Tag Archives: life

Personal

Is It Really Embarrassing to Have a Boyfriend in 2025? With the wrong man, absolutely yes. It is.

Women everywhere have read this question and felt something stir. Because in 2025, it does feel embarrassing to have a boyfriend, not because love itself is shameful, but because of the collective disappointment that often comes with loving men today.

You can be in a relationship that looks loving and stable, and yet carry a quiet fear that it could all change by tomorrow. That uncertainty is not paranoia; it is a learned survival instinct. Modern love has become a balancing act between trust and vigilance. You can never feel entirely safe in it. You can never truly rest. Somewhere deep inside, you know that many men have made it difficult to trust that love will protect you. And only a rare few have proven that they can love with the same sincerity, depth, and emotional consistency that most women do.

It is easy to take a woman for granted, perhaps because her nature is to nurture. She feels deeply, forgives easily, and holds on longer than she should. The world has long justified this imbalance by claiming that men and women are “wired differently,” that their emotional patterns are governed by biology. But in practice, it is women who adapt, who accommodate, who study men to understand their silences and soften their sharpness. Women stretch their empathy wide enough to hold both love and disappointment, until even pain begins to feel like devotion.

Yet the truth remains: it is not having a boyfriend that is embarrassing. It is having a boyfriend who performs love instead of living it. A man who knows the script, the gestures, the words, the public display, but cannot follow through in private where love actually counts.

Modern dating has only made this performance easier. Micro-cheating has become normalized, digital infidelity disguised as harmless engagement. There are now infinite ways to betray someone quietly. A reaction here, a comment there, a private message that blurs boundaries. The world rewards attention, and loyalty has become outdated. What is truly humiliating is not just being cheated on, but being made to feel naïve for believing in exclusivity.

Because when a man gives other women signals, it is not only you he disrespects. It is you he embarrasses. It is your dignity that becomes collateral in his quest for validation. You become the woman others pity, the one whose partner performs devotion publicly but desecrates it privately.

It is the quiet betrayals that erode you: the half-truths, the convenient omissions, the late-night “friendships,” the messages sent under false names. The lies so absurd they almost insult your intelligence, but so consistent they begin to rewrite your sense of reality.

It is the emotional affair that lingers for months while you keep breaking yourself, hoping he will see how much you love him. You keep showing up, keep forgiving, keep hoping, and he keeps taking. You plead for honesty from a man who takes pride in how well he can hide. That is the humiliation, loving someone who turns deceit into sport.

He builds a dream for you, then abandons you to carry it alone. You give everything, your peace, your energy, your stability, for a man who swears he is “trying.” You stay, because love has always been portrayed as endurance. But love cannot save you when you are the only one fighting to keep it alive.

And then, one day, you end up in an emergency room at four in the morning, bleeding and terrified, and he does not come until the next evening. You ask him once, just once, to come with you to change your stitches. He chooses instead to attend an event where his rumored affair partner is waiting. Something like that is not just painful; it is dehumanizing.

You sit at home, watching it unfold in real time. You learn that he tells her you were upset he went, and she weaponizes your pain, mocks you publicly for trying to “stop him from supporting noble causes.” And he lets her. He stands by silently while others ridicule you.

What could be more humiliating than loving someone who allows the world to harm you, and says nothing? What could be more painful than realizing you have been dying for him in silence while he watched, unmoved?

Over time, the dismissal becomes internal. You start silencing yourself. You start thinking maybe you overreacted. Maybe you were too sensitive. Maybe you deserved it. You learn to gaslight yourself into numbness.

That is what women mean when they say it is embarrassing to have a boyfriend in 2025. It is not love that embarrasses us. It is the exhaustion of loving someone who makes you question your worth, your perception, your sanity.

It is embarrassing to love a man who was never going to love you back. It is embarrassing to be loyal to someone who would not defend you or keep you safe. It is embarrassing to let someone dismantle your selfhood while convincing yourself it is love.

The embarrassment does not lie in the emotion itself, but in how recklessly it is handled by those who have never had to earn it.

So yes, maybe it is embarrassing to have a boyfriend now, not because women are bitter or cynical, but because we have learned to see love for what it truly is in this generation: fragile, unreliable, and often undeserving of the devotion we pour into it.

