Every human feeling that is found to be uncommon amongst men and women is to be deemed as unacceptable, whether it is good or not. My state of confusion surrounding the nature of what has transpired is indeed not found in any of my friends and so it is only ironically logical that they would deem my propositions as abnormal for a human being finds little sympathy to what he cannot relate to. Not today but one day if they arrive at such a state, only then will my words have the pleasure of closure, till then, they shall remain suspended in a misty haze of hope and betrayal.
I remember bits of my first week at the Lahore School of Economics(LSE) – I hated it. The long commute, no friends, and a lack of familiarity all were my valid reasons. Slowly, it got better, both the hate and the loneliness. Right towards the end of the first semester, I finally started to fit in with a group cons I think I loved them all, absolutely enjoyed the time spent with them in between breaks and afterward as well. Yet, fate was such that we had the pandemic hit right before the mid-term exams of the second semester leading to a closure of the campus before the very last exam. Naive me, I thought – wait, everyone thought that this would be temporary – even this temporal word itself would laugh at us now. Yet, time passed. We were taking online classes together and occasionally met somewhere. The occurrence of these meetings was certainly less than what I would have liked but it was something. The idea of some of my closest friends not wanting to meet me as much as I wanted to meet them was disheartening but as I would learn later, it can happen for reasons out of one’s control. In fact, a friend once told me of how there was little joy to them in these meetings – offended – yet time taught me this secret too.
The semester passed, summer break came. It would have been nice to land in the same class next year too with this group but fate, separate sections, separate degrees. I swear, had this fate been something other than what was decreed by God, I would not yield to it yet the irony. People say, whenever someone swears by something, they are lying. My heart cried, the thought of my close friends drifting away was too much, but the feeling passed. It always does, I’m batman. Forget this, move on to the current year. University has opened, we have a hybrid system though where each section is divided into two with one group being online for a week and the other being on campus. This places some of my friends from that group online and the others on campus at the same time as me which is the problem – not the former, the latter. You see, in our first year, these same friends, we used to hang out every day since we were in the same class. But when this similarity was removed, where did they go? I imagine true friends to be with you not because of such similarities but because of you. And this broke my heart too. First on-campus week, I was alone; the second week, I was alone but something happened. I felt a weakness in my legs and body on a Friday, I thought it was because of the fact that not a morsel had passed through my throat that morning. I went and ate a wrap, it tasted average, I still felt weak. In those moments of pain, I felt so lonely, all those friends whom I spent so much time with, none of them were there for me. Some knew maybe that I was alone. Of course, with 25 classmates but of what use, a close one would know, of what use? I felt like crying but I am Batman, I tried to pass those hours and ended up in the final class of the day, still in agony. There was a quiz, done with it, on to the car. There was pain in the right leg and my back, I still had to drive, an hour away. Words were my companion, melodies playing alongside and I cried and cried and cried my heart out. Was it due to the pain? Yes, but which one?
I managed to get home, a miracle maybe – I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t one. I lay down on the sofa, still in pain. I changed and went to bed, more pain and crying. Finally, I went downstairs, tried to gulp a glass of milk, couldn’t finish it, I started crying when my mom asked me of what happened, I do not feel well. It was discovered that I had contracted the dengue virus. Amazing, I had dengue, everyone wanted my recovery, I think I appreciated His blessings, His trust but wasn’t so looking forward to getting better again. Because, this way, at least my cries had a tangible reason to which they could be attributed. Don’t worry, why would you worry? Huh, I’m Batman so I recovered, in a week. I went to school today, I had an exam, I met a friend afterward, it was great to see them, they left a bit early when another friend of their’s arrived, you see my fate, as the sage says, everyone, I care about cares about someone else more. And this makes me think, what is friendship, is it always accepting the fact that whoever your friend is, they ultimately are more loyal to someone else. If they were to decide between them and you, it would always be them, you would be the one out. Beautiful, perhaps, God has enacted such so our passing away is not protested yet He is unaffected by any protest, why the arrangement? tell me, don’t, I don’t care, I can be alone.
