I fell for a girl the other day. 
Just wipe that smirk off your face (If you are grinning, then its even worse), this ain't a thing to be happy about. Especially in principle. Over the years, embittered by ridiculous relationships and watching close friends/acquaintances (will write their experiences) undergo unimaginably messy and complex break-ups, or worse still, 'adjust' to painful after effects -- I have willfully and cleverly chosen the single life, the carefree gait of a string-free, singularly well-dressed butterfly and the eye of the tiger ( like a survivor). That being the mantra, life's all about toppling off the wagon.
Which brings us to line one in this piece, the confession that I was recently (Ahem!) smitten. There, I said it. I met a fascinating, petite thing a few days ago in the middle of my exams, and just couldn't get enough. We talked for a little while that day, exchanged phone numbers, promised to be in touch….. On the way back home, I realized I could not stop thinking about her. I gave a call immediately I reached home & called her and started the conversation with the lame excuse “I wanted to check if your cell was working”. Oops! Anyhow, the way she laughed made it up for it. One conversation led to another and I was down and out in the mystical region of Ahem….LoVe! Anyway, the chick (with a nose to kill for, I kid you not) is tremendous fun. And halfway through past five on date two, the dastardly suggestion slithers onto my unsuspecting head that I might actually want a serious and long lasting relationship with her, this time around.
Hmm.
Damn these hormones, pheromones etc… I didn't instantly coil into a front-foot defense. She rocks, and this could just work. Yeppy! On hindsight, I remember the pessimistic portion of my brain screaming “Dhruv, Back out, Back out…Until its too late”. But being the chivalrous and brave gentleman I am, I went ahead! The man-woman thing is all about balance. With the precision of a racing driver, you have to instinctively find the perfect line and then play with its limits. Go aggressive, fall behind, keep things loose or tight as needed. Some girls want a knight, some a night. You have to play your cards with 007ian self-assurance, leaping from cad to cardinal in a heartbeat. Therein lies, young reader, the thrill of the chase.
This was the issue with other prospects as I thought…. But the issue with being in love, of course, is that you trip headlong over your own shoelaces.
Suddenly, I cared -- about everything. Scanning text messages for subtext & hidden meanings, wondering what she meant when she replied too quick, or too late, and then trying hard to decipher all the conversations -- why she mentions her love for the songs of Kishore Kumar(yuk!!!), gauging her level of laughter at what you consider a particularly witty routine, and whether she really wants the new.
When in a fix, your logical abilities go for a toss. I was desperately seeking counsel from my closest lady friends (never, ever, take a man's advice when it comes to relationships) who all seemed to react in the same fashion. They sat back with a smug smile, laughed their heads off and told me, with their best the-hunter-becomes-the-game phrase, that the tables had turned. 
Damn.
Double Damn!That I had it bad, though, wasn't the worst part. The absolute pits was the realisation that while I knew I was just setting myself up, I was, um, enjoying myself. AS I SAID I DON’T KNOW IF I AM IN LOVE…. BUT THEN LIFE HAS NEVER BEEN SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!
No one wants to be rejected when it comes to love.It's painful, humiliating and can hurt your self-esteem.But it's a cruel world, and most of us will face rejection before it's all said and done. The important point is not whether or not you get rejected, it's how you respond.Will you bounce back and flourish? Or will you flounder and fall to pieces?These are the tales of my friends (as told by them)... Don’t laugh. This is the true face of love…..for them….Names are being kept anonymous for privacy…..
Case 1:AG has the following story:I really regret my reaction to being rejected..This girl who was with me for four years, all of a sudden declares that she has no more feelings for me. When I pressed her for a reason, she said that she was seeing another guy. I trusted her more than myself. We had the perfect life ahead of us and she shattered it. I did not react normally. Instead, I tried to hurt her. I ruined her reputation by doing little things, for the simple reason that I couldn't tolerate somebody cheating on me. I had trusted her for so many years and she made me so ashamed and let down.Today, one year later, it seems that I acted very inappropriately. I should not have hurt her, even if she had crushed me. Deep in my heart, I still love her and want to her to be happy. Still, I fear that I will never love anybody as much as I loved her. I am jaded and jealous. I'm left to think only one thing -- that true love only happens once. I don’t think Love occurs, You can only love yourself!Case 2:H (a friend of my elder cousin) has the story:This one was not told by H himself but by my elder cousin in an attempt to keep me away from the disease of love.I was in love with this girl for over five years. She proposed to me and made me the focus of her life. After we decided to get married, I was the happiest man in the world. But then, just before our marriage, things started to sour. She started giving me lame excuses and asked to have the wedding date postponed. I offered her every possible material possession and every possible expression of love. I even gave up a dream job in London because she didn't want to leave our hometown.Still, after all these concessions, she finally broke off the marriage and is now engaged to a mutual friend. Since the day her mother told me, for she didn't have the courage, I have been in pain. I often stare at the ceiling and wonder if my life has any worth. Even if I move on in my career and family life, my love life will never be the same. My heart is forever broken and I will never trust another individual again.Case 3:M (one of my dearest friends) is in love with a certain female. They live in different cities and their communication is through various electronic means of modulation and demodulation. Long telephone calls, frequent net access etc, the works in short. It seemed to me that those two must have a great relationship together. So I thought. They have 1 major fight in a fortnight and the minor ones are like happening every other day. I don’t whether they are the undesirable by products of the seemingly fallible system of love. But they should know better than us! The point here is that the feeling after the fight which M gives is like he would prefer to die/kill than live this life. Sometimes he finds refuge in company or sometimes in alcohol (Sometimes both)….What’s the use of being in love when you sometimes have to regret being in love? What’s the seemingly best feeling in the world do to you that you start feeling miserable about yourself?Case 4:I don’t need any more cases. The world is abundant of seemingly endless similar cases.So do you want to be in love????But the feeling is amazing..Who can resist it?
Some one once asked me how do you define love? It was ideal Sunday, afternoon sun & we were just having some idyllic conversation. I dismissed his question with the remark "who does???But then, later I thought about and tried my hand at the question which even the great philosophers have tried!I'm in esteemed company!!!!According to the Oxford definition, there are 7 definitions, the 2 most pertinent ones are: -- A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
- A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.
Here is my definition:Love is a basic dimension of human experience that is variously conveyed as a sense of tender affection, an intense attraction, the foundation of intimacy and good interpersonal chemistry, willing self-sacrifice on behalf of another, and as an ineffable sense of affinity or connection to nature, other living beings, or even that which is unseen. It manifests itself in feelings, emotion, behavior, thoughts, perception and attitude. It influences, underlies and defines major patterns in interpersonal relationships and self-identification.But how do we know if its there? I mean the fundamental issue remains the same. How can we know if its there in your body? Well, sorry to disappoint you all. But you can never know for certain. Because there is no One general answer that can satisfy this persistent query...Lets not consider the sentimental reasons like being unable to live without the other person and thinking about him/her. As these are mainly unsatisfied emotional needs....I would just say what You know you are in love when you are in love. It may sound self-contradictory. But its the closest to the answer you can get. Love is all about setting yourself free from all of the barriers, obstructions and stigmas. In the end, you should not regret falling in love. No matter what happens, you should be able to look back and say "THOSE WERE THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE"!Statutory Caution : Love is a quintessential human delusion simultaneously the source of our greatest strength and our biggest weakness. For the pessismistics, Love is a direct result of chemical reactions and hormones which lead to the onset of emotions, which lead love to be designed overwhelmingly to defy logic and reason. Its complex. And I have barely scratched the surface here…Phew………………..