And that is why so many women choose to be single, not out of pride, but out of peace. Because the most humiliating thing of all is not being alone. It is being unseen by the one person you trusted to see you completely.

Standard
Personal

*This is fiction, based purely on a dream.

Let’s call him Mr. T.

We met years ago, in that strange in-between time when I was half healing and half pretending I already had. He messaged me out of nowhere and asked me out. He was already doing well for himself. I was looking for stability, or at least the illusion of it. Saying yes didn’t feel reckless. It felt like an attempt at starting over.

He picked me up in a black Benz, the kind that makes a quiet statement. The car smelled faintly of oud. Loud Hindi music filled the air as he drove, his fingers tapping against the steering wheel. I remember thinking he must be the type who comes alive at parties, the kind who dances without caring who’s watching. The music was blaring though, far too loud for the car’s terrible speakers, and for a moment I wondered if he heard anything at all beyond himself.

He took me to a dim, lifeless café. We shared shisha and small talk, both hollow. He talked mostly about his work, his travels, his own charm. I smiled politely and realized I wasn’t interested. There was something performative about him, something that left no room for anyone else. I never called him again after that night.

Years passed. I heard he was seeing someone new. She was beautiful.. I remember thinking good for her, then wondering if she saw in him what I had seen. I was lonely, restless, and maybe a little self-destructive. So I texted him.

He replied instantly. Some people never change.

We went out again. This time it wasn’t dinner or shisha. We drove until the streets were empty, stopping in a ghostly patch of moonlight where even the air felt still. Same car. Same faint oud scent.

And then I did something that, even in the dream, felt unreal. I leaned over the hood of his car and let him. It was raw and detached, like watching myself play a role I didn’t audition for. When it was over, I sent a clip to his girlfriend from a fake account, which I had taken of us, with the message, ‘come get your man’.

Pure evil. The kind I’d never even imagine doing in real life.

He found out. Of course he did.

That evening, the roads were heavy with traffic, headlights streaking across puddles like restless thoughts. I followed him to the same spot where it happened. He was standing outside his car, angry, pacing. I hid across the street, watching.

And suddenly, in the logic of dreams, I was holding a gun.

I fired first, missing him on purpose. The sound was deafening. He froze for a moment, then pulled out a gun of his own. He fired back. The bullets cut through the air, hitting the ground near my feet. I dropped, feeling the vibration of each shot echo through the earth. I wasn’t sure if he was warning me or trying to kill me. After the third bullet, I decided it didn’t matter.

I aimed at his chest and fired.

He fell.

The silence after was unbearable.

I got up and walked up to his car and drove away. My hands were trembling against the leather steering wheel. My reflection in the rearview mirror looked like a stranger.

As I drove past police officers directing traffic, I could feel my pulse in my throat. I kept thinking there was no way I’d get away with this. There were cameras everywhere, even in the car. I wondered why I had done it, why I had gotten into his car, why I hadn’t just walked away.

But then another thought crossed my mind, maybe the longer I delayed turning myself in, the longer I could pretend I was still free.

So I kept driving.

The night air felt heavy. My eyes started to blur with exhaustion. All I could think about was my bed, the way the sheets felt, the quiet comfort of sleep. I knew I’d never feel that again.

That was my last thought before I woke up.

Standard
Personal

My sleep has been fucking with me, I swear. I’ve had trouble sleeping at night ever since I was 13. Somehow, I’ve managed to hold down jobs and live a responsible life through most of those years, but ever since the pandemic, it’s like my sleep has taken on a life of its own. Every year, there comes a phase where it just gets really bad.

I wouldn’t call it insomnia exactly—it doesn’t feel that severe—but for the past few days, my bedtime has been around 6 or 7 pm. The problem is, I keep waking up at 12 or 1 am. If I’m lucky, I get five hours of sleep. Even on the rare nights when I manage to fall asleep at 11, I’m wide awake by 4 am. It’s brutal, especially during workdays, because by 10 am—when the day really starts—I’m already running on fumes.

The funny thing is, weekends are the complete opposite. I end up falling asleep around 6 am and sleep like a baby till 6 pm. No interruptions, no waking up in between. It’s almost ironic. Tonight, what woke me up was a dream—I don’t even remember it clearly, just that something loud happened in it, and suddenly I was awake.

