Of relatonships, and love.

Paul: Holly. I’m not gonna let you do this I’m in love with you.

Holly: So what?

Paul: So what? So plenty! You belong to me!

Holly: No. People don’t belong to people.

Paul: Of course they do!

Holly: I’m not gonna let anyone put me in a cage.

Paul: I don’t wanna put you in a cage, I wanna love you!

Holly: The same thing!

I officially no longer know anyone who is not single, like me. There’s something wrong with me.

And not because I’m single. And not because I don’t have a love-life. And not because I’m not in a relationship.

It’s because I want none of the above.

I’ve tried to rationalize it, to understand it. But there’s nothing that has traumatized me. It’s not cynicism. It’s not bitterness. It’s not even disinterest. It’s just something I don’t want or need.

Do I want a relationship for the companionship? No, not really. Other people exhaust me. Even going out with my family is sometimes difficult, because I would much rather stay in my room and read a book or chat with a friend online or watch a TV show.  Meeting friends leaves me emotionally drained, no matter how much fun I have. Socializing panics me, and the nervous hyper energy that results gives the illusion of gregariousness. So no, I’m rather fond of the idea of moving into my very own apartment, living completely on my own some magical day.

So I need a relationship for love? Absolutely not. I’ve made the mistake of centering myself, my life, my personality, my whole being around individual people, attaching all importance to them, and falling apart the second my relationship with those people frayed. It took a lot of hard work to realize and understand that for every single person I lose in my life, there are so many people remaining who love me and would do anything for me that I shouldn’t even feel the loss of that one person. Sure, those people are friends, family, children, cats. But love is love, no matter what. The form changes, but the substance remains. I need love and affection, in no specific form precisely.

And it certainly doesn’t give me happiness. I mean, my personal past aside- some details even I don’t publish online- relationships don’t precisely affect my happiness in any way. Well, they do sometimes make me miserable. Sometimes, they make me cheerful. But happy, no, not precisely, no. Food makes me happy. Writing makes me happy. Winters and rain makes me happy. Relationships, not so much.

Everyone has to settle down some day, you think. Part of settling down is marriage, you think. Yeah, no, not really. That may be the case for some people, but not all. And I’m not some people, not by a long shot. My opposition to marriage has a lot to do with how unnecessary and in a Pakistani context, problematic it is. I do not at all feel safe or secure considering marriage under current Pakistani laws. And if something makes me doubt my own security, then I’m not inclined towards it, obviously.

Children? I’ve done my research. Single women can and do adopt in Pakistan. It’s difficult, more difficult than it is for normal couples but hey, that just makes the feminist in me snarl and say, bring it on. And I actually do want to adopt. I don’t intend to procreate, not at all. I consider procreation to be an extremely selfish act. But I absolutely love children, I think they’re beautiful and amazing and so full of life, and for that reason alone, I want to adopt a child someday, because every child deserves love and family, and many children do not have that, and I want to give such a child a home because I don’t care whose blood she or he is, I’ll love them and they’ll be my children, no matter what our blood says.

That wraps up all the traditional reasons for relationships and marriage. Honestly, I genuinely cannot fathom why there is so much social pressure to BE in a relationship. I feel like I’m living some sort of soap opera where everyone is cool and single, and then suddenly even though they’re still cool, they’re also in a relationship, and I’m the only one who doesn’t conform, who isn’t the way people are supposed to be.

Whether it’s an old girlfriend who’s met her first boyfriend and will typically marry him, or friends in foreign countries with more independent, individualistic relationships, or friends with long-distance relationships, slowly, everyone has “fallen in love” so to speak, if not conformed. I haven’t and I don’t want to. I wrinkle my nose in disgust at people’s stories, because tales of companionship nauseate me. I wonder how people can live together and not hate each other. I wonder why people, especially women who are strong and independent-minded individuals have any need for a relationship in the first place. And how do all these people find the time to balance work and studies with all this love business? Ugh.  My sole priority right now is getting my life together, because it’s been in shambles for too long and I need to fix it because I can’t be one of those people who are miserable and thus lash out destructively at everyone around them.

