Sarthak, 26, is an entrepreneur in Delhi.
Partner, sans commitment
The day I decided to become an entrepreneur and give a hundred percent to my startup, I knew I would not have the time for a typical girlfriend-boyfriend relationship. I was doing well in my career but still felt the need for a partner, sans commitment.
To sustain a relationship is hard but to not have one is harder. At 26, I was not out there in the world looking for love and getting married. But I was also not going to live alone! I said this to myself as I was watching Netflix over a weekend, alone in my room. The only thing I was concerned was whether any girl would echo my thoughts.
Luck by chance
In between both these extremes of commitment and singlehood, I had a chance meeting with Megha during a business trip to Delhi. Megha was a young, confident girl and was interning at the firm whose founder I had a meeting with. She assisted me with printouts of some documents and we began chatting.
During our brief chat, I told her about my startup and she listened with much interest. After I finished with my meeting, I thanked her for all her help and left my visiting card with her.
I received the first text from her the very next morning and it felt good. We started texting each other quite often about work and life in general. From texts, we graduated to phone calls and became buddies.
Got a condom?
After two months, her internship in Delhi came to an end and she came to Bangalore for some work. I offered her to stay with me since we were good friends now and I was living alone. She moved into the spare guest room and I was happy to have company.
Over the time, we developed a strong bond over breakfast and dinners. One weekend, while sipping tea in our balcony together, I told her about my almost non-existent sex life.
I was expecting her to think that I was a creep but she asked me whether I had a condom or not. I didn’t have any. She told me to get one as fast as I could and that evening we had sex for the first time.
Just pleasure
She was the second girl I had been physically intimate with and I was simply overwhelmed with pleasure when she touched my body. The next day I told her that I am not looking for a relationship and she said she also was not looking for one. During the time we stayed together, I had to buy a large pack of condoms and keep it over my wardrobe so that the maid would not see it.
She went back to Delhi after her business in Bangalore was over. After that, we had to limit our engagements to phone and video calls. It comforted me to see her face every once in a while and have somebody to talk to when I was bored and tired.
It was equally peaceful to not talk to her every day and describe how my day went and ask what all she did at work. We became each other’s companions but there was no lifelong partnership promise between us.
What’s in a name
Having empathetic and sexual relationships without any commitment was not just a dream anymore, we were living it. We live a thousand kilometers away so there is no weekly pressure of dates. But having sex every time we meet on a vacation is relaxing.
At the same time, asking her advice on the latest marketing books and telling her about my work is helpful. We are happy with whatever we are doing and not giving a name to whatever we have between us. Our relationship is under no burden and we are free from social expectations.
*To protect the identity, names have been changed and the person/s in the picture is/are models.
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About the author: Arpit Chhikara loves to read, write, draw and take long walks while listening to podcasts. Besides writing on various themes related to SRHR, he also works in the alternative education domain. When not at home, you can find him living in lesser-known places in India. You can check him on Instagram.