THE PERFECT RELATIONSHIP

They say- ‘Perfection is rare!’ 

I don’t agree. Not so rare! 

I see perfection in many things around me. Maybe my definition of perfection and my perception of those ‘perfect’ things is at variance with others.

Still, a perfect relationship ???

A relationship is one of the most overtly over-hyped and mindbogglingly abstract abstraction in the world. Each one of us goes through thousands and millions of different relationships in our life time — starting from parent-child relationship, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, acquaintances,  classmates, teachers, seniors, juniors, school-bus driver, maids, vendors, shopkeepers, doctors, mechanics, barbers, neighbors, neighbor’s wife (especially the hot one); and the list can go on and on.

And still, do we really understand what a relationship is?

As per Norman Stubbs, an eminent philosopher and scientist working on consciousness studies, relationships between various material things, though can’t be defined by any laws of physics, are the real reason behind the evolution of this complete world we see around us, including our own existence and even self-awareness, or consciousness. (How do I always land-up getting everything I talk about so heavily complicated!)

Now, if a relationship is such a weirdly varied and complex entity, then how in the world can one talk about a ‘perfect’ one?

Truthfully speaking, beats me!!!

Don’t know how my mind coined this phrase in the first place. But I can surely narrate the serendipity of events leading to the state of my mind when it happened.

It was more than four years back; I had just moved to Hyderabad and was in the process of settling down in the new job of being a professor in an Engineering College. I was kind of loving it as teaching (read – giving lectures to eager gullible young audience) comes naturally to me. Life was good and having been through pretty rough emotionally taxing roller-coaster rides in my preceding years, I was quite comfortable and at peace with myself with the laid-back routine in the new place.

 I wasn’t too facebook savvy, in spite of it being the hottest rave in town; I just used to login once in a while to check what the people in my friend-list are upto. And that’s where I found her, after so many years.

I don’t remember for sure who found whom, I mean who messaged first—me or her, but as we started interacting, I felt that the years of being out of touch hadn’t faded away our connection much.

We probably started with sharing daily mundane things of our lives and families, moving on to a little heavier topics like religion and God, politics, reservation, science & evolution; even trying to answer the age-old question of man-kind “why and what are we?”. And somehow these topics, as will appear to most, didn’t happen to be so boring while discussing with her. Rather these discussions sort of opened new horizons of knowledge in certain fields thereby evolving our (surely mine) ideas and thought processes. What made it all the more interesting is the openness and ease with which we shared our thoughts and ideas, although debating against each other most of the times.

Over couple of months, we reached a stage where no topic or vocabulary was taboo between us- whether it was the issue of LGBT or the lives of sex workers, even our own sex lives, fantasies and sexual escapades, or use of the ‘F’ word in our conversation. Conversing with her was like chatting up with a close buddy, a bum-chum, with no regard to the gender difference between us. With the frankness in our language and the versatility of the topics, we discussed long and deep into anything and everything; so it was but obvious to develop a kind of mutual admiration; and at times, we went quite verbose on expressing that admiration to each other. To cut short our mutual admiration sessions, she loved to use the phrase – “Now let’s stop sucking each other’s dick.” (My jaw dropped to the floor the first time she said that😅)

You would say that openness in language over discussions on varied topics cannot be the complete recipe of a perfect relationship.

I agree! 

You would say that a perfect relationship recipe needs mutual admiration, respect, understanding, acceptance and unconditional support; each ingredient quite difficult to find, even more difficult to combine them in one pot. And with more than 8000 miles of physical distance between us (she being in UK and me in India), how can I possibly claim to have acquired all these rare ingredients over just whatsapp and FB.

I agree!

But like I said before, my perspective on a perfect relationship is a little different.

First, I feel that ‘to be physically close’ isn’t a necessary condition for many of the above ingredients.

Second, just the presence of these ingredients is not sufficient; absence of certain poisons which spoil the complete broth inspite of the best of ingredients is equally important; two most dominating being ‘Judgment’ and ‘expectation’ – judging a person based on his past words or actions and  expecting a certain behavior or response in future.

And you will agree that avoiding these two is almost impossible in any relationship. Somehow these were completely missing in our case, which created an ambience for a kind of mutual trust and comfort level between us rare to find normally. We found ourselves opening up to each other, revealing our deeper feelings and thoughts.

They say- a real friend is the one with whom you share your deepest pain and the darkest secret without any second thoughts; a real friend is the one with whom you can be yourself without worrying about being judged. And here we were—stripping off all the armor we had been wearing all these years, even ready to rip off our clothes and skin to bare our naked soul to each other.

Being able to make this statement so confidently even on her behalf is another indication of depth of connect we had. Now you tell me – What else can qualify for a perfect relationship if not such a friendship!!!

I know. I know what’s coming.

You would ask “And what happened to that perfect relationship in the end?” 

Well, you have a point. A perfect relationship can’t snap just like that.

How did that happen?

Let’s go over it.

There was hardly any communication with her over that weekend, weekends being busy time with our respective families. So on Monday, I messaged her-       

“Where are you babe…?”

“Hey, I’m not your babe…” she replied.

Nothing too unusual. She did get cranky at times. Or she might be just pulling my leg. She loved doing that.