My therapist and I have been trying to figure my sleep out for years now. I’m seriously contemplating sleeping pills, even though they terrify me. But at this point, it feels like the only way to regain some control is to medically induce it.

When I think about it, my fascination with staying up all night started early. Back then, the days were chaotic, but the nights were peaceful. I felt bad not enjoying that quiet, so I unknowingly made a habit out of staying awake. I used to tell my mom I studied better at night—but honestly, I was just on my phone talking to people.

It’s funny how the habits you form as a teenager can shape your life without you realizing it. My body clock got its default settings back then, and now, years later, I’m still trying to rewrite them.

Standard
Personal

Been feeling so uninspired lately. I find myself at a loss for words, literally, thinking way too hard to find the right one to match what I’m trying to say. I know I have to start reading books again before I forget everything I know.

But this lack of inspiration is alarming. It’s not something I ever thought I’d experience. Every little thing used to inspire me. And now, nothing.

And of course, I know why. I’ve been walking on eggshells, protecting people’s feelings, and holding back from writing everything I feel. I’ve imprisoned myself.

At least that proves I’m not the cold, heartless bitch I sometimes make myself out to be, following what others say. I’m just at a point in my life where I tolerate far less than I used to. I’m very sure of what I want and need, and when that doesn’t align, it pisses me off.

And that’s valid too, because I’m exhausted. I’ve exhausted myself trying to build people, and I’m left wondering when it’s my turn.

That’s such a deep question, right? Like chat would say, it is. Because everything in my life right now boils down to that. The security I’ve lacked my whole life, the one I hoped I’d find someday, and all these years later I still haven’t found. And now I’m trying to be okay with the fact that I’ll have to be enough for myself. I’ll have to buy myself all my dreams. No one else will. Shrinking yourself for other people’s needs only lets them take you for granted. And I’ve said this before, but because you seem fine alone, no one really tries hard enough to love you or take care of you. I mean, why would someone care about someone who looks like they’re doing perfectly fine? But that’s the point. If you loved me, you still would.

It just feels really shitty, being somewhat shamed for wanting the kind of stability and security I’ve never had my whole life, for having dreams, and for being human about it when things don’t go as expected. It’s like walking out of a movie during the best part, and the person who’s supposed to get it just doesn’t. I want a sense of remorse, an apology that says, I’m sorry for the impact my actions have had on your life. And maybe that’s the same apology I’ve wanted from my father too. Both are apologies I’ll probably never get, at least not in the heartfelt way I wish I could.

Standard
Personal

I Fell, Nobody Stopped

December 6, 2023

For as long as I’ve known the Instagram Stories feature, I’ve shared every fragment of my life there. Every fleeting thought, every tiny moment that stirred emotion somehow found its way online. If something happened that felt significant, I would tweet about it too. I used to process life by turning it into words. Sharing was how I breathed.

But lately, it’s been different. I’ve been keeping things to myself. Living slower. Choosing silence over explanation. I have been more private, even secretive at times, and surprisingly, I feel no emptiness in that quiet. It feels like peace in a way that noise never did. Yet even in silence, my life has been far from calm.

For weeks, I had been feeling like my heart was quietly breaking a little every day. Not from a single event, but from something invisible, something unnameable that lingered beneath everything I did. I couldn’t point to where the pain came from, but I could feel it spreading through the small spaces of my day. When your heart is already heavy, even the smallest things start to feel tremendous.

That evening, I decided to take myself out. After finishing at the gym, I thought I deserved a little peace, a quiet dinner, something nice. I had been craving sushi for days, so I thought I’d treat myself. I went home, showered, put on a simple but put-together outfit, added a touch of makeup, and wore my favorite heels. The kind that make you feel good about yourself even when life doesn’t.

While I was finishing up, my ADHD brain couldn’t stop thinking about a bag I’d seen earlier that day at Miniso. It was perfect for my outfit, and the thought of it wouldn’t leave me alone. I also wanted to bring Chandler Bing’s memoir, which I had just started reading. The book was big, so I needed a larger bag to fit it in. That settled it. I would stop by Miniso first, pick up the bag, and then head to dinner.

