The Relationship Crap.

Met PG after June 2006! I was a little apprehensive about seeing her here in India. I mean we were *buddies* in the UK. It was hard to imagine meeting her in a completely changed context, rather, in the Indian context. I had a million doubts about the Chennai trip turning out 'just-fine'; did we still have things to share? Were we friends because we were automatically put in rooms facing each other, or was there more to it? How would it be like to meet now, without the e-gap between us? I mean we were only in touch online, only once in a while to check up on each other, to find out if things were going 'just-fine'?
Uperse I was meeting her with her classmates, AN and DA. I always find it very hard to gel with strangers. I mean I had doubts about meeting PG after so long and these people were toh complete strangers, I honestly did not feel this would turn out to be good trip afterall. To add to all this, DP decided he would rather spend his time honeymoon-ing with his boyfriend over meeting us...
Oh! Well! I had a brilliant time, AN and DA were really sweet, especially AN, he drove us all over Chennai, just so that I could get a feel of the city and PG could go down nostalgia lane.

I still haven't come to the relationship crap yet! This was just the random intro...which calls for another short intro before I actually start rambling about relationships...
Now, PG is dating AR (who also is from Chennai, now settled in the UK) for over 3 years. She was supposed to be my relationship-guru in the UK. Giving me all the gyan about the do's and don't's of a *healthy relationship*.
After a long day roaming around in AN's funky military Jeep, PG and I retired to our hotel room to catch up on an entire eventful year, to talk about our lives, our love lives; she about hers and me about the non-existence of one!
I was happy that we could still discuss these things with the same intensity and fervor that we discussed them in the UK. Only difference being that, this time I was imparting all the gyan. I was the relationship-guru! Apparently, PG is physically attracted to other men when she has intellectual interactions with them and doesn't find AR intellectually stimulating anymore. He is Mr. Dependable who takes care of her, gives her all the attention she needs, knows when and exactly what she needs, who came across seven seas (literally) just to see her before the new year, who went so far as to do a zillion things just because PG liked them; he started listening to rock music (it was a huge thing for him, from Tamil music to Rock it takes hard work!), tried appreciating her taste in almost everything. Ms PG on the other hand, is very dismissive of him. Takes him for granted, to quote her, "when AR comes, it feels like I am being protected by warm blanket. He feels like family. How can one love anyone from one's family?!" (How perverse! But isn't that the ultimate objective of a love-relationship? to start a family together, to make the other a part of your family?!). I mean this woman wants to jump from one man to the next, eternally, having AR as a back-up for those cold wintery nights. She wants to feel "weak in the knees" everytime she sees him, I felt like shaking her up and telling her that she would be limping around the town if that was to happen everytime she saw AR! I mean, come on! you have been dating this fellow for 3 years, you give him hope, he plans his entire life centering you, what more can you want?! How can you shatter all his dreams because after all this while you dont' feel "weak in the knees"!?
PG wasn't the first person who wanted EVERYTHING from her boyfriend. SS had an emotionally and intellectually sensitive man, she wasn't physically attracted to him after 2 years of dating! Why do these women have these insatiable *demands* that their boyfriends have to be Purrfect!?! How can ONE person be your emotional back-up, be your sex bomb/sex machine (whatever!) and be capable of intellectual conversations with you? (and not just any intellectual conversation, a conversation about things that interest *you*). Why can't acceptance of faults come naturally? (One has to spend their life living with the faults not with the qualities of that other!) Why can't compromises be made with an open mind? Why can't there be sharing instead of compromises? Why are adult relationships so difficult and twisted? Why can't people learn that life is unfair and that is the precise reason they say that everything is fair in love!

People *create* problems for themselves and then wonder how they came about being in such deep shit?! Every damn thing is self-created and self-centered, give a little space to the other, share a little space, have a space of your own and then reflect on where you are in the shit...I'm sure the shit would've disappeared by then, or you would have figured how to get out of it!

I reflected on relationships of my past, not that I've had (m)any, but I've learnt much (At least, I think so). Acceptance of self is more difficult than acceptance of the other. Accept that you are selfish. Accept that there is always a give-and-take in a relationship, that there cannot be a relationship if there is no exchange. If you can accept your faults, it's just a matter of understanding the other has a "self" too.

I am not entirely sure why I wanted to write about this crap, coz as far as I am concerned, I feel I have issues all sorted in my head, if not in my life.
(Now, I feel like I am acting like a daadi, giving advice to bacchas of tomorrow. Haye! Nahiiii. I am supposed to be living the wild life, life on the edge, with the assurance that all *issues* can be handled tomorrow, a care-free existence where relationships don't matter much, where everything is about living in the moment! *sigh*)

Well, I think I am done with all the rambling, and since typing for prolonged periods of time isn't exactly one of my forte, I am going to leave a lot of things unsaid!

Ciao!