“Seven years together. Phew! It’s been a long time, “I said to Pratiksha on our anniversary. And I hugged her tightly. It had indeed been a really long time together. Irrespective of the fact that we became extremely serious about each other four years ago, seven years signified the time that we’ve spent in each other’s company. Lately however, things were not looking good for us.
If a girl cries, it is obvious that she is hurt. What if a guy cries? Do we not say “stop crying like a girl”? It is as if a guy is not meant to be emotional. He’s not meant to be sensitive and certainly isn’t supposed to cry. How does a guy tell someone he’s hurt? If a guy tells his partner, how hurt he is because of something she said, the girl would become upset and the guy would feel guilty for feeling the way he did. Thus begins the endless cycles of apologies, where no matter who’s fault it is, no matter how hurt he is, no matter how angry he feels, in the end he’s the one who’s supposed to let his ego down and apologize to her. I am not generalizing this, this is how I was. This is what I always do because if I don’t, then I turn out to be the insensitive villain who just never accepts his “fault”. If I tried to take a stand by myself, then I end up being a selfish egoistic jerk.
Facing all this for so long, my solution for this now was lying. Hiding things from her that might supposedly hurt her and lead to an argument between us. I loved her too much to see her upset. This is when I realized why a person never shares each and everything with his significant half. It’s not because he has a bad intention in his heart or is doing something wrong, but the simple reason that he just wants to do what his heart says without hurting the other person’s feelings. What I did not understand was how guilt-ridden and hollow it was making me from the inside. I was keeping her happy, not touching on topics that might upset her, but I was suffocating myself by lying so much. I lied to her about going out with my friends, or she’d feel I’m not spending time with her. I lied to her about studying, when I was actually recording my music. I lied to her about spending time at home, just to get some space for myself.
I never doubted that she loved me the most in this world. So much so, that for her I was her world. She and her happiness were a priority for me, but she wasn’t my world alone. I had friends, I had family, and I had to make a career of mine. Being as how I was, I had distributed my time among all the aspects of my life. She never directly asked me to stop doing something and be with her, but she used to get upset to such an extent that she’d say almost anything to hurt me, which in her thought, was to make me realize that I wasn’t prioritizing her. If I spent four days with her consecutively, seeing her every day, she’d be upset on the 5th day. That’s how important she had made me in her life. I had cancelled my plans so many times, been with her when she needed me but somehow neither of them were enough. I don’t understand love now. What is love? Is spending time with each other the only parameter for the existence of love? If that is the definition, then perhaps I didn’t love her enough. I wanted my own space at times. Peace of mind. To just sit there and not think about anything else. But I guess love makes the individual space vanish. She was comfortable with it. I however, was not at times. The worst part was that I couldn’t even tell her that due to the fear of her becoming upset about it. She’d again over think and reach the conclusion of crying or a break up.
Five years ago, I had asked her if we can become the best friends first and then continue our relationship later. She had cried and asked me what wrong had she done. As a result of me being me, I again cursed myself for hurting her. I would have done anything to prevent that one teardrop falling from her beautiful eyes, even if that meant to put myself into endless guilt. But now, after all these years, when I have grown so attached to her, so habitual of her, she just says, “Let us break up if it’s not working out.” Again, it hurts. It feels I cannot be myself in front of her anymore because that makes her feel that we do not belong together. It makes her forget everything that we’ve been through together since high school. I don’t want to break up with her. I can’t live without her.
And thus began the never-ending conflict inside me between the judgmental me, which said, “You’re the jerk here. She loves you so much. You are not going to find someone ever as good enough as her. It is entirely your fault,” and the logical me, which said, “Be yourself. If she doesn’t like that, maybe you’re not meant to be together. It is not your fault. Don’t be sorry for who you are.”
Either I’ll be in a conflict for my entire life or maybe one day, one of the sides would overpower the other. I just fear if it’s the latter, how guilty and regretful I might feel for not choosing the other side.
The Judgemental Me 