It wasn’t far, just a few blocks away, and I decided to walk. The heels I wore weren’t meant for that kind of walk though. They were ALDO lucite clear heels, fragile but beautiful, the kind that look like they belong on red carpets, not Malé pavements. I hesitated before stepping out because I knew how uneven the roads were, but they looked too good to take off. So I decided I would walk slowly, carefully, and with purpose.

The traffic was heavier than usual that evening. It was around 8:20 pm, on Ameenee Magu, at the zebra cross in front of Rehendhi Flats — a route I took almost every day. I’m always cautious when crossing, and I always make sure to use the zebra cross. Usually, the cars stop. Usually, it’s fine. But that night, it wasn’t.

I checked both sides as usual, waited for a small break in the traffic, and started walking. I was almost at the other end of the cross when I felt it — a sudden jolt, like the air being punched out of my body. I didn’t even see it coming. A bike hit me, and the impact threw me forward a few steps. My heel slipped, my arm burned, and my heart began to pound in a way I’ll never forget. I had a small fall and felt like the ground had disappeared under me.

For a moment, I stayed there frozen, disoriented, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Then came the pain. Then the tears. They streamed down uncontrollably. My body shook. I was humiliated, terrified, and aching all at once.

And no one came.

Not a single person stopped. Not a single person even asked if I was okay. The road was full of people, cars, and bikes, but I stood there alone in the middle of it, invisible.

I remember thinking how ironic it was. These were the same people who post about kindness and empathy online. The same ones who speak so passionately about justice and humanity. But when someone just a few feet away needed help, everyone chose to look the other way. That realization hurt almost as much as the accident. It was dehumanizing.

I picked up my heel from the middle of the road and limped to the pavement, trying to steady my breathing. I caught a glimpse of the man who had hit me — he had a girl sitting behind him on the bike. They looked shocked too. They paused for a few seconds, maybe unsure of what to do. But before I could even gather myself enough to say something, they were gone.

Just like that. Gone.

No one cared. No one said a word. The world continued moving, as if nothing had happened. And so, like everyone else, I pretended too. I put on a brave face, wiped my tears, and started walking again. A few blocks down, I called the police. The phone rang endlessly before someone picked up. I told him I wanted to report an incident. He listened, then told me I’d need to go to the nearest station and file it in person if I wanted it to be looked into.

How convenient.

I hung up. And somehow, I still went to Miniso. I don’t know what part of me thought that was the right thing to do, but maybe I just needed to hold on to some part of the plan, something ordinary. My hands were still trembling when I picked up the bag. The cashier looked at me like she wanted to ask what was wrong but didn’t. I couldn’t even find words for what was wrong.

By then, I felt unbearably alone. I didn’t know who to call. I called a friend first, but she didn’t answer. Out of desperation, I called my ex. I knew he would come. And he did. I appreciated it, but the moment I saw him, a strange sadness washed over me. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because this was not who I wanted to need, but he was all I had.

At the police station, they took my statement and asked me to wait. I sat there for fifteen minutes, still crying quietly, my arm throbbing from the impact. When an officer finally came back after watching the CCTV footage, he said something that I will never forget. He said, “You didn’t really look properly before crossing, did you?”

It took me a few seconds to process what I’d heard. I had crossed from the zebra cross. I had checked both sides. I had done everything right. Yet somehow, the story they chose to see was that I was careless.

I remember feeling my chest tighten. My tears came back, not from pain this time, but from how quickly someone could dismiss what I had just gone through. I felt so small sitting there, like my experience didn’t matter at all.

A few moments later, a female officer came out to speak with me. She was kind — the only person that night who seemed to care. But even her words hurt. She told me there wasn’t much they could do. It wasn’t a “serious enough” accident. The most they could do was find the driver and give him advice.

Advice. That was all my pain amounted to.

In that moment, something inside me shifted. Everything I had been feeling for weeks finally made sense. The world is unfair. It moves fast. It doesn’t stop for anyone. Being human means being vulnerable, and being vulnerable often means being unseen.

That night, I went home feeling smaller than I ever had. I kept replaying the moment in my head — the sound of the bike, the shock, the silence that followed, the faces that turned away. I realized how fragile safety is, and how quickly it can be taken from you.

