Jacob Ninan
Q. I am a 19 year old girl and I was madly in love with this guy in college. We had met a couple of years ago when we joined college. It was love at first sight even though it took some months before we started going steady. I was sure he was my Prince Charming, and he too was very nice to me. We spent a lot of time together, and all our friends thought we were made for each other. But in the last few months I found that he wasn't showing as much attention to me as he used to. Then last week I found him in the coffee shop with my best friend! I blew up when I caught him alone after that. I told him I never want to see him again. He said, "Thanks!" How I cried afterwards! I can't imagine a life without him.A. Yes, it is heartbreaking and extremely painful when a relationship such as this around which your whole life has been revolving shows signs of breaking up. It may seem to you that you just cannot bear it, and perhaps you try your best not to think about it. Perhaps you tell yourself it is all your imagination or a dream and that you will wake up shortly to realise that it is not true and that things are fine. How we wish such things will never happen to us, even though we come to hear or read about them happening to others! I hope you are sharing this with your parents and a few of your girl friends, who can help you with emotional and other forms of support, because this may be too difficult to handle alone. No one can fully enter into your pain at this moment, and so don't get upset if others seem not to understand you well. (I don't know if you have kept your parents in the picture. If you haven't, it may be natural if they react with shock first. But remember, parents have your best interests at heart, even if you don't see eye to eye on different issues. They have the advantage of long experience, which may be very useful at such times.)
Have you thought of checking up with your boyfriend about what exactly happened? Do you think it is possible that you have jumped to your own conclusions and reacted impulsively? Perhaps there is a proper explanation for this. For example, they may have been discussing some college work, or even met casually, and there is nothing in it that you should be worried about. His reaction could have come if he felt you were being unreasonably suspicious, couldn't it? After having been friends for a long time surely you can talk to him and find out if there has been any misunderstanding.
Of course you have to also look at the possibility that something is really going on between them, especially when you say that he hasn't been showing enough attention to you for some time. What can you do if he has picked up interest in your best friend and he is no longer interested in continuing a regular relationship with you? I am sorry if I sound harsh, but we do have to deal with this possibility, don't we? After you talk to him again if you discover that he wants to move away from him, you must find out ways by which you can move forward. You can't afford to let your life get ruined just because one guy is not interested in you! You have to move on.
Look around, and you will see that finding the right guy is a process. You may consider different ones at different times, and finally one will click. Sometimes the period of 'considering' may be long (like this one), and you may have assumed this was the guy, till something happens from either side and you find it hasn't stuck! But it is certainly not the end of life, even if you may feel like that, and you need to move on. In due time you will come to the right one.
This period of waiting and considering different ones is good because you get to understand for yourself what kind of a husband you are looking for, whether your expectations are realistic of unrealistic (e.g., if you are looking for the 'perfect' guy you are unrealistic because there is no such person anywhere -- everyone has faults), etc., and you also get an opportunity to reorder your priorities. There may be surges of hope and dashing of hope at times; but that is part of the process.
Girls are very sentimental, usually, and they get attached to guys easily even before they get to know them well. This is really not good, because you are only setting yourself up for some disappointments. Isn't it better to go slow and open up only as much as you get to have confidence in a guy?
Some girls can be so insecure that they give themselves freely to anyone who shows them some attention, not realising that many guys are deliberately showing them attention in order to get these girls to give in to their demands.
Many girls, when they fall in love with a guy, refuse to look at danger signals that they are getting about the relationship. Even when they see that the guy is only after their body, has very selfish interests or controlling tendencies, is playing around with other girls too, etc., they cling on to them because they don't want to lose that relationship. But isn't it dangerous to continue with such guys because you are likely to have a lot of problems after marriage? I am not saying that you should leave every guy with whom you find some fault, because then you won't be able to get married at all. But you understand that some faults are serious and can cause big problems after marriage, don't you?
In your case, if this guy has decided to actually leave you and go with your friend, doesn't that indicate that he is not the right one for you? Can you risk your life by trying to somehow manage to hold on to him, because you never know if he would leave again.
It is also possible that he has just made a slip and that he will come back to you. You can find out when you talk to him and if you find him responding to you.
Otherwise don't let this ruin your life. You have to move on. It may be very painful for some time, but you can get over it. Millions of others have managed to do that.
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