I find it difficult to deal with people’s reaction to my my relationship aversion. If you’re a Pakistani girl, you’re sure to have heard many times, from many people, the typical “oh all girls say they don’t want to get married until their parents make the perfect match for them/until they meet someone special.” I find it exceptionally disrespectful to hear this in particular, because in the Pakistani context, relationships=marriage, and as a feminist, I find the concept of marriage problematic and within the country’s context, patriarchal and highly misogynist as well. I do not at all approve of the idea that I need to tick a box on a religious marriage contract, whereby my to-be husband gives me “permission” to practice my right of divorce; moreover, I find the family and marriage laws of the country quite distasteful and I do not at all, feel safe in signing away my rights and freedoms so easily. When I’m told that I’m just “going through a rebellious phase,” in that condescending, patronizing tone we’re all so familiar with, you’re not just reducing an adult woman to a “rebellious teenager,” you’re also being disrespectful to said adult woman. While I do not respond to such people, only because I feel that if they’re not open-minded enough to be curious when confronted with different ideas instead of just mocking them, then it shows a lack of critical thinking skills, and I prefer to speak to people who speak with logic and rationality, and are not hostile to any opinion or idea which deviates from “normal.”

A friend pointed out that even those who found relationships silly changed their minds because they fell in love. Because love just hits you in the face, this great, fantastic event that happens and changes everything. Well, that’s cute and sweet and all, but I really don’t want any part of it. Neither did I, he said, but then “it” happened. No one wants to be hit by love, specially people who hold similar opinions. And yet, even if you’re not the sort of person waiting to be whisked away into a faerietale, it still happens.

What troubles me is that I actively avoid any situation that requires unnecessary socializing, and that I’m quick to smile and lie with, “I’m flattered, but I already have a boyfriend,” and that too, to guys I actually do like. Thankfully, such occasions are few and far between since I’m really not the sort of girl that piques male interest. But my instinct towards relationships remains one of fight or flee, and I remain determined to be alone for my entire life. But judging by everything I see around me, that’s not how people work and it’s not how I’m supposed to be. It’s troubling and leaves me feeling alienated and out of place, an awkwardness I haven’t experienced much since high school. I’m not really obsessing about it the way this entire blog makes it sound like, but yes, every now and then, I do stop and wonder, and ask myself if there truly is something wrong with me.

My perspective on love isn’t normal. Not what’s acceptable as normal, at any rate. I’m past white knights and happy endings. I don’t believe there are happy endings in matters of the heart, because I believe that love is something so intense, and so violent, that its unsustainable. My idea of love is Satine and Christian in Moulin Rouge; come what may until my dying day oh and oops, it actually IS my dying day. Or Brokeback Mountain, where love transcends the confines of gender and sexuality and yet, you still spend your lives apart and then one of you dies. It’s the Bollywood movies where the guy is racing to the airport and he and the girl are right next to each other in their cars, at the airport, over and over, and yet never seem to catch the other’s eye or see the other, and only, the ending doesn’t have them finally seeing each other, the ending has the girl going off and the guy heartbroken. It’s The Crow: Stairway to Heaven with the girl dead and the guy stuck in a half-life battling bad guys on the earth. Its City of Angels, because I love Nicolas Cage, giving up heaven only to learn that the woman you did it for has died. It’s Cruel Intentions, because there will always be people who don’t want you to be happy. It’s Closer, ffs, I mean you can’t get nearer to a twisted story about love and relationships other than a movie with Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, and the ever spectacular Keira Knightley.

I’m not Holly Golightly at the end of the movie. For one thing, I would die before I sent my darling cats out in the rain just to make a point. For another, I certainly wouldn’t do so in the middle of the street, where those goddamned stray cats can beat my babies up. I’m not going to let them go and then have some sort of epiphany about love. I’m going to give a Kif-like sigh (Futurama reference for the geeks) roll my eyes, grab the cat, and scratch her tiny  head while watching cartoons or reading a book. To you, it may sound sad, but to me, its bliss. Holly gets the guy at the end. For me, the story ends at the conversation in the cab. I don’t want to cage you, I want to love you. It’s the same thing! That’s it. That’s where the story ends. Paul gets out of the cab after his tantrum and leaves. And as pretty as his ring is, it’s a diamond, and so much for love, the idiot doesn’t even know that I hate diamonds and would never marry someone who doesn’t even know something so small about me, and I’ll put it away and mail it or something to him later. Thank you Paul, I’m flattered, you’re sweet and nice and all the rest, but so long and good night.

That’s my story, and I need it to remain this way. Right now, I just really, really hope that I won’t look back on this in the future and pity myself, or think I was wrong, or change my opinions because I’m in a relationship. I really don’t. I really hope that if future me reads this, she realizes she’s being an idiot and immediately breaks it off with the dude and remembers the woman she truly is. Knowing that all this negates the norm in so many ways, a norm that can be reformed into something less patriarchal and less dependent, and still wishing to abstain…

I don’t have a word for how that makes me feel.

But I know what my story is, and how it should be. I suppose that’s more than most people can hope for, right?