Personal

[From the Diaries]

We stayed back a few extra days after the family left.
It was supposed to be just us. A softer ending to the trip. A reset.

Instead, it became something I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

Things between us have been rocky for a while. If I’m honest, maybe they’ve always been. We had already fought the day before my family left, and after that nothing felt steady. I’m not blameless. I know my attitude can be sharp. I know I react fast when I feel disrespected. I know I struggle to stay calm once I feel dismissed.

That part is mine.

But that night scared me.

It started over something so stupid it almost feels embarrassing to write.

We were playing Monopoly Deal. A game we’ve played a hundred times. Lately he’s been winning a lot, which is fine. It’s a game. But just as we started, I had no money and he had plenty. I asked for rent.

He said, “Just say no.”

I looked at him. “But you have money.”

“That’s what I want to do.”

It was small. Petty. Childish even. But something about the way he said it irritated me more than it should have. It felt unnecessary. Like he was enjoying denying me.

I threw the cards down. Game over.

He started justifying it. Saying he had to play a card. It didn’t make sense. It felt like backtracking just to prove he wasn’t wrong. I got more upset. I started tearing the cards. I was visibly angry now.

And then he said, “I should get this on video.”

I saw red.

I threw the cards at him, grabbed my phone, and started walking out. As I closed the door, I heard him shouting, “Why did you hit me? Why did you hit me?” over and over.

In my head I was thinking: because you tried to record me in my rage. For what? To use later? To show someone? To prove I’m unstable?

The moment I stepped outside, I heard chaos behind me. Loud chaos. Things being thrown. We were practically the only ones staying in that house. Every sound echoed. It wasn’t even our house. It was my brother’s in-laws’ family home.

I had face to lose.

I went down to the pool and sat on a lounge chair, hyperventilating. Angry. Embarrassed. Trying to calm down. I kept asking myself, what has this place become for us?

Then I heard more noise from upstairs.

Still him.

Still loud.

Still unapologetic.

What if someone hears? What if someone comes to check? The shame of that possibility felt suffocating.

Then the door slammed. Minutes later he was walking toward me, still furious. I could see it in his eyes. That deep, hot red anger.

“Why did you hit me?” he shouted again.

He didn’t care who heard.

“Because you tried to video me,” I said.

I don’t think he even heard me.

He kicked my flip-flops with his foot. Kicked the lounge chair I was sitting on. It wasn’t enough to hurt me. It was just enough to intimidate.

It was disrespectful in a way that made my stomach drop.

I stayed quiet.

When he walked away, I went back upstairs.

The room was worse than I imagined. Things everywhere. Not just messy. Thrown. I wanted to take pictures, but I was scared he would see me doing it.

So I started cleaning.

I needed control. I needed something stable. I needed the outside to be calm because the inside of me wasn’t.

As I cleaned, he started throwing more things onto the bed. Packing. Unpacking. Moving with intensity. We were supposed to leave the next afternoon, but everything felt unstable. Like he might walk out at any second.

I said nothing. I kept cleaning.

When the room was spotless, I could breathe again. Just a little.

He came out of the bathroom, shirtless, and tried to hold me.

I resisted with everything in me. I bit him. Pinched him. Grabbed his hair. I screamed that I didn’t want to talk anymore. I didn’t want him touching me. The way he had behaved downstairs didn’t feel like the man I knew.

It felt like a display. Something meant to overpower. Something meant to assert.

I broke free and sat at the desk. I bought an Apple gift card. Completely random. Dissociative almost. Like my brain needed something ordinary to focus on.

The desk was next to the bathroom. I could hear him crying in there.

I didn’t go.

I played music. June Gloom. It was mid-June. It felt fitting.

He came out and closed my laptop. I opened it. He put it away again. I grabbed it. He grabbed it back. I had to beg for my own laptop.

He started slapping himself, saying, “Hit me now.”

His eyes were still red.

I kept my tone flat. Calm. Almost numb. I just kept asking for my laptop until he let go. I grabbed it and came downstairs.

It was only early evening.

I remember thinking: I still have hours to get through.

I wasn’t scared of him exactly. I was scared of the volatility. Of what might happen next. Of the unpredictability.

The next morning was no better. Slamming doors again. I hate that sound. It feels intentional. Like it’s designed to make you flinch.

At the airport, he kept asking if we were really breaking up over a game. Said it was the stupidest breakup ever. Said I was stupid. Said he didn’t care if we broke up.

Then, in the same breath, he asked what he did wrong.

He said even after I hit him he was still here.

He told me not to put my ego above us.

