I’m 19 and so is he. We are best friends. But I felt more than just friendship toward him, so I told him that I loved him. It’s been more than 20 days now since I told him my feelings, but he hasn’t replied yet. We haven’t stopped talking though. In fact, we still have long, endless happy conversations, and it seems like nothing has changed. But we never talk about what I told him. Both of us pretend like nothing ever happened. Neither he says anything nor do I dare ask him again. Why isn’t he replying? We both know that our friendship will stay good no matter what he replies. Yet, he doesn’t say anything. Why? Should I take it as a ‘No’? [break]
-Name withheld
What is love? Love is a long, endless happy conversation. Love is being awesome friends and sharing and caring for each other. Love is the tension you feel in your heart while you try to figure out “Does he or does he not love me back.” Love is trying to find clues, in his looks, in his smiles, in his touch and in his words, to find out if he feels for you as passionately as you feel for him. Love is about listening to silences and understanding him beyond what can be seen and heard. Love is looking deep into his eyes and feeling the rising tide inside the heart. What is NOT love? Love is not “a yes or a no”. Love is not a word. Love is a journey and not a destination. More over love is loving without worrying if he loves you back. Just love…just keep loving.
Dear Swastika,
I’m a 21-year-old girl and I’ve had a crush on a guy from my college for very long. He also knows this but he doesn’t want to take this forward. Yet, I still keep dreaming about him and eventually settling down with him. I’m very vocal about my love for him and joke out loud about marrying him or living with his parents in front of my friends. Do you think this is harmful and that I should stop it?
-Anonymous
Here’s few words of wisdom – if you keep joking about something, it becomes a joke. If you keep chasing someone, they start running away. I get it that you love this guy but what I don’t understand is if you love yourself. If you love yourself why would you allow yourself to be in this position where you are constantly hurting yourself? You might be joking and others might be laughing, but I know that every time you joke, it is like a stab in your heart. Your joke is like putting salt and pepper in your wound. You can never laugh enough to forget that he’s not interested in moving this relationship forward. Every time you joke, you are stabbing yourself with the same knife of rejection, again and again. So I think that it is harmful to you more than to anyone else. Start love by loving yourself first.
Dear Swastika,
I am 25 and happy with my life so far. But I lead a very unhealthy life, meaning I don’t care about what I eat, and I don’t even work out ever, although my family members constantly tell me that I’ve put on weight and that it’s unhealthy. However, given my tall stature, my friends tell me that I look fine. I don’t care much about how I look and what difference some extra kilos will make in my life, but I know that I have a low stamina. I can’t even walk for 20 minutes without having to stop for at least two minutes. And despite knowing all this, I don’t have the least motivation in the world to wake up a bit earlier and perhaps go on a morning walk. My siblings are all healthy and regularly go out on mornings. But I just don’t get enough of sleep. I don’t want to join a gym, and I love eating! How can I help myself?
-Purnima
Purnima, thank you for being happy despite what people tell you. Thank you for loving yourself enough. Never ever ever ever allow other people to make you think that you need to change and judge you for how you look. Most of the time when people say you need to change or exercise, it is never about being healthy, it is always about looking good and fitting into the modern stereotype of what being beautiful means. You have probably realized that yourself, that while you are thinking about health and stamina, your family is pushing you towards looks. I think why you can’t make yourself exercise is that some part of you says that you don’t want to surrender to this definition of beauty and give in to this mad weight loss craze. With people constantly pushing you to exercise, you might have started to believe that exercising is equal to joining the weight loss obsession. Become aware of your reasons for your resistance. Believe strongly in your real reason to exercise. Then just do it.
Swastika Shrestha is the founder of Anuvuti – a social enterprise that engages young people in service-learning. She has been coaching and mentoring young people in different capacities for over a decade.
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