Romance in the times of Whatsapp!

There is something very personal and intimate about Whatsapp going beyond the entire extended family of groups and forwards. The dating scene has moved beyond the microcosm of SMS-relegated to the relic past, Facebook-I find chatting there passé and fake like grown-ups jailed. Gchat-Get a reality check, done it, enjoyed it. Can we move on please?  

Tender is the mother of dating app and not yet there, although ain’t denying that mobile apps can make a mid 30s dude like me stuck in a millennial body to be super cool.

Honestly, I dunno how stuff like Tinder, Cupid Ok and another one suggested by a friend to be back on the dating scene work. It leaves us with a down-to-earth and practical option, Whatsapp. Quite a comfort zone chatting with plain strangers or prospective love interests at a slow pace, singularly swiping left and right. Quick tip: Block the person acting like a prick or you are bored to death. Still better, bombard them with tons of silly WhatsApp forwards. 

Getting the phone number and adding a love interest is no Da Vinci Code to crack and showing a slightly unusual interest in the rightish, charming way is the sure way to land yourself on her Whatsapp. Pure passion to play the game of dating and hooking up in today’s age of smartphone.

 Hooking up, romance and ultimately finding love can land you in the unlikeliest place chatting your way to heavenly bliss. Flirting shamelessly, discovering each other before the big coffee date is the golden rule. Of course, there is always the risk of not liking each and kindly move on to the next person. Remember the classic SMS romance. Got news for it has shifted to Whatsapp having its own charm, blending privacy, innocent game and naughtier smileys or jokes, far away from the gaze of the pesky aunty who hasn’t spared us on Facebook. Unlike SMS, no charge applied for mushy midnight calls with wifi and high five love adding cherry on cake.

 It doesn’t take long to feel the vibe with someone after long hours, day and night of chatting what with making the mind to hit it off. You can easily make up whether your ‘love interest’ is into you, clingy or an asshole. The personality comes alive and easy to skin out the layer behind the phone number. Whatsapp leaves very little to the imagination and human flaws exploding.  A tale of sleeping with the enemy...err not literally!

The digital romance has one merit that it bares everything open for all to see, the emotion, brazen honesty and even countless forwards is a very good excuse to strike a conversation. Tinder fades and doesn’t stand chance in the face of mighty WhatsApp.

What’s up in the universe of Whatsapp whittling down to sharing of emotions, a day gone horribly wrong, excitement makes it an enthralling affair for you just don’t share your life but a world with the person at the other end.

We are humans. A phone interface not just protect us from underlying emotional fear but sparks up the confidence in speaking freely, something that we wouldn’t do on the first meeting. It works well for introvert singles like me to break the ice, find an empathetic voice and mastering the art of listening. I like taking dating slowly and not rush into things. . The world of WhatsApp works pretty well for me and absolutely love voice recording to help make up the mind as sweetness travels through the ear.

The odds of finding romance and lust on WhatsApp are high and unlike throwing the dice, easy to move on without explaining things when it doesn’t click. A practical exit of sort. The ground is quite set in getting to know someone well before meeting in flesh and the ice is broken minus awkwardness.

Looking for a harmless fling without paying the subscription fee that could well be saved for the coffee date, explore this channel and it's as good as the old world charm of SMS in the modern times. One shouldn't shy away from the romance technology, particularly if you are looking to be back on the dating scene in meeting a couple of prospective dates to drop a What’s Up! You can always take a call after a few chat messages. Swipe, left, right and center!

Hitting base with old friends

You haven’t spoken to each for ages and Facebook notification pops open with friend suggestion what with the dozen common connections. What to do? Click on the profile and see how much they have changed over the years, on a travel spree, married with kids, sporting a fat belly or flat abs.  The friend you would swear upon once in a dusted time may have hardly changed in appearance but your equation certainly has. Quite tricky when both of you have moved in different directions in life. Hit the friend request or not! Probably you would ponder on giving a miss to the add button. Anyway, no harm in adding the person and give them time in reverting to you.  Put plainly, swallow pride or ego to send a harmless Hi or simply wave.

Now that you are friends, checking the social media pictures or status to gauge whether they’ve turned into Bhakts or sickulars, Modi Bhakt or Raga fan is quite something. Trophy girl friend or wife and Richie Richie husband. Don’t we all do that! A decade may be quite a long time or five years flitting by but nothing on earth hurt in sharing phone numbers to take it on Whatsapp. The latter is quite a medium what with forward messages makes it easy and smooth to trigger conversations or phone calls.

