It burns!
It burns every time you login and see that update about a girl being “In A Relationship”. When that girl is the girl you have a crush on, you have followed ardently for three years and have liked virtually every photo you could lay your hands on. When that girl was the girl with whom you’ve imagined a thousand happy outings, a thousand funny conversations, a thousand moments of physical intimacy. When you’ve believed at one point, or more than one point, that you may actually be able to, somehow or the other, be able to express your love for her.
But you’ve never spoken to her.
No, never spoken a single word, for she was never there in your realm, in your mundane world, in your rigmarole existence. No, she was not a figment of your imagination. She was real, is real, will be real till she dies. Dies a very human death, the death of a human being. For she is a human being, far far away. Beyond the limits of human contact, physical or verbal. Beyond the limits of your love, where that love is the love of mutual trust and care, of mutual understanding, of expression. Yes, the love that is expressed between individuals, accepted and fostered, rejected and withered, but never kept within oneself. The love that we celebrate.
No, that is not the love I speak of, not the love I had for her. Was it the quality of love? No, the love was normal, the very human love made up of emotions and hormones. Yet it was a different type, different in that it was not meant to be expressed, although I often came very close to expressing it. Yet I fell back, realizing that to express the love would be to lose it, to transform her into someone I may not relate with at all.
Let me explain.
Back in 2013, when I was heading into the first year of my MA first year exams, I realized that I had a lot of spare time. Making adequate use of such time demanded that I use a special account (the history of which shall be told elsewhere) to find people who I wouldn’t normally deal with. In other, and more prosaic, words, I sought to add girls from “phoren” countries in the hope that my hormones would be satisfied with some extensive window-shopping. So it happened that I ended up adding a lot of people from a certain district of a certain country by means of Facebook’s helpful comments (that history too can wait).
At some point during my search for females, I added her. She wasn’t one of the initial attractions, for she seemed to be least interested in putting up suggestive poses and clicking beach selfies (ah those beach selfies!) But I did add her, and paid no more mind to it.
Gradually however, she began to have an impact on my hormones. Hormones that weren’t directly related to woman parts, but rather, the heart. Yes, I began to fall in love with her, and not her body or her ability to shake the booty. This was something I had never intended, for the basic premise of staying on and continuing to add people was that I maintain a somewhat shadowy identity. Maintaining one demanded that I limit conversation to a level where I cannot be clearly determined to be anything. Why? Because we Indians have developed such cheesy tastes that any girl thinks twice (and Indian girls think thrice) before adding an unknown Indian guy to her friend list. Yes, we are the proud claimants of the title of the “Most Creepy Men on Earth”. Cheers to us!
Anyhow, I also realized that if I did initiate conversation, it could well turn out that the girl whom I was falling in love with was someone who was fundamentally incompatible. Forget the logistics of loving a girl living in Europe, forget the logic of fearing incompatibility with a person I’ve not even talked with, forget every damn bit of logic ever. I was scared of losing the girl I had in my mind, and also, more pragmatically, access to the pictures that allowed me to conjure up that image. I was scared.
So it happened that even when I stopped adding girls, stopped checking out other girls’ selfies and even stopped bothering about the 100 odd “Friends” I had on the account, I couldn’t forget her. I logged in to check out her selfies, her images, her life. Not a word was understood of the statuses she posted, or the comments she made, or the life she lived. Yet, I was privy to virtually all the conversation and media that she cared to put up on Facebook. I was a deaf man staring at her across the street.
In real life, she’d have reported me to the Reichpolizei. On facebook, she probably appreciated the extra “Like” I provided.
Yet for me she was so much more than an image. She was a living creature, a creature who was lovable, adorable and made for me. Just me. She had virtually all the qualities I sought in a girl, and on top, she was beautiful. She was as beautiful as the models on Flipkart or Myntra (which, on second thought, wasn’t exactly off point since a majority of firangi models working for Indian brands come from Eastern Europe). She was caring, compassionate, able to understand my feelings, able to predict what I felt. And oh, I loved her so, cared for her so, attended to her every need.
