Love is a beautiful emotion, it originates a feeling in you that you’ve probably never experienced before. Mornings suddenly begin to feel happier, better and cozier.
You somehow begin to feel excited about life again and for those first few months, everything seems perfect.
But alas, life is not a Nicholas Sparks movie and love doesn’t always get reciprocated. It’s more of a sad song video, occasionally jumping between ‘Channa Mereya’ and ‘Tujhe Bhula Dia’.
Many love proposals end in denial, if not all. The person you spent months flirting with and trying to impress, now somehow cannot imagine the idea of the two of you being in a relationship.
There can be plenty of reasons for this. Your significant one-sided other may have a crush on somebody else or they simply might not be ready for a serious relationship.
They might also tell you that they never thought of you in a romantic way and that, you were probably always just a friend to them.
Cut to reality, the pretty love castle that you and your friends were building in the air since so long, comes crashing down.
And with it, the many hopes and aspirations that you dreamt for yourself and for the other person, also go down the drain.
Steps in, disappointment
The pain of a one-sided love story is almost as bad as a breakup because for starters, you never enjoyed the thrill of a relationship with them. There are very few good memories to fall back on and probably, more pain and rejection to take in.
The person you shared your deepest secrets and desires with, now suddenly seems indifferent. The person with whom you spent months talking about your hobbies and aspirations, is now someone you need to maintain distance with, because how else would you be able to move on?
But the sad part is, the world often regards this dire situation as everything it is not – beautiful, romantic and poetic.
Media’s Romanticization Of One-Sided Love Affairs
These days, movies and social media often try to romanticize the pain that one goes through in these one-sided love stories.
They view them not as painful experiences but rather as sacrificial and pure acts of love.
Poetry/Quotes
Even Instagram writers/poets weave tales of such experiences in a way that somehow tries to find beauty in the pain of these lovers when as a matter-of-fact, there is nothing beautiful about pain and rejection.
It’s something that makes you feel void from inside and makes you lose belief in love. It’s something that not everyone can handle.
Here’s another poem glorifying the mess that is one-sided love. What happiness does one find in this ‘purest form of all’? It’s just a ladder that leads you to hurt and pain.
If in some parallel universe pleasure is equivalent to pain, I’d agree with this post.
Also Read: Teenage Relationships Are Not Just Distractions But About Growing Together
Movies
Ranbir Kapoor’s role of Ayan in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil is the aptest example of the romanticization of pain that is carried out by the entertainment industry these days.
From a sane and smart individual, he went on to become a toxic, obsessive and crazy lover. Ironically, Karan Johar presented the same as something SO beautiful and enduring, that it even made you want something similar for yourself.
The dialogues were not just the only troublesome aspect of the film, the representation of the fact that one should necessarily feel pain in order to experience love is also an absurd thought.
Love is beautiful and one should rejoice it; whereas pain is simply pain. Ranbir Kapoor wearing a Lucknowi sherwani and singing Channa Mereya doesn’t reduce it neither does the entry of a hot poetess like Aishwarya Rai make it any less chaotic.
So please, stop reciting ‘shayrees’ and ‘poems’ on how one-sided love is sacrificial, pure and beautiful because it’s neither of these things.
It’s simply painful, psychotic and downright unhealthy.
The Other Side Of The Story
The entire movie was from Ranbir’s point of view. But did someone care to notice how absolutely toxic it was for Anushka or for that matter, how it is for any person who’s at the receiving end of it?
Apart from ruining Anushka’s wedding day by hitting himself with a potted plant, singing a sad song and showing her the middle finger, he also took away from her the only stable relation she’d ever found in life – friendship.
And why? Simply because this man-child couldn’t take no for an answer.
The point is, one-sided love is an extremely unhealthy, ugly and painful situation to be in. It benefits no one and it’s high time people understood this instead of romanticizing it and finding “beauty” in its toxic mess.
Let’s not weigh love and pain on the same platter, they are two very different emotions. You do not have to experience pain to be in true love just as you don’t necessarily have to be in love to feel the pain of a relationship.
Let’s hope the media gets the gist of it and we don’t see any more Ranbir Kapoors beautifying the painful saga that is one-sided love.
Image Credits: Google Images
Find the blogger at @MoulshreeS
