THE WIND PHONE
To The Guy With A Soft No
An open letter on unrequited friendship
Because my heart speaks in poetry, and you appreciate it, this is where I begin:
Maybe I should cry
but I am too dehydrated for that.
What’s there to mourn?
All the lives I could have lived
but chose not to?
All the lives I almost lived,
but couldn’t
because someone gave up on me?
I am the Gestalt
of all of the choices I made
and could not.
Which of these choices is you?
I wonder…
I am mourning you. I am mourning the loss of our friendship. It was a safe and sacred space, and you were the first to say so. I wish we hadn’t met through a matrimonial website*. Meeting through that platform likely sullied our intentions and led us here.
Consenting to create a profile on a matrimonial website meant navigating a system that felt inherently contrived. It was a nightmare! It pressured me to evaluate people based on the pithy or polished about-me story they presented. I hated judging others as much as I hated others judging me based on a few well or poorly chosen words and filtered pictures.
I was pleasantly surprised when you couldn’t agree more! Ironically, we bonded over our mutual dislike for the pretentious platform that facilitated our introduction!
I remember how being introverts, we took our time warming up. I looked forward to getting to know you — the shy, sensitive, intelligent, kindred spirit on the other side of the phone — who often echoed my sentiments, offered book recommendations and introduced me to music I had not known to exist. Music as ambiguous as the night. Music as simple as the azure sky.
Through our interactions, our inner lives began to unravel. We were so self-conscious, jaded, tired and ashamed of our timidity and especially the pity our worried, ageing parents fed us, like the consolation of stale bread in the mouth of a lost puppy!
We deemed our parents delusional because they believed we were meant to find true love that walks hand in hand through the absolute best and the roaring hellfire. They believed we were something of a blessing, a hope come to fruition, and someday someone special will see how deserving we are! This felt so absurd, so inconceivable, that we shook our heads and said nothing.
When I confessed my father’s hurtful comments about my weight, as though my value lay solely in how I look, you nodded. When your mother pulled you aside and handed you a tube of fairness cream, you admitted, your cheeks had burned as bright as mine. You understand. We were still strangers, but in a way of speaking, you walked me home that night.
Of course, our parents mean well; we knew that. Broken people cannot help but love in a way that breaks the one they love. Back then, you were not sure of ever marrying, and yet you knew that someday you would raise a child like a flower. A dandelion should not grow up thinking there’s something wrong with it; it should not wish it were a rose instead!
This is when I began to picture you if I closed my eyes. In every version, you were gentle and honest and wise; I never needed more.
I did not know what you really thought of me until I wanted to meet in person, and you didn’t. We lived far apart, and you used that as an excuse to delay the next stage, the one where we decide to go forward or our separate ways. So, I made the choice, and I told you I would not return your message and call because not wanting to explore further was a soft no, and I got that.
I was upset with you for wasting my time and raising my hopes only to dash them. I thought about what it would mean to stay friends. If we stayed friends, wouldn’t it be awkward or confusing for the people we date henceforth? Wouldn’t it hold us back from exploring romantic intimacy with others if we emotionally held on to each other?
For me, people on the website were shrinking into profiles: impersonal data to sift through. Getting to know someone was starting to feel like trying on a mattress for a month on a try-it-before-you-buy-it scheme. I was sick of this cyclic trial-and-return sequence. I had no energy left to carry on with half-hearted attempts.
We did not speak for months. And then, you surprised me when you unexpectedly reached out. You wanted to stay friends, forever. You would meet me, if that is what I needed, to stay friends. You would also hazard exploring further, though staying friends is what mattered most to you. I told you the timing is off. I told you about the person I had just started dating. You, too, agreed to date others.
We resumed our friendship and did not get to meet in person. Our bond morphed into a safe holding space that saw us through the discomfort and confusion of getting familiar with strangers.
You went steady and married first. I wasn’t so lucky. You confided that your fiance worried about our bonding and how much our friendship meant to you. You confessed you would want all of us to be friends: you, your spouse, me and my future spouse. You feared this may not happen. And I, the hopeless romantic, reassured you, why not? Why wouldn’t our future partners be okay with being mutual friends? You can always reach out, I asserted.
And yet, when you drifted away, I let you. I did not have the energy to enquire or protest. I was too consumed by the grief and struggle of being left or having to walk away from people who were either not right for me or were unwilling to be there for me.
Finding my happy beginning took time, but now I share my life with a partner who is perfect for me and complements me in ways entirely different from you. He’s here, always, plain as daylight; I never ever have to wonder. No smoke screens. No pretences. Generous, emotionally intelligent, honest and robust. He’s an uncommon and delightful pairing of virtues I had not seen before, like the Tibetan salted butter tea that challenges the stereotype of tea, which is either sweet and milky or dark and bitter.
My husband truly is the companion I could not even dream of because I had never known love to be so unselfish, available and forgiving.
As immigrants, my husband and I live in a rented home that offers cold comforts, a far cry from the intimacy of the small towns we grew up in. Still, we carry memories of those vanishing hearths, narrow streets and dwindling farmer’s markets, reminiscent of a neighbourhood without strangers. Like pilgrims bring wilting flowers plucked from the feet of the Goddess on long journeys to serve as talismans against a foreign landscape, we carry nostalgia into this alien city’s neon glare. These crumbling memories anchor us. Each fading memory is proof of our anchoring into an unfamiliar soil.
Displaced, how do we live? Our hearts go hungry, and we thirst for a familiarity we cannot have. We hallucinate about laughing with people who speak our tongue and eat our food. We long to belong like a fish in a pond, but we cannot. Every single night, we return empty-handed from chasing rainbows in a city that never sleeps. We dream in memories.
In our thirties, when the consequences of modern living—spikes in mortgage rates, unregulated rental hikes, severe taxation, and staggering workload — are breaking our back, when we are mourning the ambiguous loss of parents with shrinking bodies and dissolving minds, we crave the company of kindred souls; especially those who feel like home.
This is why I texted you and reminded you of that innocent wish about us being friends: you and your spouse with me and my spouse. I put the offer back on the table, and you offered a smile before looking away. I guess we are back to wanting different things.
Maybe the version of you that wanted to stay friends no longer exists, or maybe the version of me you had hoped to stay friends with is lost. Maybe all you need is time alone, a chance to reconnect with yourself. Maybe your heart and schedule are so full there is no room left.
Maybe I know nothing.
I am sad, and I am happy for you. I am sorry for being selfish and negligent. You have changed your mind, and that’s okay. I can trust your reasons without knowing them because I trust you.
Maybe I will close my eyes once more and remember you as the gentle and honest and wise boy who, for a time, walked alongside me. And then, gently stepped away with a soft no.
*Matrimonial web service in India is a way of vetting matched profiles for a brief courtship with the intention of getting hitched. People prefer to match on familial background and cultural values, or preferred lifestyle and life goals. Families are involved. It’s like going on a date shadowed by family who have a say in the decisions made.
Thank you for reading!
© 14th January 2024. All Rights Reserved. Anushree Bose
