How To Break Your Heart For The First Time

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Be a teenager. Look across the crowded large room and single him out. You’ve been looking for some distraction, and there it is, 6 feet tall, right in front of you. Ignore his pimples, ignore the dark circles around his eyes. Promise yourself that it is just going to be something fun, and not serious. Promise yourself that you won’t even tell your best friend. And then, fall for him. Not in love. You are not someone who falls in love. No, it will be a mere distraction, mere thinking. The mystery, the vagueness, the unknown is what attracts you. The lesser you know him, the better. 


Go home that night and purposefully dream of him. Your prince in disguise. Assume him to be the epitome of perfection, afterall, there is no harm in it. Repeat this every single night for months. Imagine conversations, supplying his dialogues in your mind. Play out the scenes in your mind, scenes where he follows the lines of the protagonists from your romance novels. Whenever he walks by, or says ‘hello’, blush. Stare at him when he isn’t watching. Finally, tell your friends and enjoy their teasing. Live in the paradise. 


Whenever you want to escape the tension of reality, slip away and dream of him. Whenever you are sad, close your eyes and imagine telling him your problems and his subsequent kind reactions. Whenever you see a couple in love or regret your single status, imagine his face. You know that he really isn’t what your imagination has made him, but it doesn’t really matter, it’s just for fun.


Repeat the previous steps infinite times. Let months pass away, with this ‘crush’ to entertain you. It’s your own twisted idea of fun. And then, start to get bored of the activity. There are no new stories to imagine. It’s been four months since anyway. And then decide to let him fade away from your mind just as you’ve let countless others do. Get ready to find someone .Wake up one morning, a few weeks later, and realise you involuntarily dreamed of him again. Realise that forgetting him is not as easy as it was in the case of others. Decide to get a new crush, just to forget him.


Fail in finding someone new. Fail in falling for someone else. Fail in forgetting him. As the days pass, realise that against all reason, you have probably fallen for him for real. Sigh, and think about the irony of the situation. And finally, after weeks of denial, accept it. Tell him how you feel, knowing that he doesn’t feel the same way, but deep inside hoping he does.

Watch him reject you, watch him make fun of you. Curse yourself for being foolish, and promise yourself never to commit the same mistake again. Replace your heart by with a ball of iron. Not a heartbreak, since there never was anything between you two, and yet it hurts. 


Watch ten months fly by.


Open your Facebook account one night to find a message from him waiting for you- an apology for the jerk he was to you. Hear your heart thud and hammer as you reply and he responds instantaneously.


Pretend to yourself that you don’t care for him anymore. Still, chat with him. Everyday, for two weeks. Begin to wonder why he initiates conversation every day. Unconsciously start to hope that he cares. 


See him fall for you. Bring your own feelings back from the dead and realise that you never got over him anyway. Though a little stained, the feelings become just as they were. Act like two people in love. Tell him everything there is to know about you, and find out everything about him. Start the process of reinstating your heart and removing the ball of iron.


And then witness him disappear after a month or two. Watch him not reply to your messages. Watch his interest die out. Cry your eyes out and wonder what went wrong. Go into depression, all the while feeling that your heart is broken. Drown out your feelings for him and swear never to commit the same mistake.
Watch three months fly by.


Then watch him come back into your life. Watch him try to return. Let him return. And then after a few weeks of happiness, watch him fade out of your life again. Play out the ominous dance of love and heartbreak with him several more times. Endure the cycles of his arrival, his declaration of love and then his sudden disappearance. Feel a bit of your heart break everytime, and yet allow it to happen. Meekly accept his reason of being commitment-phobic even though it explains little. Try to move on every time and fail.


And then, after the game has been played a dozen times, see him come back. This time to stay. Watch everything change. Watch him say things he didn’t before. Hear him declaring he has changed. And accept his words. Accept the fact that people change even though deep inside you know they don’t. Hear him finally say those three magic words. Hear yourself say them in return, even though you don’t know if that is what you feel. Realise that the torturous cycle of love and hate have zapped your energy and feelings, and yet you want him. Hear him ask you to be his girlfriend, and hear yourself say yes.


Watch him try hard to please you. Watch him try to change. See his eyes and realise that maybe, he really loves you. Enjoy the first few weeks of paradise. Feel your heart swell each time you hear his voice. Witness how everything else becomes a second priority. Feel yourself in love with the feeling of being in love.
And yet, in this honeymoon period, realise that your heart is still guarded, wary of being free again. Try to set it free, and truly fall in love. Fail. And then, become aware of everything that is wrong. Become aware of the increased frequency of fights. Become aware of your differences. Realise that somewhere deep inside, you blame him for having hurt you repeatedly before. Realise that he is not the person you thought him to be, just someone you created in your imagination for fun. Drift apart.


Find out that he spilt a secret of yours. Exchange angry words with him. Say things you don’t mean and feel the world go black. Break up with him in a fit of anger. Hear his apologies, his requests, his feelings and then push them out of another ear. Refuse to take him back, even though you are hurting inside. You wanted him to be something different that he is not. Detest his begging which continues for days. And then watch him disappear. Console yourself by saying that he was going to disappear anyway, and you saved yourself from a lot of pain. Refuse to believe that you broke up with him because you were afraid of getting hurt.


Watch a week pass by.


And then, watch him come back into your life again, with a plan. Watch him make you fall in love with him. Realise that the separation from him was the most painful thing that happened to you and rush back into his safe familiar arms. 


Feel that he really does love you and believe him when he says forever. Cast away your skepticism when he quotes cheesy lines and for once believe him that he will never ever stop loving you. Feel your heart set free from its cage. Give yourself over to him completely. Ignore his faults, ignore that you don’t have time for yourself or for reading nowadays. Compromise. Be in it for real this time. Believe that your relationship can last forever. Resolve your trust issues, and live in your paradise.


Watch twenty days fly by.


And then, feel the storm come. Hear his shocking words out of the blue. Hear him break up with you over the phone. Hear him confess that he doesn’t feel the same about you anymore. Hear him say that it is not meant to be. And then hear him cry for the first time as he talks to you, the last phone call. Console him mechanically, say you understand and you’ll be alright. Don’t cry even though you feel like screaming and shouting. Speak kindly to the traitor, for you can’t make yourself blame him for anything. And finally put down the phone and silently stare at your reflection in the mirror.


Feel your world collapse. Find out the true meaning of grief. Feel that the world isn’t worth living in anymore. Feel soulless, forlorn. Curse yourself for acting just like every other crazy immature teenager. And then cry your eyes out.


Watch five hours fly away in tears.


And then, when no tears can come out anymore, take out a sheet of paper and a pen and write down just how you broke your own heart.