single – Love in India

Are You Still Single? Here Are 7 Reasons Why

Usually, people don’t wonder whether there is a reason why you are still single and just complain about their loneliness and despair to find the right person. In most cases, people are single because they want to be single, they have a certain lifestyle and unconsciously do everything not to change it. They don’t really care about finding the love and saving close relationship. People want to love in their dreams more than to take responsibilities in the real world. There are many different reasons why personally you are single in this period of life, look at the below given cases that can remind you some familiar situations.

You have a tight schedule and almost no free time

Photo by Becky Wetherington You have got a promotion and now you have to work even more. When you have several free hours, you want nothing but to relax and to be in silence or to meet with your old best friends. Serious relationships require huge emotional investing, sometimes not less than climbing the career ladder. Single people get used to having free time that they can spend in accordance with their desire and not to spend it on building a new relationship with a potential partner. If you want to change the situation, you should change your mind about the free time.

You don’t know what you really want

You can be in searching for your own destiny or you are going to emigrate to another continent in the foreseeable future, to change your job and to start studying. You just have no time and desire to add one more challenge to the list, however, you suffer from being single and having no help. Now you need rather a housemaid, a cooker and a lover in one person than a beloved partner. Such a situation cannot last forever and your main goal will change, involving your private life.

You are not self-confident to have a partner

You look in the mirror and make a weird face because you are not satisfied with your appearance, your job and yourself in general. You don’t make yourself change the situation, change a way of life and a work place. You suffer from different consequences of the internal disharmony, starting from having no friends and ending with reluctance to have a close relationship. Maybe you are afraid that you will fall in love and a partner will break up with you. It is necessary to change yourself and take pleasure from the whole life.

You try to teach everyone

Photo by FAFPeople prefer to get pieces of advice only upon request and they hate when someone puts themselves above. Nobody cares about your experience and the success in life. People want to talk, to be heard and not to get some free lessons. Look fairly at yourself. Are you so successful and rich to teach everyone to live a better life? If you are not, stop doing that.

You are searching for a perfect partner

Have you already imagined an ideal person to the smallest detail? In any case, you should understand that this person lives only in your head, they are the result of your imagination. You can try to find them, but you can spend the whole life looking for them. You narrow the worldview and reduce your chances to meet a really good person.

You are a narcissist in the final stage

If you don’t stop considering you the most important person in the world, you will not find a beloved partner because all your love is concentrated around yourself. Stop thinking about only your wishes and look around. People want to get love back.

You don’t watch your appearance

People make their opinion at the first sight at your outfit and someone of them even doesn’t want to pay attention to your sharp mind. Nobody dreams about a bad-looking person. First, love yourself and then other people will love you.

From Poland, With Love (Part 2)

Daniela,

First of all, DO NOT waste money on coming to Bangalore. DO NOT. This is NOT a moment for taking impulsive decisions. These are challenging times for you, and whatever is the ultimate outcome, if you want to handle this situation the best way, you need to think with a very clear head. Feel your emotions – you have to. That’s what they’re meant for. But don’t let them influence your decisions in any way. You have to promise yourself that.

Let me tell you a story. In India, every week a few couples across the country commit suicide realizing they can’t marry each other due to parental/societal pressure. We all read about them in newspapers. Not one of us has ever come across an incidence of a parent committing suicide because their child won’t marry as per their wishes. So you can rest assured, Karthik’s mother will not commit suicide over you. All this rhetoric about suicide is nothing but emotional blackmail – a very dirty but very common technique used by Indian parents to force their children into giving up their freedom. Karthik probably knows that already. In fact, I’m sorry to sound pessimistic Daniela, but there’s a chance that the incident about his mother wounding herself etc. might not be entirely true. It may be exaggerated.

Photo by romaaaaaa

Having said that, I have to tell you Daniela, I’m sorry but Karthik is a closed chapter of your life. Your relationship has every sign of being on its way to an end. Give up on him Daniela, I’m sorry but realistically speaking, there really isn’t a chance for things to work out.

