Love Wagon - Don't Burn Yourself

What are kids eating these days? How are their thoughts so… well… read it for yourself… 

It was around 4 years ago when my teenage niece casually elucidated her understanding of “Love” in a way most fully grown adults fail to comprehend. 

It was this beautiful summer afternoon back in my hometown. My little niece, even younger nephew and I were sitting on a random staircase, talking about “life”. Over a streak of random factoids and anecdotes of their school life, they were catching me up with how their teenage life is poles apart from mine. 

Somewhere in the middle of these conversations, I asked her, “Do you have a boyfriend yet?” 

She was 14. Crushes happen. I had always been open about my love life with these kids and their mom, I was hoping she’d be just as comfortable. She was, only her stance on the whole paradigm of such relationships was different than I had expected. 

“Nope,” she giggled, “I’m not dating till I’m an adult, capable of making good decisions in life and being held accountable for my actions.” What?

Which teenager thinks so much? Apparently, my niece, y’all. 

Let me quickly give a formal introduction of my niece, let’s call her ‘Parul’. 

Parul is the prodigy child in the family. The oldest one in her generation on our side of the family. A straight ‘A’ student with an unbelievable co-curricular track record. She has awards ranging from academic excellence to dancing, anchoring and whatnot. Since a very young age, she has juggled her school with Karate, piano, dance, and art classes… my sister shows no mercy, evidently. 

With all of this, she has an intellect to die for, and the personality of a rainbow - a refreshing, serene charm that will never fail to put a smile on your face. A bibliophile with a wide range of interests, she can strike up a conversation with anyone at any time. Now, imagine meeting an extroverted bookworm. A social butterfly who never stops talking and knows more than you about literally everything. And when all else fails to entertain her, she cuddles with her two adorable dogs and plays with them to no end. 

That’s my Parul - a talking Google of sorts. 

Coming back to our conversation – I was visibly disgusted at her audacity to be more mature than me. I had to ask her, “Why… wouldn’t you date anyone? And what if you do start liking someone before your scheduled dating era?”

Sit tight, it starts now…

Here’s what she said, dumbed down for all of us adults –

“Mimi… (That’s what she calls me)

The past few generations have had an eternally flawed concept of love. We have learnt all about relationships from these best-selling novels and the romcoms and those dramatic Karan Johar movies. We have taken love to be this beautiful feeling that is supposed to give you butterflies, constantly. And that love isn’t “true” unless you feel this “spark” with a person. The arts that depict love, have taught us that no matter how many ups and downs you go through with your partner, if the love is true, you never give up and it all works out in the end. 

But that isn’t true. Love is flawed. Love is twisted. The literature on love is nothing but a marketing stunt to make us believe in something that is rarely found out in the wild. Our concept of love is only helping corporates sell more chocolates, teddy bears, roses and cards. Love is, in fact, a wild ride that might end up in flames, and yet, your concept of love wants it to last forever even when you’re burning. What’s the point?

I don’t want a love that’s entirely influenced by marketing propaganda. I need to have my own understanding of it, explore the world, understand people, human behaviour, relationship dynamics, and determined what I want out of a relationship and then maybe fall in love. I need to know myself and my own needs and boundaries before finding love and it’s worth the wait”

That. 

Has been spoken.

By a 14 year old.

Do you feel as stupid as I did at that moment?

I thought so.

Changed "Love" Forever

I was obviously dumbfounded by her explanation and had no follow-ups. We returned home after a while but I was still pondering on how this tiny human decrypted the most complicated human emotion, and if she was actually right. 

Turns out, she is right. 

At the time, I was in, what I can only describe as, one of the most emotionally wounding relationships of my life. Every day with this person felt like a dagger being stabbed into my chest and I couldn’t let out as much as a squeak. I was dealing with this internal war of letting go of this toxic, abusive “connection” or waiting for my partner to change and have the heroic ending to my perfect love story – like the movies. 

This one little conversation with Parul gave me much-needed clarity. I was ridiculously delusional, holding on to the hopes of a perfect love story with the version of my partner that would only ever exist in my imagination. Why was I still holding on to the steering wheel of this burning ride when he wasn’t even on the wagon? 