Buzzing a long lost friend for few minutes’ conversations can break the ice, first with formalities on what you’ve been up to kinda chat and the trick lies in not keeping the conversation too long. That way both of you are able to nurture the mental and real space of connecting with each other. I personally believe long conversation can be a drag, particularly when speaking to someone after a span of time and the uneasiness creeps for you don’t know what to tell.

Do not hesitate to send a personalized message on birthdays and birth of babies or give a short but sweet call.  There are special occasions serving the right purpose not only to hit it off but also reaching out. It goes a long way and time is a magic weaver.

At times, too much water has fallen under the bridge and pretending each other’s doesn’t exist in remembering an old age tiff. We all have our stories of friendship turned sour. I have mine. After some time, a short phone call came out of the blue and random conversation on Facebook about almost everything. Done deal! Yes! Since there is always a possibility of old chums not wanting to be in touch, wish them well, keep the good memories in the heart and march ahead.

Is WhatsApp or social media defining new age relatonships?

Online space is defining and reinventing the way we love, connect on a deeper level and giving an altogether different meaning to friendships. As cliché as it may sound, Hare ek friend zaroori hota hai! A date could be set on Facebook or to a lesser extent on Twitter but have you thought about meeting on WhatsApp! I feel it’s safer to connect on phone. 

Nothing new about it. Of course, during the older days-I already feel like a monument-we flirted through SMS what with the Extra talk time package or free messaging-getting to know each other or meeting up. Love in the time of WhatsApp is the real deal. I’d still go for a relation carrying no burden or guilt.

Friendships carved without meeting someone face-to-face and the blogging connection cemented our bonds, taking it further on WhatsApp. A random encounter with a girl on Facebook and we added each other on WhatsApp, with harmless flirting, calls and voice recording. Yet, nothing happened for we realized we had nothing in common after some point. The fact that we are based in different countries didn’t really help us and we called it quits.

The WhatsApp romance is quite tricky and complex, making me wonder whether we can take things ahead. Quite a tough nut to crack and though, there is no denying the fact, people actually dated through this blind encounter. I just made a new friend on Whatsapp. Don’t get colorful ideas. It’s just platonic friendship and sharing things with each other for there is no scope for something serious. She has her life and I have my mine. Friendship and romance are two different coins, pretty much like western and central railways that never converge. We can make awesome friends that bear no place for a relationship. It’s about being each other’s support system and always good to connect with souls having similar interests, unlike the classic Facebook tagline.

We need friends or people to nurture an emotional quotient. One good thing about social media friendship and growing closeness with no strings attached-I don’t mean it in an intimate way-is that it brings us back to the distant past of college friends and creating memories, to add happiness and spice to break away from the monotony of a stressful life.

The countless forwards, funny memes and videos shared with hundreds of connections seem mechanic at times. Some like it. The rest will just ignore them. A fleeting chance that one of your connections will take the opportunity to strike a conversion and bang, this moment dawned that you can really connect and have so much to share beyond repetitive images. A chance encounter to take things ahead may be meeting for coffee or movie date. Classic tale, right.

Romance or plain friendships, Whatsapp is reinventing the way we see our relationships with folks or getting to know new people. Granted, social media has killed old age friendship or romance of meeting someone in a public space but getting to know each other through the smartphone is a deal. Quite an open question on how the digital world is altering our equations.  Can it lead to a stronger bond or something substantial remains a big interrogation mark?

 

Ten things Not to do in a relationship

1. Keep comparing your ex-es and bring your partner former’s flame in every mundane conversation.

2.    Insisting your companion takes you for a night out with his or her friends for every reunion.

3.    Keeping calling your partner at every moment in a day be it at work or outside to ask about whereabouts or check daily agenda. Spacing out adds comfort and security layer in a relationship.

4.    Take each other for granted assuming, ‘That’s ok, cool’ or a nod means things are fine after a heated argument or disagreement. Sort it out after taking a deep breath and don’t assume it’s all sorted without communicating. 

5.    Don’t pop in to make each other see reason or logic immediately after a fight. Go to your respective cocoons if you wish and wait for things to calm down before talking it out in a respectful manner.

