Finding the One and life's other fallacies

All of us as kids start out with a lot of fantasies. Some of us want to be wizards, some of us hope to be secret princesses, some want to be super heroes. As we grow older some geeks like me continue to believe in these fantasies, we are sort of overgrown kids actually. We like comic books, super hero movies, Harry Potter and other fantasy novels.

Rest of us graduate to a higher fantasy – finding the One. The one that the universe intended them to be with, the one they will have an earth shattering romance with, the one that will fight the entire world to be with them, the one which when they see a millions violins will go off, daisies will blow in the wind and time itself will skip a beat.

In my humble opinion you have equal chances of finding out that you can fly and finding the one. The one that you always dreamt of, the one who likes the same quaint movies that you do, the one who likes your friends but has interesting ones of his own too, the one who is good looking but not too much to attract unwanted attention, the one who is outgoing and likes to do stuff but also likes to cuddle in a blanket and watch a movie on the weekends that you don’t feel like going out. The one who swears that one cannot start his or her day without tea if you like tea or is highly knowledgeable about wines and single malts if you are into that kind of stuff. The one who is career oriented and respects yours too but has interesting hobbies and a happening life beyond work. The one who understands your passion for dubstep and your hatred for four-on-the-floor beat or is into ghazals of Farida Khanum If you are. The one who has sense to never wear brown shoes with black pants but is daring enough to wear brogues and not stick to oxfords. The one who is smooth and knows the right thing to say, the one who is never tongue tied or looking for you to show the way but is not too bossy or a control freak either and understands that in some things you know best. The one with whom you will endless conversations till morning every time you talk. The one for candlelight dinners, surprise birthday parties and romantic beach walks.

This One is a fantasy like any other, perpetrated by romantic movies and novels, reinforced by greeting card companies and seemingly realized by happy couple photographs on Facebook. And the biggest difference between us geeks watching Avengers and people watching Notting Hill or DDLJ is that we know Thor and Loki are fictional characters. The point that Anna Scott and Raj are ones too is seemingly missed by a lot of people. Those are the ones who put these expectations on real people. When (or if) aliens attack I will follow emergency evacuation procedure and will try to keep my head down. Not wait for The Avengers to rescue me. But the people searching for the one expect their date/girl or boy friend/marriage prospect to behave exactly like Jack or Rose from Titanic. And then they move on after calculating that he or she is not the one.

Sometimes I feel that these people are more in love with the idea of being in love. For them finding love is a way to make themselves complete and fulfilled. As if finding true love will solve all their problems and their life will be the ones worth flaunting where they can cock a snook at everyone else who hasn’t found their the One yet. Love is a wonderful thing, it really is, it can brighten up the dullest days, it can give you the power to fight through the toughest odds, it really is the rabbit hole that can show Alice or you a wonderful new place but it isn’t a Parasmani. So when you try to find meaning in your life by searching for the one you are putting the burden of your entire fulfillment on him or her.

Your significant other cannot take the burden of being romantically alluring and matching your every taste and being your activity partner and your friend and friend of your friends and being liked by your parents and forethoughtful providers/care givers That is, to take the burden of being the One. He or she cannot take it. No one can.

That is why you have friends. And you need to maintain those friendships even after you find the one. That one friend who can do the Govinda dance steps with you, that one friend who likes hiking as you do, that one friend who also thinks that is totally ok to travel 20 kms to eat a Idli, that one friend who can spend the entire night arguing with you if Sam and not Frodo was the real hero of Lord of The Rings.

Friendships like any plant need to be seeded and then maintained and this day and age it is become increasingly easy to stay in touch and maintain your friendships. Now it is possible to talk to your friends across continents and time zones. To drop in a line or see once in a while what are they up to. And with the internet, online forums and special interest Usenets can get you to talk with total strangers and cultivate friendships across any social divide and almost across languages as well. I argue with 882 strangers whether Stannis was right to burn Shireen on Reddit and don’t really need my One to really care that deeply about Game of Thrones. Most people around me these days keep agreeing to posts and rants that Smarthphones and Facebook are hampering relationships and getting people away from each other. I beg to disagree, I would rather stare in my phone and see photos on FB and send Whatsapp messages to people that I am actually friends with then chat idly with people that I am stuck in train with. These things make you possible to stay in touch with people that you liked and were friends with but are no longer together geographically. Blaming phones for getting people away is like saying Cars are actually hampering transportation because sometimes they run over pedestrians.

And with the aid of these friendships you can really search for the qualities in your significant other that are the most important for you. I would not try to be an expert on love and make a declaration on what these qualities should be, to each one their own. But as an observant introvert I would say this, that everyone has their own problems and solutions, emotional baggage and wisdom, shortfalls and qualities. To accept one without the other is like expecting to be a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist like Ironman and also have time to work those 6 pack abs.