Chapter 1 - Stop Romanticizing Loneliness

“If there is anything that can be crueler than death, it’s nurturing false

hope in your heart just to see them crushing every piece of you at the end.”

You must have watched those YouTube videos or maybe read books that

encourage you to romanticize your life, haven’t you?

Well, I have. And to be honest, only by watching those videos, do I fall

back into my imaginary world where I am the QUEEN of the world (at least

of my world). Just after imagining how it would feel to romanticize my life,

I used to feel a different kind of adrenaline rush running through my veins,

something that I cannot explain in words.

You might be thinking, Renuka, if you love the concept of

romanticizing life then why are you stopping me to believe in it?

Well, after experimenting, learning, watching, and reading about

romanticizing life, I came up with this one explanation which is: Everyone

is already romanticizing their life. They just don’t know the nature of

their character yet.

Confusing?

Let me tell you how you are already walking down on this concept and

why this can be the most dangerous thing for your future.

But let’s first understand what romanticizing life means, shall we?

Romanticizing your life means becoming the main character of your life

as if your entire day is being recorded. In short, you act like you are in a

movie playing the role of the main character.

But here is the thing!

Consciously or unconsciously, we all act as the movie character

behaves.

In any typical movie, the story starts with a girl and a boy. Either the

girl is broken and finds herself in a dark tunnel with depression, stress, and

anxiety (not to mention a poor girl is seen more often) or the same situation

is played by the boy. Then?

Then the boy comes into her life as the HERO who saves her from this

cruel world, gives her hope, teaches her how to love, and finally falls in

love with her. And after that, both of them face this world TOGETHER

like God was conspiring from heaven for their paths to collide.

Sounds familiar?

If not the girl, then the boy is broken and then the girl comes as the

Goddess to play the exact same role that we have just read. And if there is

no love story then there is a friendship story that revolves around the same

thing. A broken, depressed, and pathless person meets with another person

and they become best friends for life.

Most of the movies/web series/books revolve around the same plot

where one is broken and the other one comes as the guiding Angel which I

like to call good drama.

Now, the problem is that people like you and me have been

watching/listening/reading about these kinds of life incidents since

childhood that subconsciously we have made a belief- one day someone

will come to save you, rescue you, or rather fall in love with you.

All my college life, I was waiting for a friendship like Joey and

Chandler (from F.R.I.E.N.D.S) but nothing like that ever happened. I never

had a best friend either in school or in college but I always wanted one. A

kind of best friend we see in web series and movies. Perhaps, that is the

reason that even after having a bunch of friends around me, I used to feel

incomplete.

Though if I look back in time and see the world from a fresh perspective

(or mature perspective), I can see a little girl wishing to have the same

teddy bear she saw in some random movie.

So, what’s wrong with this anyway?

Well, your imagination shapes your reality and here you are. Sitting

there, thinking how broke you can be and then how a perfect angel-like

person will come to save you. The problem with this is that you CHOOSE

to believe that YOU ARE NOT ENOUGH to change your life all by

yourself. You rely your hope on someone who doesn’t exist. And that’s

why, when things don’t fall as per your imagination, you start feeling even

more lonely as if you had something but you lost it.

If you have created an imaginary friend in your mind who you think

will turn into reality, I would say, don’t betray yourself. No one is coming

to save you or make you laugh or travel with you around the world as it

happens in the movie. Life is not a movie. Move on from your own hopes

or get ready to see them crushed.

Believing that someday you will meet perfect friends who will become

a part of your soul is more like creating a graveyard of your hopes. The

more you focus on meeting new friends, the more it will hurt. You will feel

even more lonely thinking that you could have something but you didn’t.

You will have to mourn the loss of someone you never had in the first place.

I am not saying that you wouldn’t meet new people or you wouldn’t be

able to make new friends at all. I made some good friends after college

through Instagram. But one harsh truth about that is - after a certain age,

you don’t make SOUL friends. You just meet people, help each other when

needed and be nice to each other so that you have good people in your

network. As a content creator, I come across a lot of people but I know in

the end that they and I are in touch with each other for the sake of

networking. After college, you don’t make friends. You just network. You

just try to be nice to people so you are not left behind (mostly).

But if you start imagining every person who is nice to you as your

future buddy then you are practically digging a graveyard of your hopes.

And let me tell you one thing from experience, If there is anything that can

be crueler than death, it’s nurturing false hope in your heart just to see them

crushing every piece of you at the end.

Instead of imagining yourself as the character who needs someone in

the first place, imagine yourself as the main character of the movie that is

your life. A movie like your life hasn’t been made yet, and a book like your

life hasn’t been written yet. And that’s why you have the creative freedom

in your hands to write it as you want, make it as bold and wild as you want,

keep it as long as you can, and above all make it about yourself rather than

following an old pattern that doesn’t empower you. You don’t want to play

the role of victim in your own life. You don’t want to see yourself crying

for someone you never had. You don’t want to victimize your character. Or

DO YOU?

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