Editor’s Note: FII’s #MoodOfTheMonth for February, 2022 is Redefining Love. We invite submissions on the many layers of love, throughout the month. If you’d like to contribute, kindly email your articles to sukanya@feminisminindia.com
How late is too late? How early am I to begin with this? I gave up on love. I believed in it, I truly did. But how is it to fail in something before even endeavoring it? A straight downfall from the cliff you’ve never even seen the view from.
23 and never been in love? I swear I tried. In fact, I was the most excited about it. I was like Ali from Dhoom, just waiting for that one sign to simp. to keep simping. I don’t think I am unworthy of love, I am just done looking for it. Slow sorcery or lighting thunderstorm, nothing has stridden me.
We often hear about the crusades of love but nobody tells you about the absence of it. What does it mean to see a potential connection in everyone that you find attractive just to realise it’s nothing but your coping mechanism to feel something?
The only thing I’ve achieved in all these years is creating scenarios of an erroneous person that doesn’t even exist. I don’t think tenderness is an idea of the past. Modern-day love isn’t the reel created for 30 seconds portraying the perfect love life. It is neither decided upon by the Instagram baddies who position self-love for brand promotions. It is not an Imtiaz Ali film where there’s a tussle for the woman to make a perfect balance between her manchild and career.
We often hear about the crusades of love but nobody tells you about the absence of it. What does it mean to see a potential connection in everyone that you find attractive just to realise it’s nothing but your coping mechanism to feel something?
Also read: How Do We Learn To Love?: On Social Expectations And The Experience Of Love
I am sure life doesn’t get easy but if the difficult becomes bearable, and isn’t that enough? The absence of romantic love is exhausting, especially in a world that pedestalises it. But I now want to look at it differently. Can I at least get a new Sharukh Khan film if not love, this year?
“You have high expectations,” many people often tell me. No, I don’t. If asking for someone to be kind, accountable and expecting them to have a genuine interest in understanding the other person is too much, then aren’t we all settling for too less? I spend my weekends listening to Farida Khanum. You can’t foresee me in a fabricated relationship.
Love is not something that can be used to fill a specific demand. It may fill a void, but that is not all there is to the emption. You can be in love and still be lonely. All I am saying is that love is in the plain acceptance of existence. All our lives are governed by incidents we cannot always control, and it is minced in connected connotations.
Just to be wild and free with someone, to do the regular, boring mundane tasks then, is love. For that, one must be genuinely invested in not just their partner, but also curious about life.
How is it to wake up to the person you love rather than some old books laptop and charger to the other side of your bed? To make the first cup of coffee and actually have someone to talk to about your day with and someone, to just speak about dreams and goals, looking at you as if you are also a part of it; from roasting each other at every opportunity you get, to holding hands while stargazing; learning new things just to make them happy and to have them wrap their arms around, when you get anxious?
I am sure life doesn’t get easy but if the difficult becomes bearable, and isn’t that enough? The absence of romantic love is exhausting, especially in a world that pedestalises it. But I now want to look at it differently. Can I at least get a new Sharukh Khan film if not love, this year?
Also read: Single Woman In The City: Of Living Alone, Fear & Freedom
Featured Image Source: The New York Times
Wow. This really struck a chord. These are questions I have recently started pondering as well. Well-written.