Hot Topic: Young Relationships

Our lives aren’t fairytales and it isn’t supposed to be. We were fed Happily Ever Afters even before we found the other gender attractive enough to hold hands with. We were given the idea of soul mates and cartoons depicting grand acts of love from one person to another. We lived in a bubble of love—so far away from reality—protected by the romance propaganda handed to us on a silver platter.

Lets get to it: 

First loves weren’t supposed to last but we wanted it to. Whoever we loved was given a piece of our hearts that no other lover received; a piece that held innocence and hope. Happily Ever Afters always ensue…right?

Our first heartbreak could be by a boyfriend, girlfriend, a crush or a friend. They were painful. It was a chink in the armor—the first crack of many. It showed a glimpse of what’s to come. But the heartbreak of first loves shape who you are and how you perceive relationships and yourself.

The next person you fall for, you will meet with a wall around your heart, proving to them that you have seen and felt things and that you are prepared. That person will try to tear your walls down, brick by brick, day by day, and the Happily Ever After inside you will let them. The hope that love does exist will arise. You will strip yourself of all insecurities and doubts and once again you hand yourself to that person, wishing yourself Godspeed.

But as any other young and naïve relationship, this too shall fail. You will crumble and resent yourself for letting it happen once more. You will blame yourself for giving too soon. So you rebuild the walls, this time with a roof. You trap yourself inside your own dubiety and every knock will be met with an insouciant silence.

Heartbreaks don’t mean what it’s supposed to mean. Our hearts don’t break the way glass does. We don’t shatter into pieces and glue ourselves together. Heartbreaks make us more immune to them; it makes us stronger and independent. We are slabs of metal that contort with every hammer.

I believe each of us are linear lines on the same grid. We intersect each other at different points, and sometimes we fall in love with someone headed towards another direction. Heartbreaks are the result of your line passing through theirs.

There is no room for Happily Ever Afters in my life. No room for what if’s in my tower of solitude. What will happen will happen. A breakup means I have just intersected a line and I am headed elsewhere. I take what the grid gives me.

I see relationships as transient convergences. I am headed one way and him the other. There is an unsettling tranquility that comes with the credence of this notion. Breakups feel like an anticipated occurrence. If it is meant to be, it will be. If our lines are meant to merge, then it will.