6.    Never impose your point of view on your partner for it shows disrespect or manipulations. Being in a relationship is all about showing respect, always listen to what the other person has to say and engagement means never stop him or her during an argument be it on family, religion or politics.

7.    Avoid cutting your partner short, be it on a phone conversation or engagement for it’s rude.

8.    Don’t pick up calls or check Whatsapp message during moments of intimacy, cuddling or in the middle of a kiss.

9.    An absolute No to involve third parties, be it relatives or each others’ friends in your arguments, moments of intimacy like sex or to intervene creates distrust.

10.    Don’t shout at each other in front of anyone for it amounts to humiliation and showing scant respect for feelings.

bond of rain, salt and friendship

Days become months,

years turn into a decade,

friendship,

squabbles,

ruins,

veil of intrigue,

ruffled by the wind,

separated by chasm of time,

people evolve,

grow,

soldiering in the face of adversity,

wearing bruises on the soul,

scars melt into blood,

bond cemented,

purity remain eternal,

love,

relationships,

emotions,

conquer the moments,

before it dies,

a kiss shall never melt,

why would relationships?

flawless days reside within us,

a magnet,

attracting divine beauty,

alluring pathways,

of laughter,

smoking up,

count the grain of rain and sand.

Dating and break up saga

 

Relationships are fickle. Some stay with us forever while the rest disappear like the dint of sand soaked in the sea waves. Break ups can tear us apart. In some uniquely fashioned cases or which is rather the norm nowadays, relationships survive for a couple of weeks and months which help us to sail through without going through the emotional trauma. It’s all about the vibes and no heavy duty burden or load. Depression sinks in when we find it tough to thrive and survive without the person who was our swan song or lil whispers cooing in the ears on the phone early morning.

 There is no point hitting the rock bottom of emptying the liquor bottle, crying in the company of mushy emotional songs or nursing wounds for the whole day.  Yes! I now see no point cursing the self about a short relationship going kaput for negative energy sucks to the core. The trick lies in getting up and hitting the latest party in town. Get sloshed if you may and start dating again. The pubs and parties are often a haven for singletons looking to hook up or having a scene. It doesn't matter if you are ending up with someone for a harmless fling or a Tandoori night. It helps to ward off emotional crisis. 

 It makes sense to be in a spree of affairs and I am not advocating two-timing kinda hit and bang but rather treading fearlessly to explore your inner side as a human being. It can be very therapeutic and strengthens the soul which grows in terms of carving out emotional balance in life. 

One of the worst things that can happen in a terrible break up or romance gone sour is that it can sap our emotional confidence and gloat into the growing distrust of human relationships. Avoid entering this pitfall which is detrimental to your growth and no point mulling over what went wrong for the past cannot come back. The most logical thing to do is to look ahead, meet new people, explore and be a wild stallion. Yes! I ain't kidding. 

As humans, we tend to go back too much to a haunting past and wear blinkers where the road ahead is seen as a bumpy road while a smooth sailing reality stares at us. It's a trait in many of us who have experienced heart breaks or hurt. We tend to run away from meeting people or even a hint of being interested from the other person is met with the scorn, often the defence mechanism employed to push people away.

Relationships are not updates or selfies that we need to put on Facebook or Instagram to seek out validations. Nor are heart breaks adultery or the biggest sins committed on earth. High time to take a chill pill and go easy on the self. So what? Screw ups happen in life. About time to stop being so obsessive about this thing called love or till death does us about apart kinda crap. It's the biggest misnomer which turns us into jilted lovers and prevent in exploring real relationships with an open mind.  

Post break up, remind yourself that there is no need to be stuck with this extra baggage and hang out with someone forever for there are relationships that come with an expiry date. It's plain stupid to hang on to someone. Just enjoy the times spent together and move on.

Love

V

Happily Ever Afters is Rogue Love and fake relationships

The problem with singletons like me and hopeless romantics is that we believe (d) too much in the happily-ever-afters, shuddh or pure love smeared with ghee and the fairy-tale love stories found in books or holy scriptures. Love has become obstinately religious.