Karthik sounds like a heart-broken man. He’s tired of fighting against his reality. His reality consists of an extremely conservative society and family which would never accept individual freedom. He just feels powerless against so many obstacles – financial situation, the challenges of finding a job in a foreign country, parental psychological torture, societal expectations, his sense of responsibility towards his family … the list is just endless. His strength is waning. He’s wondering whether it’s worth all the fighting.

Most single Indian men are sex-starved. Very few Indian women would agree to have sex with someone before marriage, even if he’s her boyfriend. Western women are more likely to be OK with it. Hence many Indian men try to seduce Western women just for the sake of sleeping with them.

But let me tell you – Karthik is NOT one of them. If it’s any consolation, Karthik really, honestly loved you and cared for you (he probably still does). I’m confident because, #1. your relationship was almost entirely long distance, you were never in any position to have much sex with each other. #2. He’s tried talking to his parents about marrying you, which shows he really was serious. So you can at least rest assured that you’ve not been duped or taken advantage of. It has been so far a genuine, honest relationship based on love and caring.

You’re an honest & caring person with a very precious heart. Whatever you do, NEVER fall into the trap of blaming yourself for any of what happened. You’re NOT at fault. There are only two CIRCUMSTANTIAL forces at play here – #1. You’re in far-off countries #2. The conservative culture of India. That’s all. It’s neither your fault, nor his.

You need to stay strong Daniela. Check this: How to Forget Someone You Love: 7 Rules, and this: How to Enjoy Life when You’re Alone.

Photo by anyasmiff

You need every ounce of strength, confidence and self-worth you can summon. Like I said, you’re a wonderful person (as is evident from your story) and if you focus on yourself, you’re certain to create happiness in your life. Happiness may not always come from the sources you thought it would come from. But you need to commit to your own happiness Dan. You need to promise yourself to make yourself happy.

A boyfriend has left? It’s OK. Shift your focus to your career. Give it your 100%. Be emotionally invested in it.

Your career doesn’t give you the satisfaction you want? OK. Shift your focus to that long-forgotten hobby you always wanted to pursue.

You see, life is too short to focus on anything but happiness. Don’t fix your attention on a particular aspect of your life (your crumbling relationship, for example). Fix it on what gives you happiness. If your relationship gives you happiness, great. Focus on that. If not, shift your focus to something that does.

All the best Daniela. I pray for you. May you find all the strength and happiness that you deserve.

-Sulagna

Q&A: How to Get Over a Devastating Break-Up?

Priya and I were friends. I loved her a lot. But she wanted a relationship. Gradually I fell in love too. I allowed myself, ‘cause she came across as an honest person who’d respect my feelings. But after only 4 months she broke up with me abruptly. Devastated, I begged for explanations but received none. Needless to say I have no words to describe my feelings in the months that followed, till I came to know that she had gotten engaged to someone else. I felt may be it was the lack of a formally spelt out commitment of marriage from my side which had broken her trust. To make up for this I confessed everything to my family and got my father to talk to her over the phone. I even invited her to my home to meet my parents (indebted forever to my parents for their understanding and support). She said she was embarrassed and of course, never came.

More than a year has passed since the break-up. At 25 I’m now an unemployed graduate. Sometimes I feel lonely – like I absolutely need someone in my life. I’ve tried getting close to other girls in recent times but whenever I start getting involved the past experience clouds my consciousness and keeps me from proceeding any further. I don’t know if it’s my bias or my bad luck – but whoever I meet comes across as less honest and commitment-worthy than I’d like. It seems having a boyfriend/girlfriend has suddenly become a pretty badge to be worn and flashed around – purely a show-off factor.

“Be positive”, and “one day you’ll meet the love of your life” are nothing but tiring platitudes to me now. I’m unable to find my strength and mental peace. Please help me.

– Dev

Photo by Heaven`s Gate (John)

First of all ,Dev, I think you’re approaching this the wrong way.

Stop “trying to find” love

You’re 25. Your “marriageable age band” hasn’t even started, going by Indian standards. Secondly you shouldn’t even let societal norms dictate your life at the cost of your happiness.

Why do you need to worry about finding someone now?? Always remember the time-tested cliché:

You can’t find love, love finds you.

