This Sunday is St. Valentine’s Day. And today’s column is only for those who have been in and out of love or are deliberating to get out of love. If you are happily in love “ and are convinced you will remain in this ethereal fuzz ever after - read no more. Continue planning the surprise. All the best.
For those who are still here, let me try to explain the beauty, benefits and the scrumptious goodness of a breakup. Being in love is good. Having the courage to walk out is better. Hundreds of relationships suffer silent humiliation and rejection just because one or both partners cannot build up the patience, conviction or inclination to imagine life otherwise.
The other day I happened to meet the parents of a daughter in her early twenties. The couple was well-educated, well-placed and well-sorted to see exactly where their kid was going in her love life. But, like most parents, they were struggling to decide whether to keep seeing their kid make wrong decisions because the lessons learnt would be invaluable; or to step in and take charge, break hearts and call the shots Hindi-movie style.
Their stress, anxiety and helplessness seemed only too familiar. They said their daughter is “madly in love” with a high school sweetheart who has tried different ways and means to tell her that he is no longer interested. Her obsession “to make things work” is costing her studies, her health and her happiness. The boy is cold, aloof and busy; she is not his priority. But, the girl fails to walk away.
This kind of insensitivity to subtle clues is a mortifying constant in most young relationships. The inability to take rejection and the exaggerated public projection of feelings as status messages and social network updates is perhaps at the crux of the rapid commitments and equally rapid failures of modern relationships. As it were, being in a relationship in the age of hyper-connectivity is complex.
New-age relationships suffer from increased visibility because of cell phones, free texting apps, social networks and internet on the go. For most young people, announcing details of their private lives is a social marker. Without announcing a new relationship or a new breakup, they perhaps stop feeling cool. With increased visibility comes the bane of increased scrutiny. Everyone out there has enough information to become unsolicited counselors and/or critics in one’s love life.
I strongly feel that the scrutiny of social media and access to instant communication delays rational decision-making. Young people get more stressed about how they will explain a breakup on Facebook than getting stressed about the breakup per say. It is this superficial urge of social face-keeping that unfortunately forces young people to stay put in bad relationships.
There is no joy being in a relationship where the other treats you like dirt. There is also no joy in being with someone who is as good as a peach, but who brings you no joy, for whatever reason. There is no joy in staying back out of a sense of gratitude, guilt, fear or favour. Boyfriends or girlfriends who systematically cut their partners off from old friend circles, impose new codes of dressing and behavior, make the partner feel guilty or responsible for their own failures are unwittingly indulging in classic forms of emotional abuse and manipulation. Psychoanalysts and youth counselors have observed time and again that staying back in relationships in spite of such red flags usually escalates to different forms of abuse later on.
Youth need to evolve a stronger sense of identity, self-esteem and independence to face the indecisive climate of new-age relationships. They need to understand that it is better to cultivate comfort with one’s self than rushing out to associate with unworthy men or women just for the sake of company.
The terse words of an incredibly funny friend still bring a smile. When I confided in her, she just winked: “Good. Now, you at least know what you don’t want.” Think about that. One might learn much more about a relationship and human dynamics after breaking up than staying in. The simple logic is that breaking up is an active choice; more often than not staying back in an unfulfilling relationship is because of passive laziness.
That said; cultivating comfort with one’s self doesn’t come easy. For example, around Valentine’s Day most businesses begin engineering the misconception that it is crucial to be in love. The superficial and commercial charades surrounding Valentine’s Day can become oppressive, but ironically, there is high level of tolerance and connivance of childish bursts of public display of attention on V-Day. Such commercial impetus and mushy extravaganza around V-Day only adds to the indecisive and confused quotient of those in unhappy relationships. The melodrama makes walking out difficult.
But, here is the thing. The modern world makes being fake way too easy. One can get cakes, flowers and chocolates delivered in less than a minute by using phone apps. One can send smiling emoticons when one is feeling furious and one can hide behind the textual communication for days and months without really meeting up. If a relationship is already into its dying stages; it is rather foolish to make Valentine’s Day an excuse to resuscitate it. What is dying will die, eventually. Letting go is vital because how else can you make space for something better?
Gauri Gharpure studied journalism at Columbia University, New York, on a Fulbright grant. She is the coordinator of the mass media department at Don Bosco College, Panaji and makes paper jewellery on the side. She tweets at @gaurigharpure