We are hung too much in painting the overtly perfect image of the lover boy-cum-eligible bachelor-cum flawless prince riding on the horse or the perfectly sculpted woman of our dreams, hotness or sexy quotient, superbly intelligent beings filled with a sympathetic or understanding heart.  The world of perfect man or women reinforces this flawed belief of Being The One. High time to demystify this fucked up crap, 'They lived happily ever after'.

The mass media, be it novels belonging to another era and good old romantic films reinforced by society is taking away our human side, emotional intelligence, and individualism. This whole bullshit about ideal love or perfect person makes us so fake where we muzzle our own voice or emotions, be it anger, crying, fearing heartbreak which not only blocks our growth but pushed us to compromise or hurting ourselves. In short, we have become people pleaser in the name of love ripping apart the genuine human traits. Be real has gone for a toss.

Image credit: Google

We are not allowed to lust for someone, feel sexually desirable and we censor our deep emotions for the fear of being judged. It is similar to the open-and-shut world of marriage and locked in marital bond. Happily after ever is another way telling a widow or spinster and a divorcee has no right to fall in love again. The perfectly romantic notion of prince charming or woman of our dreams belongs to a regressive mindset and enforced by the patriarchal society stomping on our right to love, lust and think of a second or third person. Another way to repress our sexual desires and reinforcing this traditional mindset permeating through a society which has seemingly lost the way on how to evolve and enrich itself. 

The whole issue makes for an interesting debate where perhaps the intelligentsia in our society, business leaders, filmmakers, writers, artists and even politicians should come together to question the established romantic rules. The debate will make sense only if all of us chuck for a second our marital status, religion, caste or values to be this unique individual filled with emotions and perspective giving wings to pursue its taste for life or human desires. Just be yourself for a while and offer an honest perspective on happily ever after or the ideal person kinda theory. Isn't it time for all of us to debate, discuss and question, 'Darwin's theory of evolution?' Forgot who we are, whom we ever loved or married and for that matter chuck our social status or educational achievements. Just remove the label. I am sure we will have so much to say about this flawed Happily Ever After or The One.

We have been taught that being selfish is wrong and be selfless in our quest to grow as model people.  But, I ask, being selfless at what cost? Does it augur well for our own spiritual, mental and physical well-being? The truth is that we have stopped being ourselves and creating mental shackles within which is preventing us to love as entire human entities. We have put barriers that lusting for someone is immoral and taking away from ourselves the most natural feeling residing inside us. In the entire process, humans have massacred their own souls for decade and ruthlessly taking away our own individuality.

No wonder, this whole idea of The One or perfect love is the biggest fallacy that has continued unabated for decades. As a society or humans with emotions, we have been wearing blinkers and swayed by concepts which are becoming increasingly irrelevant to our sanity. It’s rogue love with conditions attached. We have no one but ourselves to blame for making love or relationships so unreal in the company of humans becoming fake much like our relationships.

Shifting balance of emotions and relationships

Dating and romance are no piece of cake. Relationships can get complex and is very fleeting in nature, as equation changes every single day or moment when we tend to fall in and out of love.  There are bonds that stay forever or for a very long time that it alters our mental and physical state in such a fashion triggering emotions or scars that stay permanently.

The last relationship that I was involved in took a huge a toll on my emotional well-being and years were spent to get out of it or flush every possible emotion from the system. I fought with myself and will argue, Can one remove every single trace after investing everything in this relationship? It seems like an emotional miasma of despair that spurts like liquid inside your physical body and running through the brain. It's been almost nine years and glad that I am out of it after a long battle with myself. I am not whining or shifting the blame. No! I cannot do that. Playing the blame game doesn't help for none of us are at fault for failing to nurture the plant.

Move on is an easy adjective to describe things that pan out. Fine! We learn to get up, nurse the wounds and take fresh steps again on our journey as we learn our lessons. Every relation, good or bad can teach us so much to empower and give strength.  I saw my relationship with Her as a blessing of sort. Why we cannot remove every single emotional trace?  

First, no matter what we do, say or behave, tiny bit of thoughts will crop up, owing to our imagination, memory of places we’ve been together, a song, film or conversations that keeps popping one after the other inside the head.

 It's not a question about love but the soul itself where the stamp of feeling wanted, emotional drains or disappointment are stuck like a rubber. Love does fly out of the window with time but perhaps we need to look inward to see why the footprint of the past relationships pervades through.
Answers are sought but difficult to find on what ticked or didn't. The best thing is to avoid the questions of 'whatever remained' or else we would never be able find closure or call it quits.  

