To be or not to be

To be or not to be………… (in a relationship) ?

The other day I was walking by the Kathmandu Mall when I saw a couple licking ice-cream from the same cone .Of course, a lot of people do such things given that they’re in a relationship. Then I thought it was better not to look at them and walked past the couple.

That night
I thought a lot. Let you know in the beginning itself that it is an amateurish boy who is writing this. It means to say, I have not yet been in a relationship of that kind which I’m talking about. I asked myself if the fault was in me or the relationship was not in the gate. Yeah! The relationship was no where in the fate. Hey! I’m talking about the girls’ fate.

Anyway, I began to imagine how it feels to be in a relationship. I immediately did a simple survey over the memories and the incidents that come across in people’s lives, which I have only seen, only heard but not felt. And ultimately, I began to run after the consequences of being in a relationship.

When I was a child, talking about such things was full of shyness. Any boy, if teased with a name of a girl felt so shy and angry and vice-versa. Things have changed now. I hear people saying, “If you’re in a relationship, it feels like you’re blessed. You feel worth living, you feel like being in a paradise and bla bla bla.” I reckon most of you too have heard and in fact many of you even have felt that way. Though I’m not an expert, I still have some views on it. Being in a relationship provides you a kind of satisfaction. One way or the other, you remain cheerful and happy. One of the most important parts of life is to be happy. It makes you smile, it kind of changes your way of living. You start feeling responsible, matured and blissful. Another benefit of being in a relationship is that you start to love. And loving is far better than hating and criticizing others. At least you become polite, mannered and things like that. I’ll let you know more benefits once I get into a relationship. Let me talk about the demerits.

You see, there tend to exist dozens of demerits of being in a relationship. Probably the first one in all of our minds is ‘spoiling the studies’. Most of us do think that being in a relationship hampers the study. In fact, it is quite true to a reasonable extent. You constantly think about the one with whom you’re in a relationship. It is even much more if the boy or the girl is a member of OSLAN (One Sided Lovers’ Association of Nepal). You don’t like to make affairs with the books. Either way, you’re going to ruin your studies. You don’t concentrate in class, can’t indeed. You lose interest and so on. Another demerit is that your expenses increase. You spend a lot on phone calls, sms and of course, on the Internet. Not only on these, you definitely need to give gifts to your partner, be it in his/her birthday, on Valentine’s day, on this day, on that day and it goes on and on. Better ask the ones who are in a relationship and if you’re one of them, you certainly have come across it. Third one is jealously and fear. If you see your bf/gf talking with someone else of the opposite sex, you get furious with fear. Doubt and trust declare war against each other. You develop a kind of fear that you may lose him/her. You get annoyed and this is never good. On the count up (not count down as I have started from one), on the fourth number is gaping with friends and family. Once you’re in a relationship, in most of the cases, gaps between you and your family, relatives and friends significantly increase. You no more spend quality time with your family, no more go to play cricket and football, no more go to visit your friends. Instead you go to places like Basantapur, Chovar, Godawari, Sundarijal, KFC, etc. And if you are in little more freedom and privileged with bike and money, you may even make it to Nagarkot during snowfalls.

Hey! Getting bored? An interesting one is yet to come. Boys especially, anywhere constantly roam eyes here and there every single time when a beautiful girl passes by them and analyze a lot of things. Needless to talk about. Ha-ha! Perhaps girls may also do it, who knows. No offense please. The point is that once you’re in a relationship, you can’t watch the other beauties. You remain stuck to one. Not only human beauty, you forget to enjoy the nature. You just remain preoccupied with a single thing. Your creativity decreases and so do your potentiality and performance.

Further consequences can be hazardous. If the relationship is an unhealthy one, taboos like teen sex, crimes like murder can arise. We have been hearing such news again and again over the time. After breakups, murders have been done while in some cases, it has been done for money. Kidnapping and abusing have also been done. It's not funny, it’s a serious issue that I’m talking about.

Unhealthy relationships, yeah! They have been compared to the China products that “Even China products last longer than they do." Being in a relationship or having a boyfriend or a girlfriend is more like a fashion, a show off these days. For some people, it has just become an easy way to fulfill their materialistic needs. For other, it is just an infatuation, an attraction, lust of teenage. True relationships have become too rare to find.

Love does happen only once, as it is said. Other all are infatuations and lust, mere attraction. So I’m finding it difficult to get into a relationship-just waiting for the right time to come. It's not that being in a relationship is too bad. If you can manage, it’s fine. For instance, you have kept your studies outside the influencing circle of your relationship and maintained it well  then you’re a master. If you can control your unnecessary expenses, if you can give time to your friends and family, if you have strong faith and trust upon your partner, if your relationship is healthy and you’re aware about the consequences, being in a relationship is never bad at all. There is never a pre-defined time for love. It may happen anytime, anywhere with anything or anyone in any way. All you need to do is to be able to recognize that it is the love, not infatuation, not attraction, that you want to spend the rest of your life with him/her.

And one thing, the future is seen by nobody as it doesn’t exist. We only have the present. Life is long, though we often say it is short. Wait for the right time and think twice before you take any decision regarding this matter. Don’t be crazy and don’t act silly, don’t panic. Right time comes for everyone-just wait for it as I have been.

(Of course, only the title: inspired by Shakespeare)