Of Lonesome Souls and Wonderwalls
I could be counted amongst those who fall in love too easy. A little attention, a few nice words, a laugh or two at my “jokes”, and there it is. Nabila’s in love again.
And I don’t fall in love, I DIVE, in love. I go all in. Even if I’ve known you for like, 2 weeks? Yeah. You’re still probably the best thing that has ever happened to me. Needless to say I live, breathe, sleep, consume, absorb, exude you. You make me thankful for every mistake I’ve ever made, everyone along the way who’s hurt me, or who I’ve hurt, and every pitfall in my way that has brought me you, you beautiful, beautiful soul.
You.
You are what dreams are made of.
Yep, that’s my jam.
Every.time. I’m in a relationship.
Every. single. time.
As silly as it may be, there sort of IS a reason why I’m like this.
I grew up with major self-hate, mostly centring around my looks, and my inability to be “normal” around strangers. You would not find me in ANY picture during the first three years of my undergrad, because there aren’t any. I simply, did not take pictures. Why? Because, seeing my face reminded me of how unattractive I was. My relationships with strangers were really simple — there weren’t any. I put Chandler from Friends to SHAME when it came to social awkwardness. I would FREEZE in front of strangers, literally. The rare moments when I WOULD talk, presumably because I was required to, or someone had specifically addressed me or asked me a question, I would be all too jittery, all too shrill, speaking words short of any substance or value.
Moreover, I didn’t have any “talents”. I was forced to learn to sing in my childhood, but never practiced on the off-chance that someone might hear me. As such, even with around 5 years of singing lessons, I could’t sing. My voice lacked training, plain and simple, and my vocal conquests were confined to a locked room and a mobile phone recorder. I never read books, and hence my writing lacked maturity and polish. I had two left feet, I didn’t paint, or, act. I was just about “okay” in my academics.
Overall, I was just, a person with a very low image of herself.
As such, yes. I did go berserk when given the slightest bit of attention. The list of crushes I’ve had runs for miles and miles of pages, and I’m not even exaggerating. Regardless, these were sort of distractions to keep my mind away from the “real” deal. You know, really, truly being interested in someone enough to want to pursue a relationship with them. Because me being interested would always end in rejection, obviously. Why even risk that?
So if a guy were to be interested in ME, without any pestering or hinting or provocation on my part, how would I be able to say no?
Because, come on.
This person, LIKES me.
ME.
Can you believe it?
I can’t.
So yes. The first time in my life when a guy himself liked me and actually wanted to be with me, I fell head over heels. In a month. With little information about how compatible we actually were. And, we were not. We so were not.
The second time that that happened, I was still with the first guy. And yet, I went a bit berserk. Because here was a guy who was giving me that feeling of being wanted that I had received from my boyfriend in the early days of our relationship that I didn’t receive anymore. Inevitably, that lovesick puppy who needs that feeling of being cared for because she never cared for herself growing up, or thought of herself being good enough, and needed someone else to boost her self-esteem rose up to the surface, and out went my almost two-and-a-half-year relationship.
I took about two weeks to start dating the second guy. But it was not to last, considering the guilt and the idea of always being connected to the first guy. The story of how we met would always in reality be, “Yeah, I was with this other guy, and I was not happy, and this guy came in and sort of got me all confused and the rest is history.” I did not want that. I was not at peace knowing that the guy I was with would forever remind me of the previous guy and what I did to him. That level of entanglement was not something I was comfortable with. Which is why, despite him being a nice guy, and me once again jumping in and becoming all romantic all too quick and all too fast, he had to go. I realize how selfish that was, and how unfair and brutal, but it had to be. It was a necessary step towards truly moving on, and he deserved a better love than I could give him anyways.
This time I was determined to not be impulsive. I had decided I would add each and everyone I had ever found interesting in my Facebook Friend List, and not start hyperventilating every time one of them reacted to any of my posts. Who knows, maybe I could even sow those wild oats I had not sown in my college years, being either completely single or immersed in a relationship. Maybe I was expecting a bit much. Yes, I had more confidence now on account of the two-year long companionship of someone who liked me when I was still a scrawny little pest with zero self esteem. Yes, I felt a lot better about my looks on account of the added self-belief and the ego-boost from all the male attention I had recently been getting from more than one avenue. I was also more comfortable with strangers and wayyyy less of a mess with conversations than I used to be. Nonetheless, I was still just an average-looking human being with moderate communication skills. It would make more sense for me to be realistic in terms of my “oat-sowing” fantasies.
