Back in my high school years, I wrote this quote – The most fragile homes are the ones we build in people. Maybe I did not know the depth of it back then, but the movie 500 Days of Summer understands and depicts it just fine.
When Summer says: I like being on my own.
Relationships are messy, and people’s feelings get hurt.
Who needs it?
We’re young and live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world,
Tom replies: I think you know when you feel it.
I guess we can agree to disagree, says Summer, but that does not break the deal for Tom. How could it – wasn’t Summer the woman of Tom’s dreams? And we see how graciously Summer carries the weight of that, but that is not what I want to talk about.
Sometimes, people, for us, become blank canvases on which we paint our hopes and dreams. And these paintings stay put just fine until they start budging. Until they start deferring from what we thought them to be. Sometimes, what we think them to be is so magnificent that we turn a blind eye to everything not in alignment with it.
What happens then? Why do we do that in the first place? This is part II of how broken people love.
“Loneliness is underrated”
“People do not realise this, but loneliness is underrated.“
In my article, A Tryst With Loneliness ft. Eleanor Oliphant, I have discussed how deeply loneliness affects us humans, and how the mind conjures stories for us to dwell in, stories that explain our state, and tell us how we may get out of it.
The idea of finding love in a person is not a new story.
It is so fundamentally embedded in us that we are compulsively drawn to it. We are ready to surrender everything we can offer to it. We will always crave deep human connections, won’t we? And that is why we just cannot digest why they would not want the same. We do not know why they should refuse when we serve our love to them on a platter. We do not know why they should tear our roses petal after petal with words like:
Relationships are messy, and people’s feelings get hurt. Who needs it?
We fail to acknowledge that it may not be about us. They just cannot give us what we want. We convince ourselves they are mistaken. They do not know what is good for them, and we must stay to show them that. For if we do not…we know we will suffer. They may be the ones making the wrong choices, but we will be the ones getting hurt.
So, we let our minds weave stories instead.
A Mirage of Magnificent Dreams
The misery of loneliness is so profound it will take a love so splendid to fix it.
This ‘love’ will not have realism, but glitters, butterflies, and honeylike sweetness.
Freefall shall be the only way into it.
It will take little effort on their part –
- that touching of pinky fingers as they walk beside,
- liking the same songs,
- remembering our favourite coffee,
- talking in breaks,
- laughing at our punches,
- inviting us over on the weekends.
As long as their perfectly-crafted existence complements it, that is.
It is a story, after all, so what it is gingerly woven in solitude, peppered with small appearances from their end, threaded by our prickly gloom? The frenzy is intoxicating. No wonder our crushes are the prettiest, most intelligent, most human, perfect creatures, even though they are not.
In loneliness, the most prominent voice in our heads keeps screaming: no one wants you. Whenever someone gives us a hint of otherwise, we are sold. All they need to show is little effort, and we start walking behind them. After all, we are the ones seeking that adventure, so we take it upon ourselves to make it splendid.
However, even that is not all.
“I guess I’m not just anybody”
The chase cannot continue indefinitely. At some point, you will get drained, lose hope, whine about it and give up. Too much whining and constant despair might have worn off the lustre, but they are also human. They melt sometimes at the acts of tenderness we show.
Their guards fall. They tell us they fear their teeth falling off. So weird, it’s like being an old man. And they dream of falling sometimes. It starts off with them running really, really fast, like superhumans. The terrain starts to get really rocky and steep. They are running so fast that their feet aren’t even touching the ground. They are floating, free and safe, and then they realise – they are completely alone.
These are not stories routinely told, but their inner world few had ever been invited to see. There they were, wanting us there.
Summer: I’ve never told anybody that before.
Tom: I guess I’m not just anybody.
Expectations Vs Reality
Tom to Summer: What are we?
Tom to Summer again (pissed off): What are we? Well, you’re not the only one who gets a say in this, I do, too. And I say we’re a couple.
We have waited too long and drained ourselves. We hate everything about them – all the things that charmed us before. So does Tom. He goes on a date with a random girl and rants about Summer after getting drunk. He says, either she is an evil, emotionless, miserable human being, or she’s a robot. He also tries to replace Summer – he takes that girl to the same bar Summer and he went for karaoke. However, when the girl says:
She never cheated on you,
never took advantage of you,
and she told you upfront what she wanted.
Tom did not have any answer. Her sister and friends had tried to explain to him the same, but when have long-standing addictions ever died in tender conversations? They must shatter. And Tom’s does when he goes to Summer’s rooftop party with his wishful dreams bursting at the seams and sees a ring on her hand.
The Villain
Summer: It just happened. I just woke up one day and I knew.
Tom: Knew what.
Summer: What I was never sure of with you.
Tom does not understand, but I hope we do now. Summer was never inconsistent or unclear about what she wanted. And she cared for Tom – her patience through Tom’s outbursts is proof. When Tom cribs about love and destiny being bullshit, she refutes him. She tries to restore his belief through her story.
And Tom did not love her for who she was. He despised, for what it’s worth, the bits of her past that forged her beliefs about love and relationships. We never see him understanding her distant behaviours. If someone should have been hurt, I would pick Summer.
So, maybe there is a lesson for us here. We must always check whether our desire to be with a person stems from our admiration for them or the mere lack of someone.
We cannot give love to people if our own cups are not overflowing.
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