It must be amusing to you, the reader, when I say that being single forever feels like heartbreak. After all, how could someone who's not even loved someone know what heartbreak is?
How could I know what it means to long for that touch, to long for that bear hug, that kiss, that emotional intimacy, that physical intimacy, that painful goodbye before the cheerful hi?
But isn't that what I have been longing for as well? A touch, a bear hug, a kiss, some emotional intimacy, some physical intimacy, a painful goodbye before the cheerful hi?
We share the same longing. You for the familiarity from the known, and I for the familiarity from the yet unknown.
There are people who have got over a heartbreak in a fortnight and there are people who could not till their last breath. I don't know what you must have felt when you were going through your heartbreak, but how I feel about me being single, doesn't invalidate your heartbreak, it doesn't trivialise it. I empathise with you.
Every first date is a trial, 'cause sooner or later, the interrogation would begin: "How many relationships have you been in?" "You must have surely dated someone." "No one? Don't lie to me." "How can a guy like you not have been in a relationship?" "... you not having any relationship experience could be a problem." "I don't want to teach you", and the never said, "Is there something wrong with him?"
I don't even have the right to remain silent!
Do I need to be a woman to be a feminist?
Actors don't have to live the emotions that make you believe they are real.
I had not lost a loved one but I cried when Dobby died.
Why do Pablo Neruda's poems touch my soul if I have not had a heartbreak?
If one needs to go through heartbreak to experience one, then I would argue, one needs to be single forever in order to experience what it feels like. I guess we live in a paradoxical world.
But I do concede one thing: for me, tomorrow is a new ray of hope, a new beginning. It's not gloom and doom. Being single forever feels like heartbreak but isn't one.