Romance uh yaaru



My idea of romance and love has definitely shifted, and I hope it is for good. Having a honey-coated perception towards it seems to be an overkill. I don't think overindulging in this topic would amount to anything better anymore, as it keeps spiralling towards an endless loop, adding up to more confusions than conclusions. — % &I was always inclined to the idea of being in romantic love. Right from childhood, I have been watching it happen to other people, from my cousins, friends and even to my parents (wherein both of my parents have almost had a love cum arranged marriage setting) with rose-tinted glasses, and had been looking forward to involving myself with it one day. Though I was overwhelmed by the thought initially, I convinced myself that the ray of light will touch upon my crevices, though it might make me hopeless along the way, breaking me just a little more to make peace with the hopelessness. Nevertheless, I realised that my reality doesn't work that way and having a grasp of it seemed far-fetched. My feelings have been largely one-sided and I have been made to feel a void without having experienced anything close to that.— % &All this time, I was expecting it to come towards me, waiting for it to reach out to me, despite barriers. Every other joyful or validating interaction, or a lingering glance, I had with the opposite gender (the ones I felt I have always been drawn to, crushes/infatuations in lovesick terms) would make me feel that I am sharing something special with them, let butterflies fly into my stomach, build a cascading delusion castle inside my brain, unaware of it falling apart. In hindsight, I had been the only one leading myself on, I was expecting something romantic to happen out of it, while not realising the kind of rapport the person had towards me. This just kept on happening. I kept ringing the wrong bell. — % &I have never been approached by anyone romantically. No love letters. No proposals. Ever. And no, I don't want to complain anymore. Even the ones whom I thought were trying to hit on me seemed to be coming from mere playfulness and time-passing, rather than making a faithful investment to form a genuine feeling. I was just another girl they could have fun messing around, nothing special, nothing exclusive, and definitely I was not "the one".— % &Last year, I was experiencing loneliness, with all my academic and professional commitments causing extreme burnout and emotional drain. With all the workload, it was difficult to meet, interact and make plans with friends, the limited number of people I knew physically. That is when I thought to open up on this platform, which I hadn't even used as a means for socialising until last year. The sole purpose previously was just to keep up with my writing spree. All that changed soon. I started becoming an extrovert which I never knew I was even one in the first place, and I still don't think I am. I became more confident in expressing myself as I started interacting with people here, gradually forming genuine attachments too, which seemed surprising to me, given my history of being a wallflower. I did develop a crush on someone here. But I realised then again, I was falling into a convenient trap of delusion.— % &In retrospect, after breaking out of my delusion, and coming out of the problematic bubble I was stuck in, things started to hit. As I have been craving unfulfilled, failed romantic expectations since adolescence, with an absolute void mounting over without me getting to experience it, it started building up in my mind quite unnecessarily, leading to overthinking and unreasonable meltdowns with questions like "What am I doing wrong?" and "Why not me?". All this time, I had been feeling lost and defeated for no real reason.

