Has someone ever lied to you about how much they love you? Have you ever dated someone for eight years only to realise it was a lie all along? Have you fallen in love with someone you have never met, only spoken to first over the internet and then over the phone? Have you fallen in love with a man who was only good with his words but his actions fell short every time but you still continued to love him? Have you loved someone who was way older than you and so he showed you a world which was dark, and scary?

I have and I did unconditionally for eight years of my life at a very young age when I didn’t even know what it was to love someone. Did this person really love me? Was he cheating on me? Did he lie to me about the business he owned? Did he lie to me about his father being dead? Did he lie to me about where he stayed? He claimed to stay in the most expensive locality and drive the most expensive car but I am not sure if it was all a lie or the truth. He never kept his word with me. He kept me waiting for days and months to finally see him in person. In fact for the first four years of my life, I never even met him. I think we only exchanged pictures. We chatted a lot for hours together every single night and thats all I had for many years of my life. When I turned 18, I was ecstatic because I thought I’ll finally get to spend my life with him and told my mother I wanted to study in Pune. My mother knew something was up but she still played along. I applied in three colleges and my name was first on the list in all of them. I am not bragging but thats how it went. I then went to Mumbai and the story was the same, I was on top in all the colleges. My mother told me, why are you not applying to the best college in India. Why are you aiming for less? I asked her, Mom are you serious? Can I get into the number one college in India for commerce? She said, you will never know if we don’t try.

So, I went to Delhi and gave it a shot. And the rest is history. I spent three years of my life in a girls hostel with some of the best brains of the country learning, growing, exploring, and also losing my innocence in the process. Delhi does that to you. You have to toughen up, especially if you’re from the South. I was a small town girl who had big dreams and wanted to do it all. I wanted to network like there was no tomorrow and in the process I met women who weren’t as naive as me. Not all of them but many of them.

Coming back to my boy friend. He used to visit me every few months in Delhi. He introduced me to his happening friends in Delhi who only smoked up and I wondered what on earth am I doing? Where have I landed myself? I still continued to date him for a few more years when finally someone I met, a stranger (a God sent angel) told me, when I opened up to him about my story, he said, You have been fooled. This is all a lie. He is a lie. Every word he has ever told you has started and ended with a lie. And I was broken. So broken and I didn’t believe him. He said the dots aren’t connecting. There are so many missing pieces in your story. Don’t you see it Miss Light? No I don’t see it. He used to write me these poems, was that all a lie? He used to write me letters. Was that all a lie? I wonder today after so many years, if he really loved me or was he cheating on me or he loved two women at the same time. Who is to say? Unless I go confront him someday. Do I need to do this?

When I was finally over him and moved away to another country, he got in touch with me to tell me how much he misses me. I knew what he was getting at and so sorry I am not sorry. And he was just married. Then why are you missing me suddenly? Eight years of being fooled in love, being lied to, but finally being slapped in the face just at the right time. That’s my story. That’s my first love. That’s where my definition of Love came into being.

and Here I am today doing it all over again. But this time around I am smarter, or at least I think I am. Who is to say?

Miss Light, have your umpteen experiences of falling and rising in Love ever taught you anything? Who is to say?

Until next time.

Yours Truly,

Miss Light