Soon after, we broke up and my life only changed for the better thereon.

The Basic Flaw

We, as humans, chase happiness and success but we often fail to account for the journey to achieving it. We often get tired, grow weaker, and go through trauma of all sorts, just to feel the pride of saying “It all worked out for the best” at the end of it. 

But, was it worth the suffering? The pain? The time and energy lost in the journey? 

Why are we torturing ourselves for one destination that isn’t even a guaranteed win? 

We tend to fall in love with the idea of staying in love forever. Obviously. But how often do two people in love actually end up lasting a lifetime? Statistically, it’s a very small number. Yet, in every single scenario of our dating life, we want to become a part of this negligible probability. 

We go through thick and thin for the person we love, maybe, they do as well. We put up with everything and compromise willingly. We change our minds, our beliefs, our goals, our priorities, and ignore all the soaring red flags because, we believe if we can change for them, they’d change for us, too. 

For the extremely lucky ones, this happens mutually. With couples of slightly stunted luck, they do whatever they can mutually, but if it doesn’t work out, they don’t end up a wreck. And for so many of us, we hold on to a hypothetical version of a person or the memories of what they were when you had in the “honeymoon phase”. It’s not worth the trouble. 

Do you relate?

Navigating Relationships

We’re at the precipice of a new age of relationships. It took me a while to familiarize myself with all the new dating terms – talking stage, dating, relationship, situationship, friends with benefits, benching, cuffing, breadcrumbing, cloaking, and whatnot. It was never as complex as it is now and I’m not into it. 

I honestly believe it’s about time we unlearn everything we made up “Love” to “Be”, and understand what it is in reality.

Love is complicated, no secret there. It is probably the only human emotion that makes you feel every emotion all at once for this one person. It’s filled with ups and downs, an unhinged emotional rollercoaster, it will probably drive you insane. But it’s never, ever worth degrading yourself for a story to tell. 

A few key factors that you’d want to focus on before you soar up high and fall right down:

• Priorities: You need to understand who you are and what defines you. “My boyfriend..” or “My girlfriend..” will never be your identity. They’re your partner, not your entire life. Know what you need to focus on, things that you will stand for no matter what and you’ll not change them for your partner. Ranking priorities might change with different stages of the relationship, but they should still hold a place on your list. 
  

• Boundaries: Just because someone lets you see their no-no parts, doesn’t mean you’ll lick the ground for them. Have boundaries and make sure you communicate them with your partner. Encourage them to do the same. Two things here – both of you would never shoot a shot just to know that it crossed some line that you never knew existed in the first place. And, both of you will always know where to put an end to things when your boundaries have been pushed too far. Dignity and beliefs have a special place in a person’s identity, let’s respect that. 

• Toxic Traits: You think you’re perfect yet every person who waltzs into your life is toxic? What are the odds! Introspect, smarty pants. You aren’t exactly a walk in the park either. Everyone has toxic traits. Take some time to understand your own flaws before you blame others for your issues. If possible, fix them on your own, or with your partner. If you have a lot coming, go for therapy. But don’t treat your partner like an emotional dumpster of factory waste and then blame them for not processing your toxicity well enough.

• Communication: Not the easiest skill to master, but an indispensable one nonetheless. Couples find it easy to discuss matters of happiness or anger, but there are several other emotions that come into play when two lives intertwine. Find the comfort to talk about your problems, issues, excitement, need for validation or attention, behavioural aspects, and everything else – respect them, too. If you don’t have that comfort with your partner, they’re 100% not the right one. 

• Love Language: If your partner and you have the same love language, skip this point. If not, be sure to understand and respect it, or it’ll be a mess. It is easy to confuse the difference between love languages as lack of love altogether. Someone with touch as their love language might not use enough words of affirmation for their partner with that love language, and vice versa. That doesn’t indicate an absence of love, but merely the fact that they express their feelings differently. 

• Definitions: You know there’s more to talk about than “soooo…..how was your dayyy”. Have a conversion with your partner about their perspective of aspects of your relationship. Things like, “What is cheating to you”, “What is something you never want to hear from me”, “How do you feel about long-distance relationship if the situation ever comes up”, and more, based on your specific relationship dynamics. Be clear of their understanding of these factors early on before they catch your casual flirtatious chats with a colleague and fire you from the designation of partner.