________

A few weeks later, someone from the police called again. They said they had reviewed the footage properly this time and confirmed that the rider was in the wrong. It gave me a small sense of validation, a soft confirmation that I wasn’t imagining my pain.

But by then, I had already learned the real lesson.

The world doesn’t stop when you get hurt. It keeps moving. People keep walking. Cars keep going. You are the only one who stands still. And sometimes, all you can do is pick yourself up, put your heel back on, and keep walking home — even if your legs are still shaking.

Because that’s what it means to be human. To be fragile, to be forgotten, and still keep going anyway.

Standard
Personal

I like to think I’m healing. Despite the missteps and moments of doubt, I know I’m on the right path. I’m self-aware. I know where it hurts, and most of the time, I even understand why it hurts.

But healing brought something I didn’t expect—the loss of feeling. The absence of blind love. The instinct to emotionally detach from anyone who doesn’t serve me. And that’s not who I used to be.

I used to be the “love me, choose me” girl. But more often than not, I was too okay with not being chosen. Too understanding. I handed out free passes to people who didn’t deserve them, letting them toy with my heart without consequence. I used to feel everything so deeply. And now, I feel almost nothing.

I’m not in love anymore. Not even with the idea of it. And honestly, I don’t know if I even remember what love is supposed to feel like.

This relationship taught me some of the best and worst things about myself. That’s what relationships do—even when they don’t work, they reveal. In the beginning, it showed me how unconditional my love could be. How forgiving, nurturing, caring, and trusting I was capable of being.

Until I wasn’t.

Until I finally saw things for what they were. And when that clarity came, it was too late, but somehow still on time. Because then I remembered something I’ve always known about myself—how cold I can be. How quickly I can shut down. And when I do, you’d question whether I ever loved you at all.

Still, I want to be in love again. But this time, with someone who treats me right. I want to feel excited again. I want butterflies. I want to feel silly and childish and consumed by that wild, intoxicating infatuation. Because the absence of all of that? It’s starting to feel like emptiness.

Standard
Personal

I feel so deeply uninterested. Nothing excites me. Nothing feels new. There’s nothing I’m looking forward to.

Sometimes, I feel most alive when I think about certain paths I’ve walked before. But there’s no real desire to retrace those steps either.

It’s been like this for a while. I try to put myself out there, but there’s a quiet resistance inside me—a kind of empathy that holds me back. I try to reason with myself, and I know it’s okay to take time, but still… I just can’t do it yet.

My therapist asked me if I feel like I lose a part of myself with every relationship that ends. Like something inside me dies with them. I had never really thought of it that way. But I told him this: every breakup leaves behind a different version of me. Some made me stronger, some left me feeling less.

The only connection I’ve felt recently was the one that promised something permanent the moment I replied. And because it happened so easily, I thought it wouldn’t be that hard to feel that way again. But it is. Nothing sparks. Nothing glows. Nothing ignites anything inside me.

Maybe that’s why I keep looking back. The most thrilling parts of my life were often the moments I wasn’t supposed to be living. The ones laced with risk, spontaneity, and just enough secrecy to make them unforgettable.

I remember giving them a time and waiting. Wondering if they’d show up. Wondering if they’d be early, late, or not come at all. One always came right on time. The other was barely there and always late.

Maybe they’ll always be my favorite mistakes. Both of them made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time. But only one gave it back to me fully. With him, it was like we felt the same things at the same time, and there was no running from it.

June 2019. A time I’d relive in a heartbeat. It looks even more perfect from this distance, but I know it wasn’t. It was always wrong. And maybe I should feel ashamed, but I wasn’t. Because I didn’t demand anything. I didn’t push. I just went with the flow. And I was okay with that—because for the first time in a long time, someone made me feel alive again.

Standard
Personal

I Carried It Alone

Even if they could pretend it never happened, I couldn’t. Even if she told me I shouldn’t tell people about it, I couldn’t help but speak. Because the one person who couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen was me. It happened to me. And I was dying for someone to see it. I was aching to be seen—held, embraced, even as my wounds were still bleeding. It had cut me in places I hadn’t even realized at the time. I was unaware that it would ache silently forever—for the part of me that died.

