Toxic

We met after so long. He didn't even recognise me. He didn't even look at me. He looked so different from the guy I had seen during school. We barely knew each other. I decided to text him. I've always believed that whatever is happening, God has designed it. But years later, thinking back to the day I met him, after some three years, feels like God had designed it so perfectly for me to NOT meet him and I texted him defying God's design while God facepalmed from heaven. 

So yeah, after few weeks of continuous texting and flirting I realised that he was exactly the kind of person I wanted in my life. Whenever I brought up the topic of solidifying the relationship, he said he doesn't have an economically stable background and I wouldn't be happy with him. So, to prove that of course I am not a materialistic person I proclaimed my undying love for him. I told him I loved him and didn't give two fucks about whether he had a house and heavy bank balance. I told him, whatever we needed in life, we'll achieve it together. Oh! one thing, this realisation hit me while watching a movie where the same scene was played out between the heroine and the hero who later turned out to be the villain. 

Six months into the relationship, I started noticing several disturbing and warring social and political stands he took. I discarded his support for BJP and RSS as something that should not come between us, because politics and life never mixes, does it?!! But the disguised misogyny started pricking my skin. And some homophobic statements that he made while texting also made me gape at the phone in pure horror as a slow smothering feeling of mistake started gnawing at my chest. Random comments started hitting hard. I should be awarded for ignoring red flags the size of a football ground. 

Soon the bickering started. Mostly it was around only some few topics like feminism, homosexuality, politics and child birth and birth control. And one day a very disrespectful comment on my bodily autonomy made me walk out of the relationship; only go back after two days. 

But I soon realised that I had stopped loving him. I thought it was my fault, even though I had all the right to blame him for pushing me this far. The entire relationship started to feel so forced and plastic. The raw chemistry we had earlier, was lost. 

I moved to Hyderabad for PG and soon the next act of drama started. Constant demand for unwavering attention from his side and my inability to give it made me feel like a bitch. Actually, he made sure I felt about myself like that; as though I was being very cruel by not giving him enough time and attention, while I was settling into a new life in a new city with new people. Constant guilt tripping and throwing how I never bothered about what he was doing. Constant suffocation. It took me months AFTER break-up to realise that I didn't knew what he was up to because he never told me. Whenever he talked he used to talk about his other female friends to try and make me jealous. I didn't even register that because I was not someone who got jealous and insecure about where I stood with my boyfriend. But I didn't think of that at that time and apologized to him even during the initial few days after our breakup. 

It took very vulgar and violent acts from his side, post break-up for me stop guilt tripping and start looking after myself. 

It took me a very solid separation and different perspective and his showing me how toxic he can be, to realise that I was manipulated and emotionally abused by the person I loved. I got over it quickly thanks to my friends, but still there were/are times when I beat myself up for letting him manipulate me. I understood what manipulation even was, because of him; I guess I should thank him for that. 

I wasted time, money, love, peace and emotional stability on a person who never listened to me but merely heard me out so that he could talk, who was so unapologetically toxic, who always gaslighted me and who belittled my dreams behind my back AND somehow made me believe that I was a very bad and soulless person, all the while draining my life out of me. But had it not been for the sunrays piercing through the leaden sky, I'd have spent more days loathing myself.