Image credit: Google

We are all special and extraordinary folks capable of loving and getting so much back in return which is again not the best thing to do. At least, do not let the grief or emotional upheaval control the brain that can impede the human growth. The presence of a new person in life can push the delete button of the past love into oblivion. Debatable! Yes, for there are folks who have gone on a dating spree but still cannot come to terms for the traces of past love is like harmful sugar inside the body. I would argue that it depends on us if we are ready to move on and embrace life with a fresh perspective, ready to uncover the layer of dust in the new relationship.

Relationships do change over time for everyone. We are humans and cannot help thoughts stroking our mind and tit bit of conversations piercing the ears. The best thing is not to push away the feeling or words that made us laugh or smile in another time that has gone away. The past will never come back and don’t indulge in self-harm. There is a thin line between love and obsession, don't make it become one or else it was never pure emotions in the first place.

Love
Vishal

An echo of love and muse

Love is dearer than water, nowadays. So, are relationships carved in heaven. Longing for the special someone (s) and the search of the one has become more an ideology on social media where a rosy picture is painted.

Ever thought of making love with my soul and waltzing to the tune of love duet in the sky! I find love or relationships to be expensive commodities that are freely available like goodies on supermarket shelves. Everything is so so easy, casual and chilled out, love, sex and what's not! It makes one wonder about its existence or futility. I have always believed in the concept of free love. Ease out and chilled out for there should be no room for jealousy or longing. A relationship pocked with expectations. It makes quite a complicated definition. I love things, totally free and uncomplicated.

Image credit: Love/ http://images.loksatta.com//2017/04/love-1.jpg

 Free love for me is not about possessing the soul but a waft of breeze that touches every breath, fragrance, and spirit of a person as one whole entity. There are no two humans. Nor, there is room for ego. The love that you make or sexual encounter caresses the skin and soul to make it an out-of-this-world experience that the most powerful molecules cannot touch. It’s free love. The joy, pain, and passion expressed by two love-lorn souls carrying each other in the path of self-growth and touching the spirit make love so real. It's not about one person that we love till eternity. The eternity side of things is such a flawed definition of love. It reeks of possessiveness, ego, and attachment that breaks the purity of love.

 The question, what is love or does it exist? I've been in a relationship where I longed and craved for someone. Trust me, this thing called expectation bruises the soul and can tear one apart. I have a friend, a muse.  She wrote a post on this theme of love. I strongly feel that she is love. I am love. We are all love. Why look for it somewhere else and in someone?

 Love is light. Feel it. It's around us. We find it in someone, who becomes a symbol of love that carries the torch of eternity to touch us like the light. It's the same for sex, intimacy, and passion. It's only us humans who have this habit of compartmentalizing everything like our room, kitchen or hall. We are humans, not some fucking files that we send for approval. I often long and crave for someone, to touch her hair, taste the lip, caress her soul and carry the invisible energy inside us. I feel it's very powerful.

Love is selfish. It should be. The idea of sacrifice in love snatches our individuality and spirituality. Someone who would heal our wound, wipe the tears, caress the forehead, steal a kiss and hold each other, unfazed by the ways of the world. It's love. Selfish and free at the same time. The multi-dimension and facets of love to quench the thirst, make us trip and get up again.

 Someone somewhere is made for us is an over abused idea and made glamorous by Yashraj films that propel us believe to in it like some blindfold where someone is guiding our life. There is nothing wrong with a harmless flings or string of short-term relationships. Can you fall in love with someone during a one-night stand? I'd say debatable. Why not? How about the person touching the inner core but the moment, you decide to get into hot pursuit the whole idea goes for a toss.

Love can be one-sided. It’s an interesting facet of relationships that gets very tiring and drains the soul for there are expectations that we tend to carry on this route.  There are many who lost the faith for loving and being ignored wilfully. It can kill and haunt the souls but we should always strive to flush out this negativity surrounding love in the drain.  

Be a new person. Never shy not to fall but rise in love. It will sparkle the soul and spirit that will grow in every direction and dimension. Mushy, mushy things are cool and make one energetic. But, I do have an issue with this thing called attachment which is the side effect of love. Yes, love is waiting for the soul pretty much like the people who seep into our lives for a reason. Don't cry over spilled milk but feel the impact it bears on the soul, good or bad.

