the situation. Our friend called him and they took me on a conference call.
He again told me not to worry and everything will be alright. When I asked what had happen why he didn’t call, he told me that he spoke with his mom about us and she has refused to accept our relationship. So he told his brother about us and asked him to help in convincing their mom. His brother instead of helping him told their father and grandparents and now the whole family is against him and are forcing him to stay in the town and start his law practice there. He said that whenever he tries to rebel, his mother starts crying and all this is creating a lot of ruckus in the house on daily basis. So I asked him why did he ask me to move on, to which he explained that his mom had emotionally blackmailed him to call me and break up the relationship.
So instead of making them understand he is just going to get back to city on his own. On hearing this I was devastated, for us Indians, family drama is the inevitable part of relations, but I did not want him to fight his family for us but he had other plans. He had decided to move to the city find a job settle here and never return to his folks again. What I heard when he said that, was he is going to abandon his family for me and I did not want that. I could have never lived happily thinking someone is blaming me or my relationship for their son to get apart from them. I did not want to start a life letting anyone hold any grudges against us.
We Indians are dramatic what did I say!
But this all defines us! Family is as important to us as our carrier. We do not abandon family for anything, we take it with us, we cry , convince, and cry a little more until they get convinced but we take them with us.
So that was our plan, I told him not to abandon them, instead try and convince them just to allow you to return to the city and get a good job. It took him few months but at the end he came to the city applied for decent jobs and also got one.
We both were meeting after five months it was not just a long distance relationships, it was barely a relationship. We did not talk much on calls or messages, we only spoke when he was alone and that was just a few minutes in a week.
So when we met after five months there were awkward hugs and a lot of crying, not just me, he cried too. For the first time in my life someone liked me, approached me and now he loves me so much that he cried for me but those were the happy tears, they were the tears of the joy of reunion.
Then we decided we are going to hide our relationship from everyone. No one knew about us except our few close friends. They supported us and believed in our relationship.
It was decided that only after getting financially independent we are going to get our families involved.
Its been three years since I have been rejecting marriage proposals that my mother brings for me without even meeting the guy and he lets his family believe that he is just focused on his carried and has moved on from me.
This coming new year we are going to gift our families the news of our relationships, now we are stronger and more confident to tell our parents as we are independent.
We proved that color and looks are secondary in a marriage what actually matters is the choice to be together come what may.
I thought to write this to encourage people like me to keep hopes and not conclude yourself with other people’s perceptions. There will be someone who is willing to take that huge step for you which no one ever did and so never forget to believe in the process.
