My Failed Experiments with Love

To my fondest memory

A strong feeling of romantic love for someone that is usually not expressed and does not last a long time. ◊ The person who has a crush is usually young or is behaving or feeling like a young person.

These are the first definitions that pop up when you search for a crush. They are that part of school life that makes you giggle when you recount them years later. It is dumb, lacks depth, but has its own highlight in your life. My longest crush to date was for one and a half years. On a guy whom I randomly saw one morning and fell like being on a slippery slope in a plastic summer. 

But we weren't one of those cliches. I was the one whom everyone knew with her daily stage presence in assemblies, and he was the very definition of a wall flower. He had one best friend, whom he still talks to, and I was friends with everyone but close to none. So imagine the surprise when the whole school found out about my crush. I hadn't been exactly that secretive in the first place. I did whatever I could to find out everything about him, from his favourite colours to his bus route. I have always loved like that, open and proud. 

But my affections made the once wall flower, the centre of attention. On his part, though, he took it quite sportingly, I think. He would blush when he was teased with my name and pretend to not notice my very obvious glances of his counterance.  I would wake up early each day to try to get a duty near his class lines, and would make sure to apply my mascara just enough to not be caught in plain sight. I took up extra speeches since his class assembly line was directly in front of the stage. Searched for him in the crowd in the tiniest of moments I could from the stage and would wait for hours looking through the door, just to watch him walk by. I was like a mirrorball, trying to show him my best side to achieve exactly what I never knew. 

Someone would tell me eventually, half a year into this crush, that he was still heartbroken to get over his cheating girlfriend and might never actually want to love again. But surprisingly enough, it didn't bother me like I thought it would.  I just wanted to impress him. To keep him looking at me. But never in my fantasy did I ever imagine us together. I would continue taking every opportunity to show myself off, only to be rewarded sometimes with his weary smile and a brief eye contact. He would graduate the year later, and I remember drowning myself in Arijit Singh's sad playlist, completely in my feels, as if my husband went to war.  I would eventually go on from searching for him like a God to never bothering to ever looking him up again. I would fall in love again and lose that too.

But when a college dare required me to send him a follow request ages later, my heart still did a little sommersault as if on muscle memory.  He would accept and the thrill of him viewing my stories did something to me for a short while. Nostalgia is a powerful wave, after all. Its like eating a candy you loved eating years ago, after a long time. But soon, the thrill will expire and it will lose its hold on you. Just like me, who one day just randomly stopped caring. We still follow each other but probably as the silent people whom you added just for them to exist in your life, but only in your follower's list.

I do not hate the guy or resent him for never liking me back. Nor did I expect us to randomly start chatting years later. It was hardly anything at all, but it taught me one very important thing. It taught me that Love isn't transactional. Its not about give and take, where everything has to be measured on a scale. That I too can love generously without accepting anything in return. That in someone's story, I will always remain as their little worshipper. And I hope it made him feel worthy of all the happiness the world has to offer him, because in my little twisted way, I always felt that he deserved every bit of my affection.

So the next time your eyes open from a one-sided relationship, just don't regret it. It may hurt you then but one day, when you find someone who is worth it, these things will be like your medals in life. Your faith that you eventually did move on and find someone better. That maybe in its own twisted way, it taught you something about you and your kind of love. And that love, however painful, would always be an unforgettable experience.