An Open Declaration of Love

I PULLED my eyes from the dustry window of my room 005C, from the view of that wired-fence that wraps AIT, and watched my room-mate Sarkar, struggled to raise himself from his bed. It was 6 in the evening and he had had his length of the little evening nap. “You can’t get up, Dude.” I pressed my fingers into his shoulder, and he glared at me, his brown eyes wild with sleep. “What is Love ?”, I asked. Startled by this Avatar, he replied, “It's too tricky. You won't understand.”

Why would I not understand ? Am I too bad a thinker ? Or I am too bad a person ? He had just put me into deep retrospection. Am I different ? Or is it just because I think too much ? Or is it because I AM DIFFERENT ?
 If I were asked to define and confine myself using only one term, I wouldn't hesitate long before I chose the word "geek." Not many in AIT would like to be called by that word, but I am what I am. And whether they agree or not, there are a lot of “me” out there, reading this! Yes, this is for you.

I know that it would trigger too many unpleasant memories in your subtle minds, but this is all for men like me: men who wear blinders about the women in their lives, who come on too strong and fall in love with the wrong people over and over.

Love for me was always like that video game: you try to follow the dance moves, and the further you get in the game, the trickier the moves become, until you are just a flailing mess. I was clingy and desperate and wore my heart on my sleeve, falling madly in love repeatedly, only to meet with heartbreaking rejection at every turn.

“God doesn’t give with both hands,” the old cliché goes. I firmly believe this. In my three odd-years of college, I’ve learned that the prettier and more charming the girl, the more vapid the girl’s brain. Those of us not blessed with fashion model looks or disarming charm had to develop (gasp!) personalities to compensate.
I wasn't looking for love; I was looking to live. I had been a geek all my life. By most traditional forms of measurement, I was a very smart and motivated child. I progressed quickly and easily through the school system while effortlessly staying at the top of my class. But life at AIT was different. It was more open. And I fell victim to this life.

I remember David Wood's quote on college:

“College is the best time of your life. When else are your parents going to spend several thousand dollars a year just for you to go to a strange town and get drunk every night?”

Though I didn't get the habit of drinking, but being in the college itself was addictive enough. And with every girl I met and talked, I was in love. Desperation.

This is not the story of “me” alone. I'm sure there are many of you out there. And if you're one of us, here's what I have to tell you, what I wish someone at some point had told me: It's O.K.

It's O.K. to fall deeply for one loser after another. It's O.K. to show up at a girl's house with a dozen roses and declare your undying affection. It's O.K. to have too much to drink and call your ex 20 times and then to be mortally embarrassed when you realize your number must have shown up on her caller ID. It's O.K. to stand at one corner in your room on New Year's Eve, drenched like a sewer cat in the pouring rain, crying your eyes out because the girl you are infatuated with has decided that she needs some space.

It's O.K. because I believe that all of these grand gestures and heroic attempts to follow E. M. Forster's simple advice to "only connect" are not really about this girl or that girl. Making a fool of yourself for love is ultimately about you, how much you have to give and the distances you will travel to keep your heart wide open when everything around you makes you feel like slamming it shut and soldering it closed.

Not to digress into too much pop psychology, but I sometimes think that I never had a chance at being one of those boys who could play it cool. I had always been an emotional kid. And it's O.K. to be emotional and sentimental. It's O.K. It's O.K.