• Conflict Resolution: Sex doesn’t solve shit. Ignoring the problem doesn’t solve shit. “Calm Down” and “let it go” don’t solve shit. Solving shit, however, somehow, solves shit. In times of crisis or conflicts, sit down together and talk about it. Be respectful of your own and your partner’s way of handling conflicts. Some people prefer stepping away, calming their nerves and then talking. Others may want to pounce at it right in the moment. Whatever your way is, do it. Maybe, set a time when you both will come back and talk about the conflict, or something that works for you, and make sure you follow up. Don’t leave things at “We’ll talk about it later”, that never happens. Keep it in your pants and sort things out.

• Responsibilities: Please forget about the whole concept of “50-50 partners”. No. Have the flexibility to change your dynamic according to your day. You may be better at certain things than your partner, and vice-versa – take up the responsibilities accordingly. Your partner may’ve had a rough day, cut them some slack and take up more responsibilities than you usually do. “I don’t care if you’re tired, it’s your turn to take out the trash”... you’re the trash. Take yourself out. 

• Evolve: You can’t possibly think your relationship will remain the same throughout its course. With different phases of life, you’ll also witness changes in your relationship. Don’t take it to be the end of your “spark” with your partner. It is merely a maturing relationship… ages like fine wine. Be patient and kind to them through the changes in their life. It’ll be rewarding at the end.

• Letting Go: Sometimes, no matter how perfect things seem, it’s just not meant to be. You might have done everything in your control to make it work, and it still doesn’t. You’ll know this when you’re physically present with the person and you miss the memories of their past self. Or when you find yourself to be sadder or demotivated more often than not. That’s not what you deserve. The backlash of such dark feelings isn’t beneficial for your partner either. It may be the right person at the wrong time, or the wrong person at the right time, or the wrong person wrong time, or you’re the wrong person – a bunch of permutations and combinations, but none of them are healthy. If the wagon is burning, don’t hold on to it. It’ll cause nothing but irreparable damage for both of you. Let go when you should. 

These, of course, are the most basic efforts for a healthy relationship. There’s a lot more that needs to be done specific to your relationship dynamic to make it work. Don’t shy away from working on it, but be sure the efforts are mutual, unless, you’re comfortable with one of those GenZ dating paradigms. 

Love – even if it ends – is often worth it if you’re happy for the most part. Making memories, having fun, and sticking together through everything is all that this feeling entails. The only catch is respecting one’s own self. With the right mindset, equal efforts and common ground, you might build your love story with a happy ending, even if it ends a bit too soon. 

My Happy Ending

In some twisted way, Parul helped me understand my own psyche and define my own needs, and build a life that I respect. 

After my wrecking breakup, I focused on my career, upskilling, colouring my hair blue… you know, the basics. I found my self-confidence and corresponding self-love. My personality, choices, and beliefs, all changed quite a bit for the better. I was happier, I enjoyed my own company, and I could go to movies and clubs all by myself, just the right kind of independence. And with this new-found state of mind, I was able to break the pattern and fall in love with someone who never made me feel like I wasn’t enough. 

In his words, I’m a piece of work (agreed), but we’re working on it together. He’d probably never get me flowers or visit my favourite coffee shop with me. But he gets me food even before I know I’m hungry, wakes me up before my office meetings, and handles my zoomies even when his eyes are red and drooping... He supports me with everything I do and encourages me to reach my full potential. “We’ll do it together, babe,” a phrase that makes the biggest hurdles a cakewalk to me. This man is everything a woman can ever want, yet somehow he chose me. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m 70% convinced I might have schizophrenia and have made this human up in my mind. But that 30% possibility that he’s real makes it all worth it. 

My point is – when you find yourself, love will find you, too. Put yourself first for a minute. 

And for Parul, all I can say is, I’m very proud of you, princess. Thank you for fixing my life, lol. I owe you big time. I love you, kiddo.

(You never expected I’d turn you into a blog topic, right? Well, you underestimate me, content piece 26.)