The Girl Next Door

Disclaimer: Heavy emotional material. Read only if you are not a heart or mental patient. Also, read only if you have no special brotherly love towards the movie ‘Pyar Ka Panchnama‘. And keep in mind, this is not my personal love story. It is an act of fiction so please keep your suggestions limited to the article and do not venture into my personal life for offering sympathy or love.

So Anna is sitting by the coffee table, on the couch, sipping her coffee and looking at her mobile phone. Nothing but one has changed. Now, she has no one to wait for and no one to get angry over.

Anna is 24 and recently heartbroken. But she doesn’t regret anything. Moreover, she thinks it all happened for good. It was a lesson of life. So what exactly happened? Let’s race back her story and give you a glimpse of her life, for that matter, of any other girl in your neighborhood.

Anna is a well educated, independent female, who belongs to a middle-class family and has dreams and ambitions of a girl belonging to the upper-class family. Yes, you can attribute this to her Sophian education and independent living.

So she dreams of not a prince charming, but a practical and confident partner. She dreams of not a bungalow, but a 2 BHK of her own with a private garden. She dreams of not wealthy in-laws but relatives who are supporting and encouraging. She dreams of not being a homemaker, but a homemaker-cum-successful business woman. These are her dreams and her aspirations. Contrary to the common dogma, she gives priority to her career over personal relationships, because she believes that once she is successfully settled in her job, she will be able to give more time and attention to her partner. So, for now, her only emotional contribution is towards her family and  a set of very close friends.

I assume, by now you know who Anna is and can picture her in the most basic sense. So, let’s get along with our story.

All was going well in Anna’s life, with her challenging yet satisfying job and close friends to relax with. She often used to stretch for work, not because she was asked to, but because she felt it her responsibility to complete her task on time without someone else reminding her of it. She was often appreciated for her dedication and hard work.

Then came the man of her dreams (She wasn’t looking for a prince charming, mind you!).  The man was witty and smart and humorous too. The best part, she fell in love at his first sight (We girls have a sense of intuition, they say). But like a typical hindi drama movie, the villain was there too. The guy liked another friend of hers. But the friend din’t give him any notice at all, being too beautiful and all that. So, Anna played her part of agony-aunt for his guy for a long long time. Meanwhile, the friend had left the place and she broke contacts with all friends. So, again Anna had to be the best friend his man never had and comfort him in all his crying and moaning. During that time, she used to listen to Taylor Swift’s “You Belong With Me” a lot. It was again dramatic but hey, it was THE perfect situational song!.

After an year of best-of-best-friendship-ing, Anna could not control her emotions. Being all modern and confident, she confessed her liking to the guy but did not ask for an answer (What did you expect? Asked him to marry her?). So they remained friends.  Then began the courtship. The guy proposed to Anna to be her girlfriend and the honeymoon period started but lasted a mere few months. Since the guy had not completely forgotten his first love, it was a funny time for Anna. She was struggling as much as she was enjoying it all. She tried to remind herself not every love can be as great as the first love. So, she remained patient and waited for her glory time to come soon. But sadly, it never came.

What followed was waiting for his one call or message. Waiting incessantly for attention, for importance and most importantly, for respect. It turned out that Anna’s devotion for his first love and attempts to make it work  were  wrongly interpreted as habits of a girl with no stand and self-respect.

The guy never gave her any gifts, but she thought gifting was not his nature. The guy never took her out to expensive places, but she thought he din’t enjoy eating out. The guy never talked to her for more than 20mins on phone, but she explained that he was a man of few words. This went on for another year and a twist came when the guy had to go abroad for work for a few months.

Much sobbing and crying happened, because how much ever they fought, they had still been together. But the trip was inevitable.

He went for 3 months, and surprisingly, things were starting to get normal. She assumed that his job was paying off well for him. Regular phone calls, long chats, fun and jokes, everything came on track and for Anna this was THE honeymoon period they talk about.

But, meanwhile, due to the long fights and stress in relationship, Anna’s work was getting affected. Her managers had less faith in her now. Although she was balancing both her parts well, but people were constantly on the watch, waiting for their chance. And it came, and it came very soon. When once she had decided to severe all her connections with the man, she had to take a long break from work and this cost her a lot professionally. Since, she was ambitious and had a passion for work, she was depressed. She was failing on both fronts.

She tried to regain her respect in office; she decided to change locations. This was mainly to get a little distance from the guy, which would give her a different perspective on him and test their relationship. Also, the new place was closer to home so she could have more emotional stability and would be able to concentrate better on work.

But all din’t go as planned. Her impression in office wasn’t getting any better. As the say, news travels fast but bad news travels at lightning speed and so did her reputation. Not many managers were ready to give her a chance to prove herself again and dismiss all second-thoughts. Also, the guy was getting busier with every passing day. Now he did not have time to listen to her problems. Agreed she was a smart and independent woman, but if not advice, at least she needed him to listen to her. His sleep and recreation took priority over her.

She tried to balance her time of work and sleep considering the time difference in both countries. She would adjust all her weekend work according to his sleep and call time. This all she did thinking that if she wont, it would be selfish on her part. She would call him once, twice, thrice and wait for him to call back. She knew after returning from office, he did nothing but watch T.V. She would tell him that she is stressed and needed to talk to him. She would wait for his call but none came. And no apologies would be offered in the morning.

So, getting a hang on herself, she finally promised herself to breakup with him. After all, if a man cannot give his love and support when his girl is stressed and depressed, what kind of life would he give her in future. She accepted that maybe this was his time to focus on his career and life, and he was not ready to trouble himself with the pressures of a relationship. All this she assumed and accepted.

Today, relaxed and stable, she is not waiting for anyone’s call because she just spoke to her mom about a 1-month family trip to Singapore.

So, what’s your take? Was she right in not having anyone rather than having a so-called boyfriend for whom she needed an appointment to talk to?