Yes, we’d meet at the airport someday (I’d pay the airfare somehow), and then I shall bring her home. Then she shall become a part of my life. My real life, my mundane life. She shall become my wife. (Reading it out after typing gives me the distinct feeling of scripting an AIB show).
Anyhow, this one-sided, never-expressed love went on growing till, inevitably she fell in love(I use the word with purpose given that the girls you fall in love with inevitably end up in relationships. This is in no way a comment on the general state or proclivities of womankind). I assume she fell in love and did not manipulate someone for her own needs through the show of love. For how could she, she who was in my heart, be so wicked? So she was in love with someone. Someone Romanian with big muscles and a look that suggested that she was his personal fief. I was heartbroken.
I began hoping that she would have a breakup. And my hopes were finally granted.
One fine day I logged in and her “in a relationship” was not visible. My heart skipped a beat. Hitting “About” on her profile got me the good news. She was indeed Single. Aye, she was there again, for me! My love took off again.
Time flies. It has been two years since the events described above. It would be months between my logins (time enough for any real girlfriend to give up on me) but she would always be there. In orchards, in front of cars, in fields, in classrooms, in parking lots, in snow covered rinks, in various places of the town she calls home. Yet she would always be in my heart, my imagination coming up with endless scenarios and in time, as our love “matured”, positions.
Sometimes I thought I would talk to her as some guy from Europe. Sometimes I thought I’d talk to her from my personal account, as myself. Sometimes I thought I’d obtain her email and mail her my feelings. I felt that if she did respond, I’d at least have a tale to tell my grandchildren. If she did not and blocked me, I’d still go out with guns blazing. Actually, and prudently, I did nothing.
So two years have passed. It had been a while since I had last logged in. Someone, for some evil reason, had posted a picture of Shruti Haasan on my wall. Going against the run of general male behaviour, I promptly logged out and logged into “her” account.
The first picture was of her. It was hazy, clicked probably at night using a selfie camera. Yet it showed those large eyes, that auburn hair, that beautiful smile, those perfect cheeks, those….okay okay I get it, I’m not writing a porn novella here. Anyhow, it almost sent me on an emotional ride again.
I scrolled down, hoping for another image. But my luck had run out. Below was that damned relationship status message, posted just hours after that selfie.
My mind went into overdrive. I remembered how she had broken up the first time. How long had it taken? I tried consoling myself that the same would happen again, probably even faster (damn I’m evil, I’m repugnantly evil). But somewhere inside I knew that this time, I probably wouldn’t be able to hold on, to wait for her.
And so as I grieve for my love and try keyboard torture as emotional therapy, I find myself churning out these creepy lines. Perhaps this is just as well, for a record may well be all that I have left of her once she, or her new boyfriend, decides to prune her friend list of unknown male elements.
But let it be known to those who read my blog that I have loved one that I have never spoken to, never touched, never understood in real life. Let it be known that such love, howsoever creepy, was true. Let it be known that it was celebrated by one when it grew, and grieved for by one when it died. Let it be known that I too, suffered from unrequited love.
But you are not satisfied ? You wish for spicy details, of how I spent summer nights rolling about with pillows on sweaty bedsheets and her image in my mind ? No ? Oh, so you just want her details?
Wait, for I shall raise a toast to her!
I raise this toast to Vasilica, to Suceava, to Romania! I hope you fare well, with whoever you are, in snow and in dust, in Communism and in market economy, in Russian control and in NATO’s arms. I hope someday, Vasi, you find this post. I hope you realize my love, and it freaks you out. I hope it causes you to unfriend me, to block me.
For I have known ethereal love, for I have loved Ether, and if I cannot have you, in Ether shall my love for you, disappear.
Take care, Vasi!
(And so ends the creepiest post that I shall have ever written.)