Day 35 of 100 Indian Tinder Tales

R from Delhi writes about falling in love over text.

“S and I ‘met’ online in November last year. I had been through a 20 year relationship, of which a decade I was married. He had a rough marriage too. He seemed very non-flamboyant, simple and nice and we got along like a house on fire. He was based out of South East Asia and we spent days just texting, sharing music, sharing our love for common interests and just having very good conversation. Somewhere along the line, having never met him, I think I was falling in love with him.

The only thing that was different between us was that he often didn’t look at his phone, leaving messages unanswered for hours, at times, even days. And then there were these beautiful mornings when I woke up to music from him on my phone, with a simple text that read, “only for you”. He sent me lines from songs in the middle of a regular conversation and I would just smile through the day, looking at that text and imagining the conversation we would have when we meet.

I’m a very high contact person, responding to texts as soon as I can. He was the exact opposite. He wouldn’t look at his phone for hours. There was a time he was away for seven days and I couldn’t figure what had happened to him. Turned out he was travelling, lost his phone, fell sick. That’s the only thing we argued.

He often said he was sorry to frustrate me and make me miserable. While I understood his perspective I often tried to reason with him that because we lived in different countries the phone was our only friend and if he didn’t make an effort to at least look at his phone, how else were we going to make this work. And so there were times, while I didn’t want to, I told him this wouldn’t work and we should let it be. And every time I said that, he said something that made me stay on. Told me how he would try to be better. How I was special. How we should see where this goes and I just kept falling deeper in love with him.

My friends told me I was crazy to fall in love with a man I had never met but I don’t know what it was about him that made me feel like this.

Also beyond every other thing that was amazing about him, one thing that stood out, unlike any other guy I had met on Tinder, was that for the 6-8 months we texted, he never, for a moment said a word that was improper, derogatory, impolite, sexual, rude…nothing. It was too good to be true but I thought I was just so lucky to have found someone like him.

Everything was perfect. I couldn’t wait to meet him, planning a trip in my head to go see him soon. Till about a month back, when over a conversation I got emotional and like we had started talking over a text, he blocked me out. Over a text. One text to say he was sorry to hurt me but this was the end because he thought he was going to make me miserable and didn’t want to do that. That was it. One text.

I have texted him since, asking him to just talk to me once. Shared music, reasoned with him, tried to understand what he was going through. He reads all my texts and responds to none. I believe deep in my heart that he has his reasons. That he’s holding back for a right time, a right moment. My gut is rarely wrong and I hope this time it holds to be true too.

But for now its over. It ended like it started. And all I do every day is believe. That this will be ok. That we will be together and one day we will laugh at this and how stupid we were. I’m probably just emotional and stupid but I believe in love and happy endings and I know somewhere there is a rainbow waiting to come through.”

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