— % &And then I somehow understood, I have been blind and totally unmindful of a lot of things happening around me. From my adolescence, I have heard stories from my friends that they have received proposals, and I have been comparing myself to them quite unnecessarily. And I will also have to put most of the blame towards Tamil Cinema, where they have idealized that men should be the ones making the first move, and women should be coy and playing hard to get, until the guy woos the girl furthermore, and voila, they're in love. There are especially many GVM movies namely 'Vaaranam Aayiram' and 'Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaaya' that totally ruined my mind, and created unrealistic expectations to wait for a guy to love me like a goddess and sweep me off my feet. I should have never ever watched these kinds of movies and let my brain rot with such shallow and petty concepts, as definitely the world around me doesn't work that way. I should have gotten introduced to 'Kamali from Nadukaaveri' earlier on, or better I should have just stopped watching romance oriented movies altogether. — % &Watching movies like '96' made me feel even worse. It made me yearn even more that "Why don't I have someone to love me like Ram?" Atleast the love which the protagonists share are two-sided and they get closure at the end of the movie. But me? I neither have first love, nor any kind of closure to have in relation to that. The feeling that started aching me was I would never be someone's first love ever. I would have had one-sided feelings to someone, but would they even reciprocate it? I hardly know the answer. After listening to my mom's love story, which was almost a carbon copy of 96, the differences being that Ram (Mom's ex-lover) got married, and my mom was actually Jaanu. (I didn't really believe it before, but her story made me think, "Ipdiyellama verithanama andha uncle onna love pannaru?, How come nobody told me that they were interested in me ever???" There have also been people who tried to console me saying, "Someone will definitely find you and you will have to be patient." Like seriously? What kind of false hope or misdirection could that lead to?— % &Okay now coming back to enlightened realisation and political correctness, I was just thinking so much and building up things in my mind, totally wasting time on day-dreaming rather than making efforts in person to approach a guy I like, on my own terms, invite him over for a conversation, and clarify things out. Honestly, I didn't have the courage as a teenager. Didn't have the courage to accept rejection if it was meant to happen, as I already somehow knew that the person had feelings for someone else, and I didn't even really make an effort to talk to him. Same happened during my college times as well. I was always falling for someone and it was only later that I got to know that they were into someone else, which did break me. What can I even expect with me not having made a regular conversation, not even once, with that person, or just have had one or two random small talks? In the real world, ofcourse I should have let go of my insecurities and should have confidently made an effort to strike conversations organically and not force myself or others to get involved. And even if I did get rejections, I should have let that grief sit with me, wholly processed it, and moved on.— % &Obviously these things didn't happen, with me being a completely reserved person. And coming to YQ, that also made me rethink that having feelings for someone I have met in person doesn't work out in the first place, then how come I can go and chance upon to have feelings for a person that I don't even know in real life? That's totally the one I was never ready to take it on further in this misleading world. Sure, I could have asked the person for his contact outside YQ, and could have been denied outright in my face. But I understood that if that's the case, I will be going forward with something that would be against my conscience, and would be a sign of losing my sense of self, maturity and level-headedness. I cannot totally go with my instincts here, as anything could happen, and I might get stuck in a problem before I knew it. I didn't have the courage again to sum it up.— % &Nonetheless, now, finally, I feel like I am thinking straight and I am going forward with a productive, healthy approach. I have decreased my screen time as much as I can. I have reached out to friends and people I know in person and spent progressive quality time with them physically. I am investing my time on more important things in relation to my career progression one step at a time, not overthinking about the things not under my control. Shifted my focus towards developing a more practical growth mindset. I have found ways to practice emotional intelligence as much as possible. Attempted enhancing professional and extra-curricular skill-sets and activities to make myself a more confident person with a go-getter attitude and not get carried away with frivolous pursuits. — % &I have made peace with myself in a more organic way to totally ditch my inferiority complex, and progress towards developing my self-esteem, and to not be a people-pleaser anymore. It's definitely a long road to go, and I do falter at times, but I am a work in progress. I will not rush for love anymore, I have realised that romance is merely a surface-level concept, which does seem fun, but that's not the only thing the world runs round for. If I am bound to find love, I am ready to embrace it with open-mindedness. If not, that's not what life is all about, and it's so much better that I know it. After all, maturity doesn't come with age, it comes with experience.


P. S. I might delete this post later owing to personal reasons.— % &

-

I see your name appear in the message prompt every time I intend to type

-

my hands reach out to the sea,
sand dunes draw me further in
waves skip a crest to finally fill me in, raindrops applaud the win

-

I
see
letting
myself
grow out of wary
inhibitions, both inside and out
kindness becomes my consistent confidante
it listens to me, grasping everything I tell, gentle yet tight
breaks the ice, melts the heart, never can I tell it apart anymore
it taps into my very being, a promise I made to myself runs into me, that it shall prevail

-

Wrapped around July's arms
"You've got this!" it whispers
into my resting ears, smilingly.

-

When I've been
writing consistently
with a streak








But one-liners
are all I could come up with
for now

-

I involuntarily smile when I'm talking to you.

-

Blue always looks ugly on me this day.

-

The day I die to Workaholism

-

Measure of time feels incomprehensible when I'm with you.

-