Have you ever been on the search for love?
Have you ever been on the quest for love, carrying a yearning in your heart, hope in the eyes, and strange anxiety within?

Have you ever flirted with someone gratuitously?

Have you ever broken down your heart into tiny pieces and then tried to solve it like a puzzle for hours?

Have you ever just sat down in between your friends and cracked jokes about being single, just because you wanted some acceptance?

Have you ever, despite all of this, felt so hopeless that you gave up on love entirely?

If yes, then this story is for you.

2020 may be the worst year for a lot of people around the world, but I too had a habit of being one step ahead of people. And thus, for me, this special status belongs to 2019. I started my year with some very dear friends on a beautiful night out. And at that point, I was a part of another beginning. I started something that felt like kuch kuch hota hai with this one girl. To avoid confusion, let’s give her an imaginary name. What about Anjali? So, Anjali and I had known each other for around a year. We would often meet for work purposes, and slowly, I started becoming a reliable friend to her while she had started becoming a potential girlfriend for me.

*Hopefully, I asked her to stay!*

2019 was already very challenging for me; neither were my online videos working well nor were my play shows houseful. And so, meanwhile, Anjali’s presence for me was no less than like a miracle for those in need. She was me to what Dhoni is to India’s crumbling batting. But then the month of July has arrived. On one hand, Dhoni got run-out, and on the other, I was clean-bowled. After getting a lot of courage and reassurances from my close friends, I finally confessed my feelings to Anjali, and without wasting any minute, she explained to me, “See, nothing can happen between us. You are a great person, and you might find someone really good for you, but that is not me.”

That night, I wanted to cry my heart out. I tried so much to cry, but I just couldn’t. The following days were full of sadness, but somehow, I still couldn’t get myself to cry. Even though Anjali broke my heart, she managed to give me this tiny hope that maybe someday, I will find someone really good for myself. And so, it started. Pointless flirting was working and sitting among friends and cracking jokes on myself was working even better than I expected.

And now, I could even solve the puzzle of the broken pieces of my heart within record time. But I couldn’t find any happiness in doing all of that. My belief in true love had almost entirely faded until 2020 started. On New Year’s Eve, I promised myself that I wasn’t going to waste my heart and my time anymore, that I wasn’t going to question myself in wait for someone else’s answer. I had decided never to fall head over heels for anyone again. But you know what? The best ones are the ones that you don’t see coming. I was celebrating my birthday and that night with some of my friends when suddenly I got a call.

“Hello?”

“Happy Birthday!”

“Thank you so much.”

“Where are you right now? Partying with friends?”

“Oh, yes. Just having dinner, nothing special.”

“Nice. Nice. Enjoy! We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Yes, sure. Thank you! Bye.”

This call wasn’t from Anjali. I hadn’t talked as much or hung out as much with the person who had called. We had known each other for 3 years, and in these 3 years, we must have hardly met 3 times. You see, generally, it was a very normal phone call, but I couldn’t help but feel that there was something special about it. That day, I spent the entire night thinking about that call. And the following evening, I called her. For the first time, we talked for so long on the phone. Over that one call, both of us must have told each other some tales that we might have even revealed to our closest friends. On that one phone call, we were no more than strangers, yet no less than soulmates for each other. I told her everything about Anjali, and she told me how the day before, just a few moments before her call to me, she had been broken up with.

*Hopefully, I asked her to stay!*

Maybe that night, on that call, it wasn’t just one acquaintance wishing another. Maybe it was two broken hearts asking for each other’s help. Today, it has been around 6 months since we started talking. And within these 6 months, the world has changed so much! As people drifted apart during the lockdown, we kept getting closer. On one hand, all we could hear about was cases and hatred skyrocketing, and on the other hand, our mutual affection and understanding kept growing more and more. Where on one side, miscommunication further cracked open the distance between people, all we needed was Instagram memes to communicate with each other. It would be wrong to call what we have a relationship because relationships are built on the need for promises and the connection between us doesn’t need any promises.

Because of lockdown, we have only been able to meet once in the last 6 months, and that too, at the airport, just for 15 minutes. That day, she was leaving India, but it was up to me, I would run through every security checkpoint just to sing “Jaane tu ya jaane na” in my cracked voice, just so that I could stop her. But I couldn’t. It has only been a few days since she left, but every night, I end up crying for some time, even when I don’t want to. And every time the tears arrive, they bring with them a message that maybe, just maybe I’ve found someone good for me. We may not be living in the same country on the same city, we may not have a typical relationship, but I believe that we will be there for each other without any promises, without any greed, and without any hope, because although we ventured out to find love, we didn’t find it. But love found us.

*Hopefully, I asked her to stay!*

Written by: Ayush Shukla

Instagram: Cricketing Soul

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Image credits: https://unsplash.com/@nathan_mcb