I Wasn't A Romantic

By Nandini Parmar

I was someone who never believed in the idea of love.

The word “love”, rather, “mutual love” pointing towards emotional and physical

attraction between two people irrespective of their genders was a myth until a

single person changed it for me.

WHAT I BELIEVED was having attraction towards someone was more sexual,

the idea of jealousy was ego and the wish for someone to like me was hopeless.

What is to be expected from someone who has hated themselves for a long time,

for almost forever? It takes time to heal and consider yourself worth everything,

to become confident, to feel that you belong here and to love yourself.

I believe that to like someone, to care for someone and to be there for someone

starts from yourself. I was someone who used to copy others for as to fit in the

society, it was an identity I made to be liked by everyone else, so that people

would talk to me. It took time, almost a decade to figure out that what all weird

things I liked were unique and it did not matter if others knew about them,

because they belonged to me, they started being a part of “only me”.

People like me always get trapped in the rat race of having things others have

and we force ourselves into believing that others are always a tier ahead of us

and we lay a lot low below in the world, as a part of mankind.

We often try to mirror ourselves to someone we idolize or we think are “cool”

or with people who have a lot of privileges but it took very long for me to

realize that “I” was someone else and that “I” can’t be the other person and that

“my” life was different. I started to feel confident in what I used to think, in my

own ideas about life- “my life”. A lot of help was from my brother when he

used to critisize me for what I was.

It was my first step of getting out as myself by changing my appearance, by

being all the weird I could be. I started spending more and more time doing

things I loved and almost stopped socializing. I changed a lot and after a while I

was confident enough to portray myself as “me”.

Loving someone else starts from self-love which is more than important in the

cycle of life than a job or anything else. It reduces the risk of depression or

anything negative.

I recognized that all the attractions I had before weren’t real and that now loving

someone from afar was enough. The feeling of seeing that one person even

when they don’t know you, even when you don’t talk to them was a sugar rush

at every instance.

It is the emotion when the second you see something reminds you of someone,

the moment you picturize yourself in a scene right in front of your eyes or the

desire to have a connection with that person.

Emotional wellbeing is more than important as well as is emotional love rather

than physical. A person can feel good just by having someone to talk to, can be

friends, family or anyone else with whom they feel safe around.

I started believing in one sided love as it wasn’t harmful, even when I can’t be

with the person but I can still love them or admire them as a friend or a

stranger.

Many people believe that confessing yourself out doesn’t leave you with regrets

but leaving someone when things go south and when you love that person is

way more dangerous and heart-breaking than not having that particular person.

I never thought that someone could like me romantically and that even when

they do confess, it’s not real. But for the first time I accepted it and started

loving that one person who means a lot to me now.

I have tried so many things since I started feeling confident that I took this as a

challenge against myself, the idea of romantic relationships wasn’t my forte and

now I am stuck with the afterthought of leaving that one person could do me so

much damage.

And yet I would like to confess that I still believe in one sided love as it is less

dangerous than mutual love and affection, but mutual love is far more beautiful

and memorable than one sided.

I have started enjoying everything for the present because nothing is permanent

and that in the future there are going to be instances where we all might feel

discouraged or disappointed in love.

By Nandini Parmar