Stop “looking for it” and “trying to find someone” altogether. Now is the time to concentrate on yourself. Take this time to enjoy your singlehood instead. Love will happen when it’s supposed to happen.

Now. Does that mean it always happens naturally like a bolt from the blue for everyone? If you look around yourself you’ll realize the answer is an emphatic No. But the time to worry about it is at least 5 years away, not now. And five years is a very long time, Dev. Today you have no idea about what your thoughts, feelings, beliefs would be five years hence. For instance if I meet the me of five years ago now, I wouldn’t even recognize her. ;)

The protective shell of emotional unavailability

Having said that, the reason you haven’t been successful in forming other relationships ever after your break up is because you have never been emotionally available ever since.

After we’ve suffered a heartbreak/any sort of emotional trauma, our heart goes into a protective hard shell. We withdraw ourselves emotionally; we come to a state where it seems we’re not able to feel emotions at all. I’ve myself been there so I know. Just as the body develops a scab on a wound to protect the raw skin underneath, the human mind, as its natural immune response, develops a hard, cold protective layer of conscious around its core emotions, ’cause those emotions are still too raw, too delicate after a devastative emotional bloodbath, so to speak.

But the good news is, just as a scab falls off on its own when the wound is fully healed, the mind heals itself and sheds this protective layer around its emotions in due course of time. You don’t need to put in any special efforts for it. But unfortunately emotional wounds take a lot more time than physical wounds to heal. In your case, even after 1.5 years they’re still not fully healed. And you need to wait it out till it happens. Like they say, there’s no cure other than time for your emotional bruises.

Breaking up and what it means

Coming to the emotional pain of your break up, it’s excruciating. I know that.

A break-up is a one of the types of a wide and deep range of disappointments one can experience in course of a romantic relationship. And tell you what – disappointment is an inevitable part of any relationship. We’ve all had our hearts broken in some way or the other in course of our love-lives.

Yes, it happens to everyone. And it’s an unavoidable part of growing up.

Think of people who fall madly in love, get married soon, only to discover that up close their spouse is an entirely different person than what they thought.

You would’ve heard of the phrase “Before marriage men are slaves, after marriage they become slave-masters”? Think of those women who’re intensely wooed by a hopeful admirer, who then becomes her starry-eyed boyfriend upon her reluctant and almost pitiful acceptance, but after marriage undergoes a chameleon-like change to become a demanding boss, so to speak!

Think of those who after twenty years of marriage discover that their spouse had been having sex with their cousin for the last five years?

Now do you realize how easy it should be for your to get over your ex?

Photo by meechellllle

Why your relationship was NOT what you think

You’ve only known her for 4 months. Sure, that doesn’t mean your pain is any less. In fact breaking up at such an early stage is what hurt you so much – because you were still in the initial heady phase of your relationship (called “limerence“). (Guess what – it has happened to me too! I know what the pain is like. Here’s my story: How I coped with being dumped and why that’s NOT going to help you.) But I urge you to appreciate the fact that in the long-term scheme of your life as a whole, you haven’t suffered any real loss.

You’ve not been in a relationship with her for long, so you don’t know if she was “The One” for you or not. (No. “Getting the feeling” that someone is “The One” basis a relationship of 4 months is not the real thing. Ask your married cousins and they’ll tell you – you get to know nothing about a person in that short a period of time, irrespective of what you might feel. There’s only one way to know if someone is The One for you and that’s through being in a relationship with them over years.) So there’s nothing to regret. Someone could have been “the one for you”, have not been and there will be hundreds of other options in the future. I know it’s difficult to dissociate your emotions from your thought process at this point, but when you grow up (no, you haven’t yet, at least not at an emotional level :)), one day you’ll realize this episode doesn’t really matter. It was too short, too insignificant to matter.

Focus on happiness

Always remember the following:

Life is too short to focus on anything but happiness. If it isn’t coming from one source, focus on others.

In this case other sources might include your friends, family, your hobbies, books you read, your everyday learnings from your job search etc. But focus on happiness, not one particular girl who you knew so briefly, who could have been a source of happiness for you, has not been and is hence not so important.

All the best and do write back whenever you want to share any pains/worries/concerns… anything at all. :)