This is How We Say Goodbye

Hi!

Hey, welcome back! How have you been?

Good, good. What about you?

I’ve been good too. What’s going on?

Nothing much. Remember when I texted you from ____ that I had something to tell you?

Yeah . . . .

Well, the thing is, I’m getting married. To a girl!

Umm, congratulations?

* * *

It didn’t upset me that you were marrying someone else, cause I got over you a long time ago.

It didn’t upset me that you didn’t reply to my questions when I asked you if you were dating somebody.

It didn’t upset me that you didn’t tell me about such a big decision about your life that you made twelve months ago and yet only told me nine days before the fact because you wanted to tell me in person so that you could – what you imagined – see the pain on my face and were reasonably upset when there wasn’t any.

I found the fact that you expected me to attend your sham wedding quite hilarious.

And don’t worry “buddy,” you didn’t change me a bit. Just because I let you in and got burned doesn’t mean that my next experience will be be affected by it.

I’m not afraid to be real, anymore.

You are.

You’ve come a long way, baby!

It has been bought to my notice that lately, this blog has been focussing a lot on Winter. I hadn’t really noticed. Although, to be fair, I don’t notice many things. Once, when I was a kid, I didn’t notice that an actual monkey was biting my hand. I only realized that when all the other kids started running away from me. Hey, don’t blame me. It was my birthday, and all I could think about was cake.

As it was obvious from my last post, Winter isn’t a huge part of my life anymore. Not that he was for a long time. But I could only write about it once I was over it. I did spend a few months sequestered from the rest of the world trying to get over him last year (how is that different from my usual sequestering? Well, firstly, I had a beard. No, not a fake girlfriend, an actual beard. I KNOW! Secondly, lots of baths were avoided! HEY, I WAS AN EMOTIONAL WRECK, I WAS ALLOWED TO SMELL LIKE A HOBO. And, thirdly, needless to say, there was lots of food involved. Lots and lots of it. Hey, wait a minute, you’re right. That is no different from my usual sequestering. Sigh.).

However, I’m still glad it happened. For one, my unrequited feelings were wasted on a gay guy! So, PROGRESS! I also learnt what all not to do when you’re trying to date someone. Previously, before I came out, whenever I had a crush on someone, I used to get really douchey around them. Like belittle their life choices, roll my eyes at their hilarious joke and generally make them feel small and unwanted. Granted, I still do that to everybody, but this was with an extra zing. Like putting chilli flakes on your jalapeno dip, if you know what I mean.

Thanks to Winter, I am not a total nervous wreck around new, potential mates [Tip #1: DON’T CALL THEM THAT TO THEIR FACE. SEE, I’M LEARNING!]. Not that there have been many opportunities. As if being fat wasn’t enough of an albatross around my neck, I am also jobless and have cheeto breath. Strangely, that is not what a lot of people are looking for! Even freaks avoid me!

Winter probably deserves some of the credit in my finally leaping out of the closet. When I realized what I felt for him, shit got real. It feels strange to think and talk about now, but it was the first time I actually felt like I was gay. The way I could relate to Winter, I could never ever have that with a woman. Or a straight guy.

I know these things come easy to some people, but when I think back to a time when I was terrified of expressing how I felt about a guy, even to myself and then I remember how nonchalantly I referred to Winter as “babe” in public, I realize how far I’ve come.

I once gave a gay friend a really hard time when he told me that love was not all about sex. I chided him for his naiveté, because I really was that cynical. And then, this whole Winter thing hit me and I realized that it really was not about the sex. I had never been able to connect with someone like I was able to connect with him.

I always used to scoff at all those stupid people in love with their puppy dog eyes and their doing things for each other that they wouldn’t do for anyone else and thinking that every song is about them but ZOMG! I was one of those stupid people with puppy dog eyes walking around assuming that every song was about me and doing things for Winter which I could never imagine doing for another human being!

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I was ….er……umm…cough….ahem…cough.... wrong.

 

 

 

Just don’t tell anybody I said that!

It's different!

The other day, I was reading an article written by a famous right-wing journalist who is famous for being a right-wing journalist, in which he said that he is okay with "tolerating" gay people but he thinks that it was wrong of the high court to equate hetereosexual and homosexual relationships.

Now, at that point of time, I obviously disagreed with him.

However, yesterday after reading this post here and this article here, I sort of had an #epiphany. (Sorry about the "#", I've been really using twitter a little too much. I know, I'm addicted. #snapperfail. Sheesh.)

I seem to have changed my mind.

I think equating gay relationships and straight relationships is wrong. They are not the same.

Why do I say that?

Well, the answer dawned on me after huge amounts of generalising, stereotyping, pseudo-scientific analysing, hypotheticalising (I know that's not even a word. But let's just pretend that it is. There is a word for arbitrarily pretending something is true for the sake of argument. I just can't think of it right now.) and assuming my ass off.

Now, we know that most men in our country are bought up with a huge dose of entitlement. Since the day they are born, they are taught that they always get first dibs on everything because they can pee standing up. Now the mothers spend the rest of their lives blaming other people for her son's mistakes, while the fathers spend the rest of their life blaming the mother for the extreme love and affection that they showered their son with. Yes, if there was an Olympic competition for cognitive dissonance, then most Indian parents would qualify for the gold medal.