He said he was sorry if he had done anything wrong.

Sorry if.

On the flight, we were seated next to each other. He tried to take selfies by putting his phone in my face. I pushed it away. It fell. He tried again. I pushed it again. People probably saw. I didn’t care.

He kept taking pictures of me. I looked the other way.

Right after takeoff, he moved seats.

And all I could think was this: he does not see himself in this. He only sees the moments I lose my composure. The torn cards. The biting. The hair pulling. My reaction.

Not what builds up to it.

Not the door slamming.

Not the intimidation.

Not the way I felt like I had to survive the night instead of sleep through it.

Maybe in his version I am the villain.

The girl who broke up over a game.

I am fine with that.

Because it was never about Monopoly.

It was about fear.

And I cannot build a life with someone if I have to feel this terrified just to stay.

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Personal

[From the Diaries]

I am honestly so tired of this relationship. I don’t know why I thought you would change. I believed your words. And now I have to carry this weight all over again.

The other week you slipped. You cried. You broke down. I understood. I held space for that.

Two days later, you did the same thing. And that is where I stopped understanding.

I am tired. I am exhausted. From having to mother you. From overthinking every word you say. From carrying the emotional burden of not being able to trust you.

I take my healing and my peace very seriously. These are some of the toughest days of my life, and not once have you truly put me first. Your actions have been selfish. I am completing my thesis, pushing myself to the finish line, without a single ounce of real support from you. And by support, I do not mean solving my problems. I mean at the very least not adding to them.

You do not seem to care that your actions have consequences. And I have been living in the secondhand damage of those consequences for far too long.

I am tired of being the adult in this relationship. Tired of managing the emotions. Tired of managing the chaos. I am exhausted.

I wake up worrying about what you might have done the night before. I wake up bracing myself for whatever new story I will be told. I wake up already drained. This relationship feels like it is slowly killing something inside me.

I have so many other things I should be focusing on. My growth. My work. My future. And yet my energy keeps circling back to you.

I do not understand why your words never match your actions. I do not understand why loving you feels like carrying a constant anxiety.

You cannot be there for me because you do not have yourself together. And I keep asking myself, how much longer am I supposed to wait? For you to step up. For you to be responsible. For you to make sensible plans and actually follow through.

You do not.

There is always instability. Always excuses. Always something unfinished.

This is not what I wanted.

I am just so tired.

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Personal

[From the Diaries]

I never really talk about how bad it gets. There is so much shame around things people do not understand. Anything outside the norm becomes “icky” or “what’s wrong with you?”

But it is just my reality.

Some days are hard to explain. I can usually feel a low coming before it fully lands. It sits somewhere deep in my body. But the timing is never convenient, so I ignore it. I push through. I function.

That is what they call functional depression. You still show up. You still do the things. It almost feels like it operates on your terms. It takes over quietly, and you learn how to coexist with it.

I stayed in bed for over twenty-four hours. The day before, I forced myself to go for a run because the voices in my head were getting louder. I felt uncomfortable in my own body. Restless. Exhausted. I thought moving would fix it.

It didn’t.

It made everything heavier.

I am not paralyzed, but I feel mentally impaired. Like my brain is moving through fog.

And then there is the weight of relationships.

I only have one that truly matters right now. And even that one feels fractured some days. So damaged that I do not know where to begin repairing it.

When I am in these lows, I no longer try to analyze them. I let them wash over me and wait for them to pass so I can feel like myself again. So I can have the energy and the will to exist properly.

And then something happens.

Something small on the surface. But not small to me.

An interaction. A name. A presence that already carries history and discomfort. Old rumors. Old wounds. Old doubts that were supposedly resolved.

Weeks ago, I had already discovered conversations that should not have existed. Explanations that felt thin. Timing that felt suspicious. I wanted them to make sense. I really did. But they didn’t.

And my mental state is not an excuse for anyone to take advantage of my vulnerability.

I am supposed to be with someone who understands me. All of me. Especially the flawed parts. Because they are part of the package.

Instead, I kept uncovering little deceptions. Names disguised. Details hidden. Small acts that required intention. Not accidents. Intention.

When I saw the most recent thing, I snapped. It felt disrespectful. Especially when we are supposedly rebuilding trust.

What shocked me more was that he was angrier at my reaction than at the behavior itself.

He did not understand how it looked. How it felt. How, in the middle of trying to repair something fragile, actions like that feel like someone stomping on glass.

I do not even have the words anymore.

I was already mentally drained.

And now I am just tired.

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Personal

[From the Diaries]

At six in the morning, when you couldn’t sleep, who came to your mind?

