Dear guys

To the good guys who deserve better,
You wear this mask of “I don’t care” because you’ve been pushed around far too many times. Friends. Crushes. Girlfriends. Everyone hurt you, so you decided to fit in.

Your classes end early some days, but you stick around longer because your best friend is a girl and you like to walk her to her home because she understands you and you want to ensure her safety. Everyone else around thinks you love her. You don’t. They spread rumours about you two. And one night, she asks you to stay away because she believes those rumours are true. You tell her the truth but she tells you to stop pretending.

Your crush texts you at 1 AM, asking you if you’ve completed your assignment. You tell her you have and it’s not too hard. She asks if you can do it for her, too. You know this isn’t the first time you’ve helped her. Instead of saying no, you stay up late and complete her assignment because it’s the last day of the submission. Next morning, she thanks you and stops texting you until she needs your help again.

You bring flowers and chocolates for your girlfriend, but she is never on time anywhere. You ask her if she is going to tell her friends about you, and she says no. She introduces you as her casual friend in parties and flirts with other boys. She tells you she wants the relationship to be a secret because you’re too precious to be exposed, but you know the truth — she doesn’t want to be seen around you. She tells you that you’re her choice, but you’ve always been an option.

The good guys don’t exist because they’ve been told to stay quiet, they’ve been misunderstood and asked to change themselves because they’re too good to be true. I know I sound like a broken record but don’t do this to yourself. I know there are days when all you want to do is live, maybe dream of a future you had built up in your head. I know that when you close your eyes, everything – those little sufferings and those fights seem so insignificant before your love. I’ve been there too. But it gets better, trust me.

Every time you look at your failed relationship, take off your spectacles and remind yourself of the reason why it ended. Remind yourself that love happens not once, but several times – sometimes at the right swipe on a dating app or occasionally with the girl mixing her coffee absentmindedly as she turns page after page in your favourite coffee shop. And remind yourself that life goes on. And people leave. All the time.

I don’t claim to understand your story. Only you do. But I do want to tell you, any day you dial my number, I’ll pick up on the first ring. And I’ll listen to you cry the whole night. I’ll drive over to your place with chocolates and a right mix of action movies because nothing takes the focus of a broken heart like gory violence. We’ll stay up the entire night imitating old Bollywood villains, and maybe you’ll fall asleep laughing.

We’ll build new memories and then someday – maybe soon or long after, you’ll fall in love again. You’re going to find another old soul, one who will be everything you ever dreamt of or more. And this time it will last.

So just for once, try? You deserve better.