This is what hope does

2004

I once fell in love with a man I never met.

It was in my early 20s, Munish had just started distancing himself for reasons completely unknown to me. He behaved rudely with me in public, said things to hurt me often. He was a different person altogether.

I was sad and depressed, and on one such day I logged in to a yahoo chat room. Yahoo Public Chat rooms were big those days. I am not even sure if they still exist. ’20s Love and Romance’ used to be my favorite chat room. So many stories have emerged out of that room, including a probable dead man who still haunts me.

Anyway, that day from one of the common library PC, I logged in to the ’20s love and romance’ chat room and met D. Within 30 mins we had exchanged numbers. And by the time I had signed out of the chat and came back to my desk he had called. Within a month of him calling he proposed to marry. We had still not met.

“Yes!” I said yes to his proposal. I told my parents, he told his parents. The two sets of parents spoke to each other and it was decided that since he was in a different city, I should go and meet his sister who lived in Delhi.

We were both in love. Trust me it was love, he used to call me every few hours of the day, if we were not talking on the phone, we were exchanging SMS. He insisted and made me buy a webcam so we could see each other, we will often fall asleep in front of our computers after hours of talking. It was crazy. It was love.

Then the day came, I met his sister. I really liked her and we had  good conversation. Later, she gave him the feedback,

“She is fat.”

“I know,” He said.

“She is short”

“I know.”

“She has a birth mark on her face.”

“I know.”

“If you already know everything then why did you ask me to meet her. Anyway, I liked her, she is full of life and joy.”

I had barely left the café where I met his sister and he messaged me, “Samy, I love you, you make me so happy. Can’t wait to be with you now.”

I instantly knew I had passed. Wedding bells were soon to ring. I realized I will have to move to the small South Indian town where he was posted, realized that I will have no career in law in that area because for lower courts you need to know local language. I tried to imagine my life as a house wife, perhaps for a while. I didn’t care, I was in love and I felt being loved, by him.

His family then wanted to match horoscope. My dad didn’t like the idea, in our family nobody has ever believed in horoscopes. He said since we don’t believe in it, I will not match it, but I will send my daughter’s details and let them match it. I spoke to D. “You never said you guys believed in horoscope and all, what if it doesn’t match?”

He assured me that any two given horoscopes can be matched under any circumstance if there is a will, “Sweetheart don’t worry, horoscope or no horoscope, there’s nothing that can stop us from being together.”

The horoscope didn’t match, he got nervous. A week later he sent me an SMS, “Samy I talk (sic) home they are sayin knowingly they wont allow us to marry otherwise the decision will be mine for which they will be very much hurt.”

I cried a lot and moved on. I forgave him. I even wrote a post dedicated to him ‘A testimonial for a Beautiful Friend’, which has so far become the top post with highest traffic for this blog. What an irony, thousands of people who google for a sample of testimonials for their loved ones, land up on my page where I wrote a testimony for a man who was a coward, a jerk and who broke my heart.

6 years later

I met another guy via internet, this time on Twitter, let’s call him ‘IC’. We both were single, lonely, looking for someone to spend our lives together (or so I thought). I asked him out. It was a nice date, he came with flowers and we had good conversations. I liked him and wanted to see him again. But a month passed and he did not call. The second date did not happen. I asked once over Gtalk if we are going to see each other again he said he likes to take things slowly. 

2 weeks after meeting IC

I met yet another guy again via Twitter, let’s call him V. We are both single, lonely, looking for someone to spend our lives together (or so I thought). While I was waiting for IC to ask me out on a second date, V initiated virtual conversations on Gtalk. We have not been on a date yet because we live in different cities. But we chat every day. We even schedule our sleep time, eating time, office time so that we can catch each other online. V says, he will be in Delhi some time soon and I look forward to meet him.

—

This is what hope does. After the disastrous cyber relationship with D in 2004, and a zillion other experiences of over enthusiastic curious men who chased me online and lost interest in me after one meeting, I am headed for another cyber affair. I am headed in the exact same direction where I have been before, where I have only found thorns. But I am not scared one bit of yet another heartbreak because I still have hope.

This is what hope does. Even though IC never asked me out for a second date, because clearly he thinks I am not worth it, I don’t feel so bad because I have already found V. Hope that may be V is the one.

This is what hope does. I would meet him in August. May be he will be another brick on the wall, may be he too will follow suit, he will lose interest in me after we’ll meet, one date will be enough for him to figure out ‘she is not worth pursuing’ and I will never have a second date.

But, this is what hope does, I shall live till August with hope.

And then I will find another hope.

Update: April 2022.

I never met that guy IC ever again in life. The guy V never turned up. The day he was supposed to land in India from US his phone went switched off and he disappeared from the face of earth.