Sonia, 28, is a software engineer from Bangalore.
My fairytale life
I always had a very protected life since childhood. Both my parents are neurosurgeons in Bangalore and they have always fulfilled my wishes and I on my part have respected theirs. An all-rounder at school, I was also a very good dancer. It was during one of my annual college fest performances that I met Vinod – an extremely agile dancer and also my senior.
I still remember the day I first saw him dance. I could not take my eyes off him even for a minute. I went backstage and said, ‘Hi! I loved your act.’ He was pleasantly surprised and asked me when my performance was.
He made it a point to stay on for my solo dance performance and also came backstage to praise me and ask my number. Soon we started dating and became the ‘it’ couple of our college. One year down the line, we were regular visitors at each other’s homes and everyone was sure that we will both eventually get married.
And just like that, one day our parents asked us if we wanted to get married and in less than six months we were.
Bitter reflections
In the hindsight, I feel something was amiss. We should have started the marriage talk and not our folks. And we soon found out that we were not as good life partners as we were in dance.
Vinod got a job in Pune and I moved with him. I took up a job at an IT firm and life moved on. The first few months of marriage were like an eye-opener. I did not know this side of Vinod. He hated keeping the house clean, was a spendthrift, did not take anything seriously – be it his career or health. He wanted to eat out almost every night.
Maybe we had changed as people or we simply didn’t know each other as well. We just couldn’t make things work and decided to call it quits within a year of our marriage. I moved back with my parents decided not to look for a job to give myself some time to heal. Our breakup within the first year of the marriage broken me from inside. I became aloof and confined myself to home.
Breath of fresh air
My parents tried very hard to change my mood, trying to take me out, even on holidays. But I wouldn’t relent. One day we were invited to a family wedding and my parents begged me to come along. A very close cousin was getting married and so I made the effort to dress up and attend. There I met Raghav – the son of my dad’s childhood friend. I used to play with him as kids. Raghav had turned out to be a confident and charming man.
He sensed that something was wrong and asked me about it. I opened up, telling him about our half-baked marriage and broke down midway. He just held my hand and let me sob in silence.
The next day Raghav showed up at my doorstep and asked me to get dressed for Samba classes. Although I was appalled and irritated, I didn’t let him know and quietly did as told because he was nice to me the night before.
My 3 am friend
After that day, Raghav became my 3 am friend and we went out for trekking, swimming, movies and even coffee. I even joined his gym and worked out to lose all the weight I had gained in my not-so-great ‘couch potato’ phase. I also applied for jobs at several IT firm and finally got the one I liked.
To an outsider and even our parents, Raghav and I appeared to be a couple but we were just friends who hung out together. He also told me about the break-up with his girlfriend of four years and how he was not looking at a romantic relationship for some time.
Nevertheless, I created his Tinder account and fixed his dates with two women. Both turned out to be a disaster and we had a good laugh about it for weeks.
Welcoming happiness
He took me by surprise one day when we went for a coffee one day and his cute-looking friend joined us. ‘Hi, I am Sameer and I have heard so much about you Sonia!’ I was smitten by Sameer’s voice and Raghav could sense that.
He moved out of the coffee shop on the pretext of a call. A few minutes later, I got a text that read, ‘Enjoy your date with Sameer!’
I have now been dating Sameer for two months but that has not affected my friendship with Raghav. Now both Sameer and I try and fix him up on dates and laugh together on the disaster he makes of them!
Persons in the picture are models.
Names changed.
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