I was too young to know any better. So when I told people, maybe they didn’t see it as something that happened to me. Maybe they just saw what I had become after. And because that’s how they saw me, that’s how I began to see myself too: utterly ruined.

I shouldn’t be thinking about it now, but it’s Monday again—my weekly therapy day. Last session ended with us unpacking that trauma, and I’ve been left to reflect. To remember how it felt. To remember how it happened.

But all week, I didn’t really drown in it. I don’t think I even tried. I’m wired to push it down. And I do it so well that I start to ask myself—was what happened really that big of a deal?

These are the memories I never sat down to recall, just kept running from. So much so that I barely remember half of it. I just remember myself, standing there—dead inside. On the outside, I barely moved. I swear I had no movement of my own. Everything was done to me. I was fifteen. My life hadn’t even properly started, and I already felt ruined.

It felt like the ultimate betrayal. Like I had betrayed myself. Like I had failed to protect me. I felt responsible. I had been manipulated and isolated so completely, I didn’t even believe there were people who could—or would—save me. So I quietly endured it. Months of abuse, manipulation, and hostility.

That one thing that happened became the cornerstone of everything else that followed. It shaped me. It shaped my relationships. It shaped the relationship I had with myself. The trauma alone was unbearable—but the second-hand trauma, the one from never being allowed to process or speak of it properly, was even heavier. My behaviors became patterns—trauma responses I didn’t even recognize until now, seventeen years later. Longer than I had been alive when it happened to me. The trauma is older than I was when it first occurred.

I was forced to bury the pain so deep that I began questioning it. Did it really hurt? That planted the seeds of a lifelong struggle. Not having anyone validate my trauma meant I started doubting everything. While others moved on, I stayed frozen. Broken. And this became the beginning of me questioning reality itself. Was what I felt real, or was it all in my head?

My thoughts split into two ends, always pulling at each other. I could never quite be sure of anything. And that uncertainty—of myself, of my own mind—felt like a curse. My sense of self failed to exist.

I was never taught to love myself. So I never really valued me. I barely even saw me. I didn’t care about how I felt. I was conditioned to overlook myself, and others followed suit. I was invisible. And for the rest of my teenage years and into my twenties, I only saw myself through the eyes of others. If they didn’t see me, I didn’t exist. Their validation was my only evidence of being alive.

Surely, there couldn’t have been a worse way to live through those years—but that’s how they were.

And maybe—just maybe—the reason I give so many chances to people who hurt me is because I had to forgive my perpetrators. And if I can live with that, how hard can the rest be?

Standard
Personal

Is It Too Late to Dream of Love?

Is there an age where it becomes embarrassing to still want the love you dream of? A quiet shame that creeps in when you find yourself hoping for a fairytale ending—like if it hasn’t happened by now, maybe it never will?

I don’t think it’s about a lack of options. It’s not that there aren’t enough men in the world. But there’s definitely a scarcity of men with the right intentions. And I’ll be the first to admit—sometimes I don’t even let the kind ones in. The ones who are gentle, who show up, who don’t play games. My heart rarely ignites for them. And maybe that’s on me.

This is the paradox I live in.

I fall for those who unsettle me. Who throw my nervous system into chaos. Because that’s what love looked like to me growing up. Unpredictable. Unstable. It’s what I knew. It’s what felt familiar. So now, when someone comes along and treats me with genuine care, I often feel… nothing. No spark. No pull. Just a strange hollowness.

Because healthy love feels boring. Steady feels boring. And god, how I envy the people who flourish in peace—those who are at ease when things get calm, when love slows down, becomes routine, becomes real.

The love I’ve known is messy and loud and intoxicating. At first, it feels like a high. The uncertainty, the chase, the edge—it keeps me awake. It keeps me wanting. It feels like the only kind of love that exists for me.

And I hate that.

Living with a personality disorder doesn’t define me, but it shapes me. It shapes how I love, how I attach, how I respond to safety and chaos. I’m not trying to make it my identity, but I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t left fingerprints all over my life.

At some point, you have to be honest with yourself. Maybe I’m just wired differently. Maybe what’s supposed to feel like home never quite will. Maybe my kind of love exists outside the lines of normal—and that’s something I’m still learning to sit with.

Standard