but listen
Everyone we meet is the doing of fate. If I was not here, someone else would be and so perhaps my now friend would be the friend of that person for our friendship blossomed out of this first conversation reliant on my presence here. You may argue that more than my mere presence, it was the existence of a distinct or perhaps common set of traits in me that led to that specific conversation starting. True, but ask yourself, would those traits be positive or negative? Positive for no one is attracted platonically, romantically, or nonchalantly to another being with negative traits save a few. But if you think about it, there are numerous people out there who are better than me and you in all of these respective positive traits. Believing so is an absolute truth for Allah had already shown Khizr to Musa just when his noble being thought of otherwise in regards to the superiority of knowledge among His conscious slaves. Now, since other beings with more positive traits exist, think about it, if they were in the same place as you at that particular time, who would the stranger prefer to converse with? Them. The only case it would not be so is if one’s own negative traits convince them of the difficulty that it entails in being a companion with another like a common man with a Sultan. So the friends you have, they are yours for none was found better for them at that place and time.
friendship is a scam
you break His rules for them
He takes them and breaks your heart
and asks
for these did you disobey me
the Padishah of all worlds
the Sultan of all beings
such is the fate of your love
material immaterial
object flesh
all dust
But even if I realize all of this, what do I do with it? Believe that every chosen relationship is in actuality a form of deception and just pretend everything is okay? A life of solitude breaking away subtly? I will update this post if I get any answers, a mix of the former and the latter it will be, for now, I am hoping for more of the latter, yes thanks bye.
Update #1: This has been dragging on now, I have a day or two where I am fine, I manage my mood but then suddenly I lapse into depression again. And it’s difficult. Today was such a day too. Everything was going well till the last class but something, something which I will not mention here, it just occurred to me and here I am sad again. I was driving half an hour ago, back to home, and I saw the barriers at the left side of the road beyond which was land below(on ring road), a fall varying depending on the road’s altitude at the particular location. And I wondered, just 2 seconds and I could drive the car straight into the barrier, falling hundreds of meters down on some road and perhaps instant fulfillment – of death. Don’t worry, you’re one of perhaps the 10 readers that I have but I’ll tell you, I’m not suicidal. Since Allah has forbidden it and destined its doers to a dark end, I fear that and stay away. But then I wonder, why is suicide forbidden? I see that if it was not, society would die en masse on their will, hence a societal problem. Yet, viewed individually, isn’t is an early end to a life that will end ultimately otherwise too? A trust from Allah it is, I know but such a trust cannot be returned voluntarily? I see. With this, I think, when I went into a similar depressed state years ago which was much worse, my attachment from whom the pain came from was painfully weaned from my soul. Afterward, I just lost any affection for them. And I wonder, after all this ends, after I endure this state of helplessness for a few months, perhaps my heart will just forget all of these people? I hope so, I don’t know, I’ll eat lunch now, I’m hungry, bye.
Also, I have a realization about opening up. It’s that sometimes we want to open up because we believe the recipient of our story would be a comforting force, someone who would perhaps also do something to change the situation you find yourself in. Afterall, why listen without the sincerity to help beyond words? But the truth is, a friend would certainly listen to your problems and console you too, maybe say things that relieve your heart. But at the end, all that matters is if there was any real change, especially if the recipient was the subject of your cry. If not, I find myself heartbroken again after some time, and then again the need to seek comfort arises. This need should be curtailed and limited only to people from now on who I firmly believe will actually care enough to help me in some practical way. Otherwise, unless a misunderstanding needs to be cleared, I seem like an idiot who again needs to talk about the same issue once again. And that’s difficult too because trust me, it feels shameful to just take up a buried issue in their eyes and suddenly bring it to the forefront without any specific event.
