Wherever I go, bad luck seems to follow me, bad boyfriends, rather. I’ve had a history of relationships with boys (I refuse to call them men because they simply aren’t) who go bonkers when it ends. Having high standards may seem high-and-mighty but without those, I wouldn’t have realised the shallow mettle of the guys I’ve been with.
The first boy, like everyone else, seemed fine to begin with. He was greatly sensitive, sometimes to a fault, and overly clingy, but he cared a lot. It was during the first month of our relationship that he declared his love for me; it was midnight and I, not feeling the same way, was scared to respond. He didn’t seem to mind initially, but then began the pleas: “Do you not like me enough? Am I not good enough for you?”
The next month he made me meet his parents saying they never believed he had a girlfriend. I wasn’t ready, but he insisted, so I agreed on two conditions: that his parents don’t ask me what my parents think and that they don’t pressurise me about marriage.
Things, of course, didn’t go as planned. His tried interfering in my career too, and after a good six months of working up the courage, I broke up with him.
This was followed by much sobbing at his end, sending friends to figure out a solution and desperate attempts to contact me. When I expressed my disinterest, the blackmailing began.
One of his close friends told me that he’d become depressed and started to hallucinate: in one instance he threatened to jump from the terrace; in another, he claimed to have burnt one of my books and hurt himself in the process. Somehow, I remained strong and fought back.
I'm not alone in having to deal with ex-boyfriends who cannot accept the fact that they've been dumped. One friend had to deal with a boy who took just enough pills to get groggy and wander on the roads. When taken to the hospital, he named her as the reason for his “suicide” attempt. The drama ended only when the girl’s parents intervened.
Threats of self-harm are a weapon of choice it seems: as I write this, a friend shares her current dilemma. Her ex-boyfriend is threatening to slash his wrists if she does not call him by a certain time.
Then there was the boy who found it so hard to believe that his long-distance relationship riddled with fights had fallen apart, that he travelled across continents just to confirm that they'd broken up.
I’d heard many of these stories before I lived through my own nightmarish break-up. We open our lives up to those who are practically strangers; we make ourselves vulnerable in an effort to love and be loved. The way I see it, when a relationship doesn't work out, it just doesn't. When one person wants out, there's no point in continuing a charade. It’s not easy, nowhere close to it. But it’s best to accept it, mourn a while, and move on. In doing crazy things to win back the girl, boys never realise that they're simply reiterating every reason why they are now single.
