The Dark Side Of Love

I always wanted to write this. This is something I have been thinking about a lot for a long time. I hesitated till now because I’m totally confident that this will go right over the heads of half of the people me and my ex (whom I respect and on good terms with) have as mutuals. Also, I’m completely aware of the repercussions and the judgments of some condescending assholes who pretty much hate minding their own business, my college gifted me. Anyways, let’s get this rolling. It’s gonna be fun!

As you go about your day, you can notice that pretty much everything is pointing towards love. Everywhere. You see…

1. ‘Happily ever after’ couples doing challenges on reels
2. ‘Taken’ people showing how they are living their best life with their partner on Instagram stories
3. Your friends who are in a relationship right from their 9th grade
4. The dramatic lyrics about bringing the moon for the partner that feels like they are written just for you especially if you are a BTS army girl/boy
5. The increasing number of ads that compels you to start something epic
6. Quote pages blurting out random nonsense about love that’s made for teenage kids and shared by us, adults
7. Every girl who is a queen/little princess/sweety/cutie on Instagram are taken by the prince/kings/rowdies on each other’s bio as ‘mine’
8. Movies, web series, TV, and pretty much everything you see on a plastic screen where the hero is always in a relationship

It all started with this ^_^

You see all of it. Our culture has been increasingly putting more emphasis on love/romance. Maybe it’s because when we are high on hormones, we buy shits that we don’t want, to impress our partner. I don’t know. Below is an example of a brilliant way of marketing. Think about how well they connected the love and damn chocolate.

Awww. Seems she fell in love finally

These days, it’s like we should be in a relationship to feel normal and whole. Being single is getting more and more abnormal and weird. It makes us think that we are incomplete.

We all are stuck in a battle of choosing what we want and what we think we should want

If you have ever read anything about behavioral economics, the first thing you learn is that we can’t know the difference between repetition and truth. Now, I’m here for the defense of y’all single-ass freaks. Fasten your seatbelts and have a tissue or two, in case you start sobbing.

Not worth glorifying

It’s pretty much easy to get into a relationship no matter how you look, where you are in life, what kind of person you are. After a dozen of rejections, you will eventually find a person parallel to your maturity and toxic level that says “yes”. If you say, “hey hi. I’m XYZ. I find you cute. I wanna know more about you. Are you down for a coffee? Even if it’s a no, there is no problem”, no mentally functioning person would be like “how dare you”. Everyone is lonely and frustrated. Either it will be a yes or a no. Simple. It’s not some rocket science. So first of all, stop glorifying it and stop acting desperate. Because the more you glorify it, the more people in relationships start choking down your throat that they have achieved something. Don’t let them.

Truth bombs

1. Everyone is covering up their fucked-up-ness by showing others how they are happy and cool
2. You don’t get to see the silly fights and fireworks that happen between them every fucking week (spoiler alert — especially before the internals for most people)

Behind the scenes

3. You don’t get to see the way the girl gets ill-treated by ‘her guy’ in the name of love and care itself

4. You don’t get to see the way the guy gets ill-treated by ‘his girl’ in the name of mood swings

5. You can never see the way both of them are fickle as they feel that they should be with their friends when they are together and they should be together when they are with their friends

6. Every relationship is perfect for 3 months. Yes. All of the weird non-sense and unnecessary drama and emotional rollercoaster starts after the 3rd month. That’s when the manipulation becomes a hobby for both.

7. In a relationship, time doesn’t equal success. It doesn’t matter how long you have been in a relationship if it’s toxic. It comes down to a decision of whether to accept that you wasted all this time and move on or gonna waste the rest of your life.

8. People have romanticized the concept of love. They idealized it. Most people are in love with the idea of love rather than with the person they are with

He’s in love. Pure love

9. When you are in love, your mind just doesn’t shut the fuck up. It constantly simulates events. The could be’s and should be’s of everything.

10. It’s difficult to spend a moment in the present. Your mind(or heart as people say) constantly wants that person to be next to you, especially whenever you are happy.

On being single

I have seen people say that they should keep their future paths aligned with their partners. I have seen them sacrificing their important desires and goals in the name of love. My school friend changed his college just because of a girl who keeps reminding him of the relationship and he couldn’t move on (how dumb?)