Update #2: Sometimes, people can become trigger points. Not because they are explicitly hurtful in any way when you meet them but because of the memories associated with them which all flashback instantly with a glimpse of their sight. And so for these reasons, I don’t really know at times, do I avoid people even if I would want to meet them every day, do I just meet them whenever they feel meeting so would be a good idea, or do I actively make plans to meet them? For the very first category, if the other person gets to know about such an avoidance, it understandably hurts them resulting in more hurt for me for every pain that results from a human’s action returns tenfold to haunt us. For the second one, this seems a good balance but it has made me accept a hard truth as stated in the rant above. For the last one, this is a state where I sometimes think and give everyone the benefit of doubt, “maybe it’s not in their nature to be so outgoing, maybe they are hurting too, maybe everyone would like this” but this runs dry after a while when the excuses start piling in and you need to stop deluding yourself. Afterall, I’ve read that people who care would find a way to fit you into their schedule and so I feel that’s true. If I think about it, I could be legitimately busy and tell acquaintances of how I can only be with them for a specific limited time but I do know, that for people I care, I would somehow make time regardless because the care element is there. And so the fact that someone has a really hard time fitting you into their construct of time, it says a lot about your relative temporal importance(it’s never permanent anyways for death is coming closer). And not to mention, many a times, people would be available as well but ofcourse, their are other people higher on the importance threshold who get a piece of their time pie. I do not mean to claim all rights to someone’s leisure time but I hope you get the point. But then, another factor that sometimes makes me go out and actively connect with friends is the notion that courage is not the absence of fear but doing something despite having that fear. And so I think, I do have this fear of getting bruised every time I meet people but courage would be to do so regardless and so yes, that’s one point. I don’t know for the future what will happen, I had a nightmare today(is it a coincidence that I met a few friends yesterday?), it was a relief knowing it wasn’t reality but well, it was about someone slipping away forever, me being too late to tell them and I just fear that this might happen in reality too. Also if you feel this is too long, this is why I called it a rant. I did invade my own privacy in my defense to bring it to you so yeah.
Also, the reasons I have not shown this post to any friends save one(which I would not do again with the updates) is that them reading this could result in them making conscious changes in order to undo their caused hurt or make me feel better. This is exactly what I detest for I feel any behaviour that results from a change to appease another human being carries not the sincerity of those actions that flow from one’s own free will and the love in one’s own heart. So why should I settle for appeasement even if it would make me temporarily happy? I prefer real tangible hurt over this. Ofcourse, you could argue on the contrary stating that human beings can change and all but again, I kind of doubt anyone would do so for the long-term, it’s all temporal drama. After a while, when you think of everything as having come back to normal, you ask yourselves, didn’t I tell this person that exactly this hurts me? You did but either they have forgotten after the “initial post-confession honeymoon period” or they thought everything was fine now and the old ways can return and so as mentioned at the end of update #1, you look like an idiot talking about a topic they buried long ago.
But I do plan on letting my small social circle online know of this post one day. I have been wondering when, the end of my third year at LSE seems a good option for a couple of reasons. Firstly, since there would be no ongoing university, even if a friend read it, they wouldn’t be able to do any “appeasement actions” to make me feel better since we can’t meet anyways now until next semester. Secondly, by the time the next semester starts, everyone would have forgotten about this anyways so again I wouldn’t be at the receiving end of any sympathy keeping it all real. I do hope though that people in schools, colleges, and universities may read this and learn about the true nature of friendships, perhaps, it can offer them clarity and help them deal with similar issues.
Update #3: 2 toxic ways to respond to people, a friend tried and tested them on me, guaranteed to hurt:
- Refusing to acknowledge that the other person’s feelings are justified. As an example, they would say, “Do you think as such of me, in this manner?// Stop overthinking // do not think so much” and so the problem with that was that it pinned the blame on my thought process rather than the friend actually stopping to think that maybe their behavior caused such a thought process in the first place. Another strategy used within this category is basically just ignoring whatever I say subtly. So I could call them out on something and sometimes, the topic would just suddenly change or a small reply shrugging it off. Sometimes, there would be a balanced long response but then my counter-response would be kind of ignored. For the sake of clarity, it’s like the matter was addressed but no closure really or no satisfaction that okay this would not happen again or yes this is now clear.
- They act/would act like the issue does not exist at all. Like point blank, it is no big deal for them even if it clearly means a lot for me. This I think corresponds very closely to gaslighting where an emotional abuser(regardless of their sincerity) makes you question your sanity because you’re thinking, does this issue actually exist? And this becomes very clear through some specific incidents.
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Yet, as far as I can remember, they did reply to whatever I said but of course since the concern was unilateral, why would they address it? Does it hurt their mental health? If not, why would it matter? Another example,
chunk of TEXT DELETED(i felt it was cringe to read)
