Poorly Privileged

Sometimes what looks like privilege is actually not, and sometimes, what looks like a disaster might actually be just the little amount of saving (or privilege) that you don’t even know you needed.

What I am about to write, now, will seem like I am so privileged, rather I was, and I am complaining about how I envy those who weren’t so privileged and had to go through hardships much worse than mine.

But you know what, it’s just a thought that came to me today, after years and years of this life event. And I can’t help but give this thought this space.

This girl I liked in college, who was also my close friend… There’s this peculiar thing I noticed about people who liked her, she liked, and got to spend time with her.

In the first year itself, a boy liked her, whom she also liked. They spent some time together, didn’t work out, and my friend just stopped talking to him. He did some pretty shit stuff, which everyone got to know about. His image was entirely ruined. But it makes me wonder, can it be just one person who might have contributed to the ‘relationship’ (even friendship) not working? Anyway, not my place to comment, though I wonder. Sadly, this boy ended up failing. He had to repeat the first year, while all of us, and his crush, the girl, passed and moved on to the second year.

I think once this was done, there was another boy my friend got close to, as a friend. But, he developed feelings for her. Now, why I said that my friend was making out with me also was maybe because I want to notice how my friend was physically close to these men as well. I am not saying making-out or doing something sexual, but extremely physically close. And I think that, sexually or not, creates an attachment to a person you cannot just shun. Again, I am no-one to comment on how the men might have felt when she was so physically close to them — always holding their hands, hugging, holding etc. But honestly, if I was hanging out with someone from a gender I was instinctively attracted to, and they did all that, I might end up getting attached and even attracted to them, even if I wasn’t attracted to them earlier. Anyway, not my place again to comment. But factually, if I remember correctly, this second guy also got attached to her (my female friend), and he also ended up asking her out. She rejected him (I guess), though there was conjecture if there was anything between them ever. I would like to believe her when she said there wasn’t, but I found some things out later about her, in her own confession that makes me wonder if she was honest with me or not. Again, that’s beside the point. The point being, another boy fell for her, and if my memory doesn’t deceive me, he also ended up not being able to pass the second year (?), and ended up repeating the year. This boy, however, was softer, nicer, he didn’t take rejection as hard or at least as bitterly as the first one, and he silently excused himself from our lives (and our friend-group).

The first boy, didn’t make it to the second year with us, and though some people tried to maintain a friendship with him, even though his image was highly tarnished by the time, the friendship just couldn’t survive with the earlier strength. Probably, just due to the lack of proximity now.

The second boy too didn’t make it with us to the next year, perhaps the third (year), and hence was distanced from the incumbent friend group.
I, the loyal friend, continued friendship with my friend.

A lesser known story that was also occurring side by side by was me being the third ‘boy’. I guess in the first year itself… Or maybe the second, memory deceives, after years of trying to suppress it… I too fell for this girl. And this is something I will take the liberty of commenting on. Maybe I was attracted to women, homosexuality being such a taboo topic, I had tried to educated myself on it, but I hadn’t ever tried to acknowledge it for myself. Plus, I was not at all attracted to this female when I entered this college. In fact I didn’t even find her ‘attractive’ or ‘interesting’. There was one that caught my attention, because she was ‘interesting’ and ‘kind’ and even to her I was not ‘attracted’. But, anyway, coming back to this friend. I wasn’t particularly attracted to her, but I also didn’t have any friends. I tried desperately to fit with the day-scholars, as I was one, but they were obviously out of my league — which at the time I didn't understand. I was in an Army school and couldn’t really understand how cliques worked — and how those girls were from one that wouldn’t find a place for me to fit in. So, I was kinda friendless, and kind of stuck in-between somewhere because I had joined late too. I couldn’t reach the day-scholars, and though the hostellers were kind and nice to me, I couldn’t find myself spending time with them, because where were the common times beyond classes?

So, when this new batch of young adults joined, I extended friendship to them, out of sheer desperation — and I am not afraid to say it today, no special interest in them (because I didn’t know them at all). One, however stuck. And slowly, or quickly, I got attached to her. I was coming from an (then unknown to me) abusive home. Physical touch was rare, and the only times it had occurred, in my home, was when my parents were beating me. And here was someone who claimed to enjoy my company, liked me, my quirks, actually loved me (?) in some ways, and validated me so much that it felt like she was probably my fan (hehe). And with it came all the physical contact; this girl was big on hugging, cuddling, touching, holding-hands, kissing. Even when we sat in classes, she made sure some part of her body was either always on some part of mine, or at least touching. Physical proximity. I wouldn’t say it wasn’t uncomfortable — I would even sometimes complain that I’d get tired of her arm on my shoulder (and that my shoulder & back would hurt) since I was tiny and weak, and she was big and heavy. But, I got attached! Very attached.