I’m seeing people every day who feels that they should be with the female friends to appear cool and worthy in the name of besties, brothers, friends-forever, and whatnot. They do so because of their fear of missing out and feeling of inadequacy

But listen,

The most important relationship you have in your life is what you have with yourselves. I know you are feeling lonely. I know it’s hard to look at people doing weird shits on valentines that they think are cute. I know you are telling yourselves that you will finally be complete and happy after you find the love of your life. I have been there. Done that. Had sleepless nights. Just like you. (pass me a tissue please T_T)

Lonely and possibly drunk

Don’t wait to share your life with someone else and forget to live it altogether. There is nothing wrong with being single. You are not less of a worthy person for being single. You are not less of a hot girl. You are not less of a cool guy. It just means you haven’t prioritized getting into a relationship to make any efforts on it. Don’t be hard on yourselves and life gets 100x easier. If there is only one thing you are gonna take away from this article, let it be this — treat yourselves like a kid.

Being single brings you the level of freedom and free time you can only imagine. I see a lot of people get into relationships just because they think they should be in one. They are having the wrong problems. Ideally, they should start getting their shit together in life (which is a better problem) in their 20s instead of solving useless conflicts in a relationship that is eventually gonna die. They are just a bunch of people who never took the time to learn how to be alone and never learn to love themselves and so employ someone else to do it. If you are not happy single, you can never be happy in a relationship as you become a clingy motherfucker who sacrifices anything for that person who will eventually hate you for that. Take a lot of time to know who you are. If not, how can you offer yourselves to someone else?

If you are lonely when you’re alone, you are in bad company
~ Jean-Paul Sartre

If you can only love yourself by 20% and that means someone else can come along and love you 30% and you’d be like wow! If you love yourself 100%, a person that falls in love with you has to go beyond limits to make you feel special — which every single one of us deserves.

Dan Sloss says that “people are terrified of being alone so they force themselves to love someone else by accepting something over nothing”.

The dawn is coming

On relationships

Aye. I caught you with your thought that I’m against relationships. I’m not. I’m against bad relationships. Now, before you call your partner and talk about the breakup, hear me out.

Relationships should be easy. It should be fun. If you are constantly under conflict and you change yourselves for someone else, you will eventually hate yourself. I have a rule of thumb. When your relationship is not working, it’s obvious to everyone except you both. Your friends just know it because you basically stop giving a fuck about them and they would say it to you if you are not a dickface to them.

I can’t say that being single is better than being in a relationship. Both of them bring different kinds of problems. It’s not possible to compare because there are millions of variables. But I can surely say that being single is far better than being in a bad relationship.

If you both are respectful, affectionate, and loyal to each other without any drama while challenging the other person to grow in fantastic and new ways, congrats! You are on a great track and I’m officially jealous of you from now on.

Storytime!

In my first year, as a junior, we boys all got ragged often which was not quite unusual. Singing at a stretch for too long, dancing (which I’m terrible at), having sex with the wall (with the protection ^_^), and many other crazy shits at midnight 3 am (which never fail to make me laugh now when I look back). I used to feel so fucked up every time. But having a person to share all of the struggles felt impeccably great. It felt immensely satisfying. It’s like writing a difficult maths exam while having a tour planned the next day. You know you are fucked up now at the moment. But the thought of having a person to share the struggle by calling them up anytime feels like it’s going to be okay. You don’t get this anywhere else. The feeling that fills you up when you know that your partner got your back. The feeling that fills you up when you act like a child in front of them. It’s all cute.

Oh no, wait. Don’t drop the plan of calling your partner for a breakup just yet. Do it after you weigh out everything you read till now. I don’t wanna be biased against anything. But if you are uncomfortable because of my questions, you are just terrified of answers. Hope you decide with your head instead of your hormones. Stay peaceful.

I will bring another piece about how to handle loneliness and about self-love for another day. Because I know asking people to vaguely ‘love oneself’ creates more narcissistic assholes rather than confident, non-needy, and responsible people.

PS — The last article I wrote got an overwhelming response from y’all. I wanna thank everyone who took the time to appreciate it. I’m just a beginner and I want to improve. I know nothing. But will bring more signal in the world of noise to your way to my best possible level. Of course with your support.

Much love,
Subash

Originally published at https://subashrajan.substack.com on October 25, 2021.