Author's Note: This is a college MehBeer OS. It's from the point of view of Meher, on the trials and tribulations someone like her faces when falling in love.
I have a problem.
Well...it's been about 30 seconds. What now?
Now you sit and wait, maybe stare at a blank wall while you're at it, until you accept the fact that there really is no clear cut step-by-step method to solving a problem. You also realize that everything is just a bunch of bullshit and that motivational speakers are just a bunch of lazy assholes out for your money.
Then you calm yourself down and thank the lord that the secret of your potty-mouth isn't out to the world.
Well he knows about it, but then again he knows a lot of things, half of which only exist in his head. Or so you tell him.
Then you turn to Google because you're just that desperate.
Define your problem, is the unanimous answer. It's somewhere around here that you realize you've never bothered doing that.
Because saying you're just "really tired" or are "in a mood" is so much easier than saying that your depression hit you the face that morning so hard you could barely get up. Because you dared wanting something you knew you couldn't have.
So what is my problem?
At 22, with my entire freakin' life still ahead of me, so many things I've yet to accomplish and so many people I've yet to meet, I think I've found "the one." My problem is that at the expense of a family I'm responsible for, I'm sitting here sighing and crying over a future I'm not even sure of.
My problem is that I think I'm falling in love with Abeer Malhotra. And I don't want to be.
And it's not like he helps at all. If anything he drives you up a wall.
There's no denying he knows. Which is fine, and considering the fact that he hasn't explicitly said anything about it would make this "thing" so much easier to get over. But he doesn't exactly shut up about it either. With a cocky confidence you so want to hate, he'll flirt with you. Shamelessly. In front of people. Via inside jokes. In the middle of a freakin' class. And he'll be merciless.
You'll flip him a cold shoulder here and there to guard yourself and then he'll shut off. Like there's a switch or something. One day he'll be asking if you want a ride to the party, the next day he'll say he's not going. One moment he'll be trying embarrass you in public by getting you drunk, the next moment he'll be dedicating his entire night to ensuring your safe (and also let you crash in his dorm).
Now you'll sit around, spending your time wondering if you're just giving existence to things that aren't actually there. Like a hallucination.
But then he'll surprise with moments that'll serve as a slap in the face to everything you think you've already figured out. The moments that'll look just like a part and passing of everyday life to everyone else, all while he makes damn sure that you're aware that this...fraction of time...is something he's choosing to share with you. Because you're you.
Like telling you about feeling guilty for not mourning his grandfather's death as much as others would've. Or that he doesn't really know what it's like have a father figure in life because the one he has is an unsatisfied assembly-line of expectations.
And boy it'll mess with your head, like the day he walked you to the bus with his umbrella without you even asking, because he noticed you've straightened your hair (and how that shit must've taken forever). Or the time he tried making you Dal Makhni to cure your homesickness (despite its disastrous results).
Like you're already sitting here, not knowing what to do about your feelings, and here he goes on giving you hope, when what you need the most is cold hard rejection. Because convincing yourself to focus on your flaws and your insecurities (like how you need to wear 4 inch heels just to make it shoulder-to-shoulder with him) is so much easier than digesting a "gorgeous" (that you want to pretend you didn't hear at the Freshmen-Sophmore Semiformal).
Because being brutally rejected is so much easier than facing the fact that you might actually mean something to someone.
And then you melt. Cursing yourself for falling deeper into something that doesn't make sense. Something you can't afford to make sense out of.
Then you realize you're getting off track and come back to trying to solve your problem. You decide it's worth a shot to try and persuade yourself out of falling in love. Like a pro-con analysis your boss's demanded you have on his desk in 5 minutes. Brushing the nonexistent dust off of your shoulders, you know you've found the solution. This was your forte.
Pro:
The right to demand he either texts back in 5 minutes or agrees to not expect a reply for another hour because you've got shit to do.
Con:
It's the last year of college, and you know it's too late to bother with a relationship because you're just setting yourself up for an appointment with serious heartbreak in about a year. As much as you hate admitting it, this was the truth. You both are still young, only 22, how can you be so sure?
College bounds you together for four years and you start becoming each other's occasional yet favorite midnight snack. But you highly doubt one year is going to turn you into each other's comfort food. The one you'll still reach for ten, twenty years down the line.
And especially after college ends and everyone's out chasing their dreams, you don't want to be the reason he feels guilty when he goes on his journey and connects with someone from a different world. You don't want to be that anchor holding him back.
Pro:
Dal Makhni.
Con:
The one hurdle your very much aware of. Family. Is this love thing going to keep a roof over your family's head and a hot meal on their plates? Is this love thing, that you're not even sure exists on the other end of the line, worth risking not being able to fulfill your responsibilities towards your family. If anything it'll serve as a distraction, like it already has, and it'll stop you from realizing your full potential. And you are certain of that because...because you just are.
Pro:
Well, it could end in marriage.
Ha. Nice one. Moving on.
Con:
Who are you kidding, most college couples never last. Not that you want to be a couple. You don't want to feel anything. And you should continue on in that endeavor because of said reason. And he's too valuable a person to lose to something like a ditzy college romance.
Besides, with your mother's marriage serving as a brilliant example in front of your eyes, you know it isn't always all rainbows and sunshine. Not that you'd dare compare the two men in said situations.
Then you crumple up that piece of paper and throw it against the same blank wall you've been staring at all morning as you lay in bed, on the phone with your best friend, with a tub of ice cream and an abundance of tears. You determine the obvious--this wasn't working.
You then decide the best way to solve this problem is to fool yourself into thinking you're in control of your emotions.
You block out the sound of his irritating laughter and the memories of him furiously debating your absolutely valid point on the Cuban Embargo until you finally realize he's just trying to annoy you because for some stupid godforsaken reason it makes you laugh.
You try forgetting the number of times you've caught him staring--times where he made it obvious to the point where you wanted to roll your eyes, pretending like it didn't make your heart thump loud and hard against your chest.
You try to keep playing back how he'd confuse the hell out of you with his actions, like your heart was some perpetually revolving door that spun as and when he pleased. And you'd make sure to pretend that the explanations he' d give you as if you were entitled to one, didn't exist.
Realizing none of this is helping, you flip over and cry into your pillow. You dared to commit the idiocy of falling in love and now you must live with the fact that your laughs, your tears, your good days and your bad days were now in the control of someone else.
You start realizing that love, or whatever this feeling was, didn't come with a switch. Whoever's manufacturing us up there didn't give us one, or else this would have been much easier. But amongst the heartache and soul crushing devastation, you wonder...
...maybe it's for a reason.
Finally you realize, or rather accept the obvious.
There is no solution.
~*~
Current Affairs
