I Don’t Want To Be In The Grey Zone With You Anymore

It began the day I met him, he was the guy talking to the crowd in the party, holding everyone spellbound with his fascinating stories. I was hanging back in a corner, looking to make a quick exit. Parties were not my scene, but this one was important. It was the celebration of our company scoring a new project. As a member of the team responsible for getting that project, I had to be there. This man I was eyeing was a charming inspirational speaker, travel-blogger who was there to rouse everyone’s spirits. After a while, when the crowd had thinned out, I saw him approaching my corner with a colleague. She introduced me to him, “Shalini, this is Nirvaan. He was asked by the corporate to be the emcee of this party.” I looked at him and passed a perfunctory smile. Within a few minutes, he had managed to make my indifference vanish. I found myself deep in conversation with him when a friend nudged me to tell me that it was time to go home as the party was in its last leg. As I got up to go, we exchanged numbers with a promise to keep in touch.

To New Beginnings

The next morning, I got up to a notification on my phone. It was a text from him. I was immediately put in a good mood and responded to the text with enthusiasm. Throughout the day we kept texting, with the constant pings of my phone annoying everyone in the office. I think what was more annoying was the way I would grin from ear to ear, with each of those pings. We made a plan to catch up after work with him making a promise to treat me to the most awesome chai and pakodas in the world. It was at a nondescript tapri in a very popular part of the town, and the pakodas were actually amazing, or maybe the company was.

Soon, it became our thing. He would take me to these amazing little-known gems in different parts of the city, and as an eager neophyte I would take in every little detail that he would point out to me. These outings became quite frequent, so much so that my parents started asking me where I was spending my time all this while. I had stopped seeing my friends and seldom hung out with colleagues in office, bailing out at the first chance I would get.

Whatever was going on between me and Nirvaan was new and exciting, and I did not want to give it up for the world. Our outings had also taken a new turn, we would make out while out and about in the town, making the most of our surroundings. Physical intimacy became a regular component of these outings. Even though nothing was said, no promises or commitments were made, I went along with it simply because I had slowly but surely fallen in love with him. However, I had no idea I was signing a deal with the devil who would leave me hanging in a limbo.

The Red Flags That I Never Noticed

Over the course of six months, these outings became infrequent, and our meetings became limited to a few hours of physical intimacy. I am not saying that I was an unwilling partner in those late-night romp sessions. I went along with them because I just wanted to hold on to whatever version of him I could find. So this was okay. However, it did bother me that all these “Netflix and chill” sessions were scheduled at his convenience. I would often find him scrolling down beautiful women’s Instagram profile, raining compliments on them. But with what authority could I ask any questions, after all, we never had the “talk”.

All the important people in his life were unaware of my existence, while the ones in my life assumed him to be a figment of my imagination. You see, he was never there when I needed him, but would magically appear when he needed to get his itch scratched. This pattern continued for the longest time possible.

But Now I Want Out

As I see my friends moving on in their lives, it pains me to see that I have been frozen in time. I am not single but then I don’t even have a boyfriend. What I do have is a ghost, a piece of fiction, that keeps slipping in and out of my life when it suits him. I have wasted precious time trying to live vicariously through him. Now I want some structure in my life and I want to remove this deadweight which has been holding me down. I want to be someone’s plan A not the background noise in their life. And if I can’t get that, I want the freedom to explore my options. This attached-unattached thing is not working for me anymore. I have had enough of living in the grey zone.

Love is said to be this crazy, life-changing experience. It teaches us compassion and putting someone else’s need ahead of yours. But you should not have to live your life in the shadows of someone else’s in order to be a suitable candidate for it. First and foremost, learn to love yourself. Only then can you expect someone else to love and value you. Have you ever experienced such grey zones in your relationships? Share your thoughts in the comments section.

Note: The above article is written as narrated to the author.

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