And then it happened to me too, she just withdrew, all of a sudden. No contact, she wasn’t talking to me, she was avoiding my phone calls and texts, and there was no touching, kissing, hand-holding, all of a sudden. Maybe to others we still seemed close, and maybe she still did it in front to others, but for me it was less about what’s showing and more about what’s happening. I lost my cool, I started craving for more — of her company, of her touch, and when confronted, it became a fight. Nonetheless, I found out that I was ‘forcing’ her now to do it, it was looking like ‘rape’ to her. So what could one do? Just avoid being in proximity I guess?

So, I joined dance, bunked classes, came late, went early etc.

But, the sad part, for me, was that this girl was also my best-friend and she helped me a lot. In so many ways. Especially, academically. She wanted to do the ‘subject’ we were doing that time, and I can’t even say I hated it because I just never ever wanted to do it. It had never even occurred to me to do it, till my family pressurised me to do it. So I had no emotions and hence no willingness to excel or even pass to be honest. I was doing horribly, and this girl used to spend her nights helping me study. It was both scary (she used to scold me), and endearing (because of the effort). Now sadly, I kept passing, because people kept helping me — she and the other batchmates. They were good friends.

Sadly, I kept passing, and I never got to fail. I never got to repeat a year. I never got to lose that proximity, with either her or the friend-group. She, and the group became my triggers, even unknown to me. And my heartbreak, probably just as painful, if not more, as of the boys, never got noticed. It never got the space it needed to crash. It never got the grief it needed to be in. Of course I couldn’t tell anyone that I am sad and heartbroken because my straight friend rejected me (homosexuality was illegal still that time), but at least if I had failed, I’d have what we today call ‘sideways-grief’, at least I’d have a legit excuse to be sad — that I failed.

Without this excuse, I never could show anyone that I was sad. I did some pretty shitty things, to myself, and perhaps to others (including her), which I don’t think I want to write about — as a way to feel or relieve my pain. But I never got to express it, share it, ask for relief, ask for support. Not from ‘friends’ — I am actually not even sure now if they were ‘my’ friends. For the longest time I believed that they were her friends and it would be wrong of me to tarnish her image, if I asked any help, emotionally from any of those friends. I guess deep down I was also afraid I’d be excluded and once again left alone. Just like the two guys were.

Nonetheless, after years and years, and years of trying to maintain that friendship, with her and with everyone else, I finally took the exit(s) that I probably needed, all those years back… To be able to process my pain. To not be triggered all the time. To not be reminded… of an unprocessed, painful time, and the ensuing conflict, that should I tell them or no.

Some friends I grew to be individually attached to, I eventually told; some, whom I am not that attached to, maybe I never will (tell).

But, as I wake up today, tired, as mostly I do, exhausted, as I sometimes do — a thought that might have been brewing comes up and it makes me want to bawl and break — and wish for this worse privilege for me — I wish I had fucking failed, not just the year, but so many times that they had thrown me out of the college. That I could go to some other college, with all the shame in the world — and maybe start fresh, still ashamed. At least the shame would be visible, external, valid — of a failure. Rather than this internalised shame I carried for years — of being invisible, of my love being invalid, of my shame being only mine — because I fell for a friend, of the same-sex, I was in the wrong.

If I could, I would turn back time, and never attend that college.
I’d like to erase that part of my life completely and start fresh.

I think I’ve lived and loved enough, each and every person I met and grew to like in that college, each and every friend I mean. I think I feel like it’s time to erase that from myself completely, each and every memory there, each and every experience, and I hate to say it, each and every person in my life from that college. They were her friends, and I think I should’ve lost them then. I could’ve just saved and had myself instead, truly, authentically, me.

So, while I was privileged enough to keep passing, to have that help, to have support for this — academics. I guess what I’d have liked would’ve been that I had failed. That’s the privilege I’d have liked…and to have emotional support. To be able to tell someone that I failed because I fell for a woman and got carried away.

I think I kept repeating this pattern — ruining my life chasing women, in trying to find what they call ‘corrective-experiences’ in psychology. Where, at least once, I’d be left ‘heartbroken and failed’ as a consequence of falling for a (perhaps straight) woman, and that once at least, finally, someone would notice — how real that love was for me — how real its impact.

I think I should’ve crashed ten years back, royally. So that I would stop crashing every few years, in bits and pieces.

I think I’d have liked to have that privilege — to crash and to be held (together) then.