We weren’t even fighting.

So at six in the morning, out of the “kindness” of your heart, who did you reach out to? Another woman.

The same woman you’ve been rumored to link with. The one who caused so many arguments. The one you hid in plain sight. An affair you will still never admit to, even as you make me feel stupid for questioning it.

And then this.

You still care about her.

My man does not embarrass me like this. And yet, you already have. So many times.

Chance after chance, only for you to show me exactly who you are. Not who you promise to be. Not who you swear you’re becoming. But who you are.

The lying. The deception. The humiliation.

If only you cared about me enough to pause and think about how I would feel before doing any of this.

Knowing how fragile our trust already was. Knowing that fully. And still, you chose to reach out to her.

I’m sure you reach out to others too. You just forgot to delete this one. That’s the mistake. Not the insincerity. Not the betrayal. Just the incompetence to cover your tracks this time. And you’re usually so good at that.

But here’s the thing. I see right through you. Every time. I always have.

If I chose to believe you, it wasn’t because I didn’t know better. It was because I hoped it would finally be different.

You have hurt me too much for us to continue like this. I have forgiven things that should have been unforgivable. And every time you do something new, the old wounds start bleeding again because they never healed. I just covered them up for you.

So let me go.

Let me go to someone who deserves me. Even if that person is myself.

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Personal

[From the Diaries]

I dreaded coming home.
To the stillness. The emptiness.

Nothing had changed. The furniture was the same. The walls were the same. The air was the same.

Except he wasn’t there anymore.

Work was chaotic as ever. There is no possible way the world should feel this still with the amount of stress sitting on my shoulders. But it did. Without the concept of his existence in my life, everything felt dull. Boring. Pointless.

He was the little bit of purpose I had. Even if it was small, it was still purpose.

Maybe I do love him.

And just like that, I am back in that same indecisive loop. Only this time I have more facts. More clarity. Thanks to the amount of therapy I have had over the past five years.

So now the question becomes: is it love?

Or is it my unhealthy, insecure, anxious attachment style gasping for air like a fish out of water simply because he is no longer there?

I walked so much today my feet are aching. I took the longest route home just to avoid facing the reality that now exists.

I did buy flowers on the way back. I could not bear to look at the dead ones slowly collapsing in my vase at a time when it feels like I am facing a kind of death myself.

Do not misunderstand me. This is not just about a man. Not just about a breakup.

It is about the pain I carry in general. And not all of it was caused by him. I have my own issues. My own wounds. Things I am still working on.

He did not take my pain away. But his presence made me feel less alone in it. On the days I felt rotten, he made it feel survivable.

Now that changes.

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Personal

[From the Diaries]

This is for you to read someday, if you’re ever sober.

I am truly sorry I couldn’t be there for you through your recovery and support you the way I wanted to. I wanted to. But the way you were treating me left my spirit in the trenches.

I was slowly losing myself. My confidence. My ability to have faith. It felt like I was always standing at the edge of a cliff with you, and you would either push me off or jump yourself, just to get away from me. Because you lacked the capacity to comprehend my emotions.

It’s hard to imagine that you were once the man who promised that my smile was all you wanted to see for the rest of your life, if possible. And yet lately, all I’ve found is myself crying hysterically, breaking down with no one to hold me. Wondering how love could feel this way. How someone who swears he loves you, and still says he does, can make you feel nothing but stab wounds.

Every time you hung up on me when I didn’t want to let you go.
Every time you left when I couldn’t bear to be alone.
Every time you drove me to the worst corners of my mind simply through your lack of empathy and compassion.

I miss the man who loved me. I will forever miss him. My heart belongs to him.

I don’t blame you for your condition. But who is going to take care of me while you are throwing yourself away? And not just throwing yourself away, but hurting me terribly in the process. Even when I tell you I am in pain, you feel little to nothing. It’s like your empathy has vanished. And I am left feeling like nothing.

I can’t keep doing this to myself. I am not walking away because I want to be without you. I am walking away because trying to be with you has become the hardest thing I have ever done. You constantly push me away and kick me to the ground. I find myself lying there helpless, like a wounded soldier after war, hoping someone will find me.

But no one will. So I have to take care of myself.

I pray that you find your peace and your path to righteousness. I hope that someday God rekindles your ability to love properly. Most of all, I hope you find your way back to yourself, because he is pretty damn amazing, and the world misses him.

All my love, my baby.

I will try not to call you. But I am weak too. I hope you will be kind to me on the days I lose the battle between my heart and my mind and reach out.

But I will try my best not to.

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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.

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*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.

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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.

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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.

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