Let’s break up, shall we?

Recently, a friend of mine and his girlfriend of many many years broke up. Out of the blue. And for a moment, it looked like they had no reason to break up. They loved each other very much, wanted the same things from life, were absolutely compatible, everyone around them thought that they were the perfect couple, their families had given their approval, they were gonna get married, there were no problems anywhere, when suddenly poof! They were not a couple anymore. They had decided to take a year off each other to figure out what was it that they really wanted from themselves. For themselves.

At times, it looked like they broke up for the heck of it. Yes, I was guilty of judging them too. But after mulling over it and going over the explanations, I think I finally get it.

I can safely say that it’s the most positive break-up I have ever witnessed. It was not one of those heart-breaking tragic breakups where either one or both involved stay in bed for days with a box of tissue and a tub of icecream. They continue to hang out the way they used to, they continue to be the best of friends. They just don’t know yet if they want to marry each other.

And it made me wonder -- whom do we want to end up with? Someone who makes us happy. Someone whom we can make happy. Someone who brings so many positive vibes into our life that it makes us want to make ourselves more worthy of them. Someone whose mere thoughts can bring a smile to our faces and make us feel fortunate that we have them in our lives.

However, sometimes, when you’ve been together for too long, you fail to see these things. The “togetherness” overpowers everything to a degree that you can’t see why you’re together in the first place. And that’s when you need to take a step back and really look at yourself and the other person. Is it really love that you guys share, or just the comfort of stability, history, of not wanting to risk anything else ‘cos you’ve ‘invested’ so much in the relationship?

As I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts, in DCH, when Rohit asks Shalini, “We love each other, that's why we're getting married. Isn't it, Shalini?"

And Akash says, "You should ask yourselves this question, not each other."

Maybe we should all ask ourselves. Do the Dil Chahta Hai test, close our eyes and really try and see whom we wanna be with. And know it before we get married. If there's a wee bit of a doubt, I'd say don't get married. Even if you can't be with guy Y, don't marry guy X because you can't be with guy Y. That's a bad reason to marry anyone, besides it being unfair to everyone involved. You’re better off not being married at all than being in a marriage of compromise or convenience.

The fear of being ‘trapped’ in the decision because everyone around us expects us to act in a certain way is very real. For all we know, we could be wanting to get married to the person we have been with for years and years, but as individuals, we want to be able to choose to get married and not take marriage as a natural progression of things.

Don’t marry someone because you have spent years together. Marry because you want to spend the rest of the years together.

Long courtships can become stable straight line graphs. Sometimes, a relationship is so stable that the stability actually works against it. It becomes stagnant and predictable. After all, girls will be girls. Every girl wants to be proposed to, wants to be surprised with the ring and the question. She needs to be asked, she needs to have the option to actually make a decision. Otherwise you’re just trudging along the straight line graph that goes on and on till you slam into a wall called marriage. A girl should not be pressured into a ‘As if I can say no now’ kinda ‘Yes’. She needs to have that freedom to actually consider the proposal and give her decision. Just as a guy should not do a ‘Like I can propose to someone else’ kind of proposal. He needs that freedom to think about whether she’s the one he really wants to propose to.

So maybe it’s good to break up for a while. To go your separate ways and sort out the ‘what ifs’ of life that we’ve been guilty of thinking about. What if I was with that guy I’d felt a real connection with? What if I was with the girl I broke up with? What if I was with that guy who never proposed? What if I’d been brave enough to ask that guy out whom I liked years ago? What if that girl did not have to move out of the country then? What if I did not have to leave the country then? What if there was something between him and me that both of us failed to recognise?

Marriage is the ultimate commitment. And we should not enter it with any ‘What ifs’. Before making the ultimate commitment, we’d better sort out everything within ourselves once and for all, so that they don’t interfere with the rest of our lives, and help us make a clear decision. In Salaam Namaste, Nick tells Ambar “You should give us a chance now, because years later, when you wake up next to a fat guy, you should not regret not giving us a chance.”

It’s so true. If you’re going to marry fat guy, you’d better be sure that either you give Nick and yourself a chance, or know for sure that you don’t even want to give Nick and yourself a chance. So that years later, you either wake up with Nick, or with fat guy (with the thought that you did give Nick and yourself a chance, and decided to be with fat guy) with no regrets. You need to have that control over the decision you made, and then stand by it. We wouldn’t want to put ourselves in a position where one fine day we wake up and say, “Why didn’t I do that?” We must be able to say, “I chose not to do that. I had the option, but I chose not to take it. And now I will stand by what I decided.”

‘I have no option’ is not an option. You always have an option. It just depends on how bad you want it.

So I say rip off that sticker off your forehead that says, “I’m SO taken!” Break up, take a dose of the single life, give yourself time that is fully yours. Think about yourself. Be a bit selfish. It can be quite a revelation.

And sometimes, such induced break-ups can also show us whether we really love that person. Sometimes we’re so close to a person that we don’t realise their importance, we take them for granted, we forget how special they are. That’s when we need to step back and see if we miss what we had, or whether we feel like we’re finally breathing. And that’s when we will know what we want to do. That’s when we will have the real option.

Of course, you may choose to end up with the same person you had the induced break up with, but at least you would have experienced the feeling of not having them in your life. You’d have known and understood all the reasons why you chose to be with them. And perhaps that’s when it’s time to make a fresh new start, renew your relationship, fall in love all over again. Bring it all back, the flutter of the heart, the glow on the face, the joyous aura, every beautiful thing you feel when you’re newly in love.

And when all doubts have left your mind, and you know for sure that that’s the person you want to choose to spend the rest of your life with, what are you waiting for?

Surprise her. Pop the question.