Alternatively, Indian girls are made to realize that everyone frowns around them because daddy wanted a little boy and mommy wanted a little boy and granny also wanted a little boy. And no one really cares what grandpa wants because grandpa is 80 and delusional and sharts all the time.

So after such a  warm welcome, while the girls are growing up  it is drilled into their heads that they really are second class citizens and were sent to this earth to cook, clean and put out whenever their husband wants to fall asleep on top of them.

And then when both of them grow up, then they are paired with each other and spend the rest of their lives resenting each other and each other's parents. And when things get really bad, they have kids. Because that's the solution to every problem in a marriage.

Now, this is where gay relationships are a little different.

Usually when gay people set out to find the person they want to have a relationship with, they aren't actually looking to fulfil the position of "house_maid" or "income_generator". They aren't looking for a "smart, fair, homely girl who can make three chappitis per minute" or a "thin, fair handsome man who makes income in excess of six figures and has been to different countries like New York and the USA".

Gay people usually seek out a relationship based on trust, love for each other, mutual respect and because both of them cry towards the end of When Harry met Sally.

So, yes, Mr Right-wing journalist, gay relationships are different from straight relationships.

Thank God for that. 

Collector's Edition: Last Ryan Post

So I haven't had any communication with Ryan for almost two months now. I didn't crumble under all that pressure. No email, text, or ping. Nothing.

He leaves today for his Uni. How do I know? Well, I read the conversation he had with one of his friends in the social-networking-website. I know what your thinking, so no, I'm not stalking anyone. Well, not anymore anyway.

When I was reading the messages he had exchanged with his friend, I kind of felt strange. It was like reading a conversation between two strangers. Or someone from another life. And then somewhere in my mind I heard Christina Applegate go "This Guy???" [mandatory FRIENDS reference]. It seemed like I didn't even know him. It seemed as if I had created a version of him in my mind and I fell for that. I just don't know.

I thought when this day would come I would be heartbroken and sad. Surprisingly I am neither.
In fact, I am simply amazed at how calm and collected I am. Though I do have this trickle of emptiness somewhere in my heart.

Do I still love him? Well, not anymore I think. I still have some feelings for him buried somewhere in my heart but I don't think I love him anymore. I think subconsciously I've come to accept that him and me are never going to happen. Can we ever stop loving someone? I don't know.

However, it doesn't mean that what I felt for him wasn't true. It was. The pain, the emotional turmoil, it was all true. I lived it for more than three years.

I also believe that people enter our lives to teach us a lesson or to help us move along in our journey and that once we learn that lesson they exit our life. So for that I am thankful to Ryan. Because of the feelings I had for him are what ultimately led me to confront myself a few months ago, and be able to find the strength to be my true self. So his leaving the city is kind of symbolic too.

Am I crazy or am I just reading too many self-help books?? :P

The funny thing is he has no fucking idea!! To him I'm still the good friend turned casual acquittance.

Am I ready for my first gay relationship? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know.
All I know that whatever this is, I can now try to move on with my life. [look at me, I'm growing up!!] To the next exciting/mildly boring chapter. Or in the immortal words of Joey Tribiani It's time to pick up a spoon [I really to stop referencing lines from FRIENDS. It's like a disease or something].

So hopefully, as the title specifies, this is my last post about Ryan. And, for the sake of sanity, finally I can bring myself to say:

Goodbye Ryan, Have a nice life!! Thanks for the memories. We will always have that plate of Maggie Noodles.

The age old question .....

And we talk about love. Can we describe it? Dow we know what it means? This whole concept of love. What does it mean exactly. That you want to love someone, hold them close, talk to them, spend each moment of the day with them?

Isn't it mostly superficial? Kind of a facade? We see someone, sparks fly and then we start by saying we have feelings for them which turns into liking them and ultimately we say that we love them. On most occasions we don't act on it. We keep "loving" them but the other person has no idea. The other person has no means to know that each of their actions will be dissected, mulled over and make us arrive at a conclusion. Most of the time, it is left unsaid. We can't act on it for a million reasons. It can be that they may be with someone, or we may presume that they don't have these feelings or they are not right for you etc. etc. Then we start convincing ourselves to get "over" them. We say "Okay, this is not going to happen. That person will not return your love. So get over it. Stop loving them. They are not right for you".

So do we get over them? Does our feeling that were originally there just vanish. Just disappear? Or do we bottle our feelings and keep them in a little compartment in our head and try to find the next target of our unreturned love?

We make up excuses, proses to convince ourselves. We tell ourselves that true love is sacrifice. We tell ourselves that we should be happy for them as long as they are happy. We tell ourselves that if you truly love something, set it free, if it comes back to you it was meant for you if it doesn't then it wasn't meant for you anyway. Really? If it wasn't meant for me, why did I like it in the first go.

We tell ourselves that we are better off without them. We convince ourselves that we don't love them anymore. Then suddenly, out of the blue, they speak to us. Like a whisper in the ear. Then everything comes rushing back. All the emotions. All the feelings. Everything we had kept bottled up. And then we start again .... You're better of without them we tell ourselves, there are many other fish in the sea we remind ourselves. But we lose all that when they talk to us or we see them. Suddenly, they are all we can think about. They spoke to us. They thought about us. The whole dissection process begins again.

And then after a few moments have passed, .......... they are not right for you ........