Socially Bonded Love

“Be in love with a boy who loves you….ultimately there is hardly any value attached to a girl’s feelings.” These are the words of the woman who has taught me that being independent is the foremost solution to women’s problems. My mother is by far the most inspirational character in my life. Last twenty five years I have seen her fight tooth and nail for her career and lead a financially independent life. Naturally, an aspiration for the same was passed on to me as well. Then why is it that I am being advised to love someone depending on his feelings for me? Why cannot my love be independent as well? Why does it need to depend on his time, commitment and expression of love?

My friends who are aware of my feelings for him have a very poignant question to ask, “but has he said he loves you?” My answer is very simple, “no he has not.” I was fourteen when I got into my first ‘relationship’. One in school, one during my undergraduate years and one during my graduate studies, I have experienced relationships at various stages of life. One went down on his knees to say he loves me, one wrote a poem of love and one took me out on expensive dates to express his love for me. If expression of love was the prime factor defining a relationship, then in all probability atleast one of the three should have worked out. He never said he loved me, we never went on dates, writing poems was out of question. Last three years, we have been in different cities, different time zones, seen each other go through periods of extreme struggle and frustration, and yet I have never felt more loved. Then why do I feel compelled to answer my friends’ question?

There is an illusion attached to the word ‘love’. No one can define it in absolute terms. So lets stick to the much less stressful word ‘affection’. When after 48 hours of exhausting shoot, he spoke to me from the other side of the world, just to console me on a bad day, I felt deep affection. When he asked me to put my career before anything else and to enjoy the dream I had always seen, I knew that going down on the knees did not always mean a perfect life. When he remembers the littlest of details I have told him about my life, when he tries his best to meet with every childish demand and request of mine, I understand, that not every feeling need be written down.

Yet why do I have to answer questions? Why do I have to make my love for him socially acceptable? Why do I need to give a name to whatever I share with him? On most instances, I have been told that if I do love him then I should ignore the questions and believe in my feelings. But like I said, love is an illusion; validated by the demands of society. When I pressurize him to confirm his affection for me, it is society demanding. When I compel him to meet me on a busy day, it is my need for social approval speaking. When I ask him to make a commitment to me, it is a social need and not my own. In the process of pursuing social validation for my love, I see myself pushing away the beauty of everything that I share with him. Affection gets dissolved only to produce a hollow cry that echoes everything that society wants me to say. Deep in my heart, I hear a small voice saying- time, expression and commitment are not the essential ingredients of a relationship, understanding each other is.