Whether or not anything was to happen, with anyone, I was sure to not go all “Me” this time. I would not be impulsive and go bat-shit romantic over someone I barely knew. That, would NOT happen.
No surprises for guessing, it did.
Around 10 days into deciding I was going to date around and have my fun, I was, in love, again.
And I have been in a relationship with this person, for almost one-and-a-half years.
Considering the premise of this story being that I am a hopeless romantic that jumps at the opportunity of real love and gets extremely preoccupied with relationships, I realize how sarcastic, or naive, or hilarious it would sound if I were to say, that he’s the best thing that has ever happened to me.
Regardless, I have to say that, that is true.
He IS the best thing that has ever happened to me.
I live, breathe, sleep, consume, absorb, exude him.
He makes me thankful for every mistake I’ve ever made, everyone along the way who’s hurt me, or who I’ve hurt, and every pitfall in my way that has brought me him.
He IS what dreams are made of.
I know I know I know. Mark of a hopeless romantic. But when I say that this is different, I have a point.
I met this person that I’m currently in love with in a room full of 10–12 people. I was instantly attracted to him on account of his very somber voice and amazing vocabulary. He was also the kind of good-looking I liked — bearded and cute, with a beautiful smile. I stalked him on Facebook, but did not add him, until that day when I decided I would add each and every person who had ever struck my fancy.
I put up a long Facebook post about the ongoing difficulty in my life — the passing of my aunt in Nepal, where I was vacationing with my family. I made it as interesting as I could, in hopes that he would at least read it and have some thought about me, be it fleeting. As luck would have it, he knocked me on Messenger, and we ended up having a long conversation about HIS life, at the end of which we ended up exchanging numbers in a very flirty, banter-y manner.
He worked night shifts at an office that I had recently left. It was there that I had first laid eyes upon him in a meeting. The day we exchanged numbers, I got back to my country, very late at night, and knocked him to let him know I’d arrived.
An intense conversation about various concepts such as mortality, followed by gender roles, societal expectations, rape, marriage and his own personal life ensued.
There was one point at night when he asked me when I’d go to bed.
Me: When I feel sufficiently sleepy. I can be all creepy and keep interrogating you about your personal life, until that moment.
Him: That moment. That dreaded moment.
Me: Hahaha. Why? To quote Elvis, “Are you lonesome tonight?”
This, I have to say, was a test of sorts. I was an avid fan of ancient music, and would often throw song titles at people in conversation to see if they understood the reference.
He replied with a simple, “I was listening to it a few hours ago in the office.”
This was the one moment that introduced me to the depth of the connection that we could have. While the conversation was going well anyways, and we were surprisingly similar in terms of the way we saw the world, that we shared a love for music did widen the already existing soft corner. That he referenced Oasis’s Wonderwall later that night in a bid to protect himself from being too vulnerable and convey how he didn’t want me to be the one that saves his soul, although heartbreaking, was another impressive feat.
Regardless, what had to be, had to be. We thought about the natural process of life and how entropy rises, and things fall apart. While we worried, we could not, not jump in. In each other, we found that place of belonging that had been missing from both of our lives, in all of our relationships. We were simply in-sync. We just understood. Just fit.
Our first fight was about my unwillingness to let him take care of me. I would not let him carry things for me, to be specific, and it made him feel unwanted. I simply explained how I was also always the one who was accustomed to being the protector when it came to people close to me. I would think of my discomfort as no discomfort at all, something I could easily handle, while others could not, and as such, I had to be the one to shield them from their pain. He didn’t require much explaining after that.
I’m not a big believer in fate. I think of life as a big ball of coincidences where nothing means anything unless we make something out of it. I found this person who is as close to a perfect match for me as it gets just because of that one moment last year when I decided I was going off of relationships for a while and trying my best to enjoy whatever youth I had left.
But the mere fact that I found someone who I resonate so much with, who is basically “Me” in many, many departments, thereby making it easy for us to relate to each other and empathize during our not-so-rational moments, does make me wonder what the odds of that happening could be.
I don’t know if this relationship makes it to the end. If we die in each others’ arms, Notebook-style. Or leave a legacy through children. Or at least, get married. Even if we don’t, it is safe to say, I hope to, and want to, and would be saddened if those things don’t happen. That is a Vienna this hopeless romantic hopes for, and as far as love letters go, she hopes to write one better than this, someday into the distant future.