Never hold anything destined to go somewhere else. Regret is such a wrong way to view things. It's an experience and lesson that empower. Don't feel shy to embrace relationships, get set to swirl and roll in them. Love exists. It is gentle and violent like the storm or just plain love.

Dedicated to a friend and a muse for this post. She is love and a giver with a seamless heart capable of understanding love in all her forms.

Keep the faith
Love
Vishal

Why I have been single for so long?

I don't remember the last time I dated somebody and lost the art of flirting or striking a conversation with a random stranger girl. It's all about net practice, like some of my male friends would tell and urge me to be the wild stallion that I may have been in the past, at a time when people around me are either getting married, being in and out of a slew of casual relationships or flings.

Image credit: Google.

The school days were spent studying and facing the pressure with the same good ole mantra, 'No good marks, no good job and no decent girl with marry you. You can find a girl once you are done with certificates.' Surviving on a measly pocket money for a middle class boy means the chances of taking a girl out is slim. It left me with only one choice, bank robbery. I turned into a speccy nerd whom girls found boring to date. They'd better choose death which means no action for me, sadly. I whined my time fooling around with my 'luccha' friends and time just flew.

There were too many options of beautiful girls to crush on in college and too many choices means a life time went on to decide whom to date or not. There were too many silly crushes that I contented myself my share and the eyes kept craving for the strawberry faces. College life flickered like dust.

See, I am a one man woman and the girl I liked was either taken and poor me was friend-zoned. I waited in vain for her to break with her boyfriend and when the time came, I already moved on to greener pastures. Same old story repeated here.

When it was the time to date with money in hand, work took its own toll on me and there was hardly any time for that. The days were spent waking up early, getting ready for work and sleeping. I forgot what it was like to go around with someone.

I was still figuring out what I wanted to do with life, career wise. Most of the chicks at work were either taken, made a sister and very few had brains whom you can date. You know, mindless conversations and gossips. The worse thing is my silly brain that raised the relationship standard too high post my last relationship where me and my girl had an intellectual level where our minds more than the heart converged. There was no way that I could lower my dating standards. I am no Deepika who chucked the suave Ranbir for Ranveeer. To complicate things, it's my ethical mind that was at play where office romance is a strictly no-no affair. A decade went by without finding that almost perfect someone and my heart goes on. I felt like the male version of Celine Dion from another era.

Losing faith in human relationships with the amount of break ups and marriages going kaput became part of my routine. To top it all, I became so used to be along and single. Bad habits are hard to break. I became cynical with relationships after my break up where my everything was invested in that single relationship. The time I spent to nurse my wound and heal...Time to move on, baby!

With time, I can only admire a beautiful girl from a looming distance and thinking that she is too young for me or too hot to handle. Better, I go back to college days where occasional dating was drenched in memory. It feels like the train has already left the station and there is no one to blame, except yourself for failing to hop on the bandwagon. You are no longer handsome and she is a fucking princess. Smile and move on.

During the college days, a question haunted me: Why aren't I dating? It's simple. I was in a relationship with the gang who was only interested in making merry, fooling around and busy having fun by smoking, boozing and occasional ganja parties. Friends became my life and everything. There was no place for a chick to enter my life or else vows of friendship would've been violated.

The pressure to get married and all that shit where you tend to hit back at parents who keep bringing a prospective match. As it is, matrimonial sites like shaadi.com are for silly people who can't even find someone on their own. Certainly, I don't want to be that guy who goes on a blind date set by parents where the woman finds me bizarely weird.

Books, blogging and the unsuccessful attempt to write this best selling book about imaginary love and sex became my priority. I wanted to become the next Chetan Bhagat in town raking the moolah. A decade flew and still nothing ever happened. Probably, things will not be happening in the next decade of my otherwise routine and mechanical life. Sex is a luxury.

Where all those women that you keep urging me to date? I must find them in the first place. They are nowhere to be found and all my prospective dates or flings are already in marital bliss or busy tying the knot. It makes you go mad.

I've spent a major part of my life paying that personal loan that I took to travel, laptop and expensive phone on EMI. There is no money to take a chick out and the little sanity I have makes it impossible to ask a random woman out online. How despo it sounds?!