“Hmmm….so you are not. Then why did I think you are…!!!?” I played along without missing a beat.

“Oh…I’m sorry if I gave you any kind of wrong impression…I’m not. To be clear, I’m not looking forward to some kind of …?&$@…I thought you know me.” Her reply came after some time.

WHAATT!!!

What was that?

Did she really say what I just read?

I mean..seriously!!?

I read it again a couple of times. Before this could really sink in, came another one.

“And don’t tell me that was the reason you were talking to me..”

Booooom!!! Like a bomb, it hit me.

I got a feeling what a soldier gets in the instant immediately after getting hit by a stray bullet. Instinctively he knows that he’s hit even before the pain takes on; but hoping against hope that he isn’t. As a last attempt of bravery, like that soldier who says-“It’s nothing, I’m ok.” and then falls down; I too, hoping like hell that this was a stupid prank being played on me by her, sent another message.

“Oh my bad, did I sound like that desperate? If I did, then I must apologize, lady !”

I kept waiting for some reply to confirm, and hoping desperately that she was actually playing a fast one on me, but none came.

By virtue of having gone through my fair share of rough patches in life and relationships, I had become kind of immune to pain caused by shattered relationships; or so I thought, up to that point. It was baffling – why I was getting this sinking feeling; why I was feeling as if a part of me had been ripped apart suddenly.

In my mind, I had a visual from a scene in ‘Game of Thrones’ in which one moment, a soldier sees his best buddy standing erect with a bloody sword in his hand after a victorious battle, and the next instant with a whoosh of some unknown sword swing, he sees his head rolling over corpses. (Am I being overtly melodramatic?)

It’s difficult to express what I felt at that moment in words. I felt like shouting out to her-

“Yesss, you got it right. I WAS looking forward to some kind of…?&$@…with you, whatever the fucks that means.”

“Bloody hell woman, you can tell me to ‘stop sucking each other’s dick’ but I can’t ‘babe’  you..”

It was so totally stupid, witless, gross, outrageous, contemptible, and deficient of all logic. How could she say a thing like that? What we had between us was so beautiful, so pious, so pleasurable, much more joyful and exciting than even….er….even rump in the sack with that hot girl in Kolkata. (okay, let’s say equal to, if not more! And let’s leave Kolkata for another time..😁)

How could she be such a dumbass to say or think such a thing! Even going by the simplest logic– why would a guy, having enough willing desirable women (okay..maybe not so many) within 8 miles of him to fuck around with, would bother to plan something stupid with someone 8000 miles away!! I know I’m not supposed to be using the ‘F’ word so candidly and frequently, but some fucked up emotional states can only be described with its use.

These and many more poignant and nasty thoughts were flooding my head, trying to erupt out to show my anger and aggression to her; but again, a seasoned soldier on being fatally wounded by some fluke may feel angry and restless momentarily; finally settles downs with the understanding of imminent death and embraces it peacefully.

I knew deep inside that it was over. What was making it more painful was the fact how this gorgeous connection had snapped with such a small insignificant idiotic occurrence. I felt as if my heart was being compressed in a vice, making me feel chocked and breathless. It almost made me cry, but then soldiers don’t cry. (Stop it you dumbo, you’re going overboard with this soldier analogy!)

Once my volatile thoughts settled down a bit, and my mind got back to its normal state of rational thinking, this whole obscure episode shrunk down to a single question- “Why did she do it?” Bad mood due to some personal problem didn’t explain it; she had to talk to me in all her shitty moods whatever be the reason.

The only rational explanation my mind could come up with was – “She must be having some compelling reasons to disrupt the connection we had, and she used this as an excuse.” (Mind tends to find funnily abstract explanations to appease it’s volatile state even for natural calamities like truck wreck)

Otherwise how could she seriously take offence of ‘babe’? I mean….hell ! I address some of my normal friends(girls only; can’t take chance in addressing guys as babe lest I’m taken as un-straight), friends’ wives and even my brother-in-law’s wife as babe when I’m in a happy (read – flirty) mood (which happens quite often) and none of them seem to mind it; rather some of them actually like it and hit back on me in a fun way (nothing serious I swear).

And knowing her, I’m sure she is much smarter than this. In a way, the fact that she has broken off with me is infuriating me lesser than the stupid excuse she has used for it.

I know you are smiling, wondering how could I be so naïve to call such a relationship as perfect which ended in so stupidly eccentric and stupefyingly abrupt way.

Well, exactly my point!

You see, perfection does exist in so many things in nature but all the perfect things are short-lived.

Look at it this way – a perfect thing has to end abruptly because the only other way is to fade away; and fading away is definitely not a trait of perfection. And for abrupt termination of a perfect thing, the reason has to be trivial, illogical and stupid. (Even I don’t really comprehend what I have said in last couple of sentences; so don’t sweat!)

Anyway, another characteristic of a perfect relationship is – it leaves sweet cherishing long-lasting euphoric memories without any bitterness what-so-ever and you can revel in the soft glow of these uplifting treasures.

Yet another important trait of perfection I have observed is – perfection at times terminates itself to give birth to another beautiful enthralling perfection. I have my hopes high; you never know……!!!