At the end of the day, it's all about the aspirations to move away from home and parents exploring life in various cities of the world and the joy of staying alone in an apartment gives me a mental masturbation. I prefer to grow and see life rather than being stuck in the drudgery of marriage and kids.

There is no intention to share my bed with someone for the rest of life. Like my whisky, I like my bed large where I can spread my stiff body and spend my time reading fantasies or the world romance in books that sell like hot pancakes. No one shall invade that space. I am scared of invaders and terrorists...who knows some hot bimbo may be hired to plant a bomb. Dreamer I am! It leaves me with only one option...getting laid.

So, now you get the drift? Stop asking me such fucked up questions about how I should have found a chick in college to tie the knot or someone to make my life.

Love ya all, fuckers
V

'Cougar' and pulling the strings in mature relationships

It's not a new phenomenon. Not is it about sexual thrills or estrogen-you know that sensation that run like electricity in our body and causing our sexual energy to reach an adrenaline high. It doesn't make men and women, predators, hunters and the hunted, witch or cougar, that attracts younger men. Unfortunately, the various media parlance terminology has cast an ugly shadow on relationships which is most of the time blurred by famous social prejudices and dogmas. The great hypocrisy in society that pulls all strings to control relationships that doesn't fall into their personalized grace. You name it, you get it, shame and guilt with the typical log kya kahenge.

Image credit: Google

The French President Emmanuel Macron is married to his teacher, Brigitte who is 24 years his senior where both have shown that age gap is no excuse for the blooming of a beautifully mature relationship. Would Brigitte be termed a cougar in our present society? I have no doubt on our hypocrisy and uncalled ability of controlling each and every thing or doling of gyaan on how such relationships pollute morality and other fuck ups, born out of the brain child of so-called social norms. There is nothing wrong in marrying someone older than you between younger man and elder women and vice versa. There has been several instances in the past where I have been attracted to women who are much older or younger to me and trust me, there ought not be guilt feelings to that. It whittles down to the personal choice that we make as human beings.

Sadly, we live in a hostile environment where the by-products of society think that it's a legitimate right for them to make our life decisions. It's a blurred path that they love to tread in controlling minds. It's my firm belief that such relationships are based on sexual freedom, empowerment and modernity coupled with maturity in sharing a bond. It's a deep relationship that petty minds cannot understand or weigh in the connection.

The worse about the equation between an elder woman and a young man, on one hand and elder man and younger girl on the other hand, is that very few will blame the man in that. It's a matter of grave prejudice when the woman is always on the receiving end with accusations such as ensnaring the man. Agree, that the term sugar daddy is as prejudicial as cougar but it's during very rare instances that men in such relationships face brickbats.

Moreover, I refuse to see such relationships as a matter of sexual thrills or adventure, and be it for a short-term or long-term relationship, we need to be more open. It is pretty much like inter-caste, inter-race and same-sex love or relationships, where nonsense are blurted out in the name of religion or misplaced morality. It's the plain ego and fear of the patriarch that their so-called established norms are being challenged.

It's a beautiful and admirable to witness the act of love and respect among elder and younger successful couples based on trust. The maturity is inherent, be it sexual, spiritual or on the worldly views where both partners can learn from each other and grow together. I am in awe of people, blessed with the zest for life and energy to feel forever young and daring to shrug off ridiculous comments, social pressures or prejudices. There is a certain dynamism in the so-called 'cougar' relationships.

Of course, every relationship have its own con and is not restricted to the younger man-older woman or older man-young woman or girl. Critics who snub at such relationships often point out that the disinterest in sex at some point will happen, hostility among family or even friends but also an interest of the younger part in someone their age coupled with the lack of spark. 

Hey! A beautiful relationship based on this equation is about maturity. Therefore, the above factors are hurdles that exist in any other relationship. For instance, what is the guarantee that your partner who is exactly your age will not stray or be attracted to someone else? Can a more or else, same age couple stake a claim to sexual compatibility or maturity? I don't think we can give guarantees in today's times. As far as the hostilities are concerned, I strongly believe that it's your life and you are mature enough not to be in the control or mercy of others, be it parents, extended family or anyone else.

No civilized or educated society can thrive on stupid biases and prevent people to live the way they want in their personal relationships. It's high time for words like cougar or sugar daddy be deleted from our dictionary for it fetters our growth and outlook.

Love
Vishal