No offence but it is that wretched time of the year again. There are only three times in a year when I feel like being in a relationship. One: On Valentine’s Day. Two: On my birthday. And Three: well, all of the winters actually.

Okay, before you begin to read between the lines, please know that I know – perhaps better than most around me that other people are not medicines. I will not let a person in, hoping against hope it will be an antidote to my depression and melancholy. I will not use a body, just because I am lonely and in a position to use somebody.

Okay wait!

Yes, I can use a body because I am lonely. God knows I have done it in the past. But that is not the case any longer. Firstly, there is a thing about pay-offs. I cannot use somebody until that person wishes to be used. There are pleasures in being used as well. Not talking about child sexual abuse here, because the other party in question isn’t in a position to consent. Consent anyway comes with its own grey areas. What seems like consent might not really be consent and sometimes a lack of it is more. And yes, I know the law says unequivocal yes. Haven’t you ever been tempted to push the boundaries though? You may be a law-abiding citizen, but does the law abide by your desires? Isn’t it dictated by the populist conformist views of the society at large? Anyway, law and consent are not part of my rant for now.

Suffice it to know that I know using somebody may fuck people up big time, and not in a way that is enjoyable. Hence, when I have sex, I lay the foundation pretty clear. Explicitly, sometimes implicitly (when I know the person is smart enough to get the hints,) I make it clear that this is just sex. And yes, we can hang out. And yes we can also date. But don’t have sex with me just to date me in future.

Okay! That sounded bad and narcissistic and self-absorbed. It isn’t. Please wait a while and let me explain. I know there is not an array of consenting adults vying to jump to bed with me or date me. When you have a body that I have, which is large and stocky bdw, not conventionally pleasant to say the least, there are only so many choices you get. And then there is this entire deal of previous sexual encounters that turned weary and the triggers I now carry like landmines interspersed underneath my skin.

So yes, it is very difficult to find a person who is fine with the body that I carry, understands the triggers, and is still ready to get down and dirty.

That comes with its own share of loneliness and craving…for touch, for passion, for nights drenched in salacious exchange of lust and desire. And if that is not enough, there comes the season of love – so to speak, when every corporate only wish to make money out of selling and promoting not love but just an idea of love. It is sad, really! Sickening actually. When we don’t realize how unknowingly we have given to the unscrupulous capitalist agendas. Whuff! Anyway.

That is the case with desire no. It doesn’t get what is politically correct and what is not. It just wants what it wants. I know if anything, Valentine’s Day isn’t about love. Yeah, the idea of love maybe. But mostly, it is still about how on this one day a stem of rose is sold off at 150. How someone would spend a 1000 bucks for a box of chocolates. How a simple stuff toy can be traded off in the zest of love at 5 grands and whatnot.

And yet, here I am, counting days to 14th, hoping this time, out of some miracle, there will be roses, chocolates and a teddy bear at my doorstep sharp when the clock hits 12.

That isn’t going to happen. I know. Not cynical, just real.

For starters, I am single. I have been single since 2013 so to speak. In fact, whatever happened after 2010 was a sort of frenzy, with me trying to cope with a break up that had followed within two months of the sad, sudden and shocking demise of my father.

And here I stand. Sort of sorted somehow. Sort of making progress in my life. Sort of making friends and further strengthening the friendships that I have. And yes, the craving to have a person in my life is so acute it makes my stomach hurt and make me want to curl up in bed and not step outside at all and yet, I would only write about it and not pick up my phone, ask the person I like these days to come and meet me.

You see, I have stopped using people as medicine, like finally.

And in all actuality, I am unwilling to date. Like I said, I require a person on just 3 very different occasions. And humans do not come made-to-order. You can’t call them up like you call a cab these days. Although, Tinder and other apps are trying to provide that service. But still, I am not turning back on the awareness I have had in the past whatever years, after being through hell.

The point is, my life was blank. There was a low point around 2010, where nothing else seemed to make sense. It went on till 2013ish I guess, and after that I sort of started picking up the pieces. I invested in myself. I went through rather exhausting and overwhelming counselling sessions, I learnt new methods of alternative healing and letting go and mastering emotions and whatnot. And even though I am a mess sometimes, in reality, I know I have made progress.

And finally I am getting to enjoy the body that I have, to not abuse it or look down upon it. Finally, I have gotten over my fantasy for people with perfect bodies. The love I felt for myself I could extend to others as well. I understand their triggers. I understand their needs. And I don’t judge them. And yes, I have sex like there is no tomorrow. Hungry, and all in! Soft and rather comforting. I switch between roles, I ask for what I like, I do what I like and I also aim to please. It is a box full of candies – only different flavours at different times and all rather enticing.

So yes, I don’t want to commit because I don’t want to be restricted. It is the first time in my life I am having sex based on what I want. I hook up and instead of escaping as soon as the first ray of sun hits the surface, I stay. I enjoy coffee with them. I invite them for events and sort of hang out. Only the ones I like though. And the ones I don’t, I bid farewell to them, respecting their time and mine.

I have finally set the ghosts of stigma and shame to rest. I feel free. And I want to keep feeling free because quite honestly, in the past 26 years of my life, I have never really felt free. I was made to feel guilty for liking what I liked, for desiring what I desired but not anymore. No!

I am compassionate. And I find sex to be a beautiful way to connect with someone. No matter who I talk to, if they are intriguing enough, I wonder how they would be in bed. How would they kiss? What their kinks are?

And it is very difficult for me to find a person who understands how desire really works. Recently, one of my friends decided to open their relationship and well, they couldn’t handle it.

Haww! Open relationship? Such lechers, right? No! Wrong!

I would neither condemn nor idolize open relationships. Whatever works! It is about time we stopped viewing relationships in the concrete structures of right and wrong – which are not even ours by the way. Understand that these structures have been spread out across by certain moral polices and people who claim themselves to be higher authorities and hence can judge and condemn human dynamics.

I have let shame and stigma, rather the fear of being shamed and stigmatized govern my life, my choices, and my body for far too long. And I want to give it a break finally.

So no. I am not ready to commit. Because I maybe late but I am finally getting to figure myself out. Because if I ever say “I Love You” I wish to be sure of what I is…what Love is…and what You are…! I don’t want to let an idea that I have of myself feel the idea of love that I am supposed to feel for an idea that I have of you.

So chill – I am telling this to myself here. But you can also chill, if that is something you would like to do. Valentine’s Day is just a single day. Lol, the Irony. But it is just one day and it will pass off. Maybe I’ll get some stimulating action. If not, I have my set of friends to hang out with. And if they all have plans (some of them are strangely committed you know,) I will spend time with myself and at least would try to figure out one of the many layers of the I…the idea of I…

There is no denying that I want love in my life.

And I have finally started accepting it in ways I get it.

A cousin sharing her poems with me is Love…we don’t usually do that you know, in the family I come from.

My mother cooking my favourite meal is love.

A friend measuring the lengths and breaths of the city just to come and enjoy some alcohol with me is love.

A couple who wants to open their relationship and invite me in, while taking care of my needs, being there for me even when I don’t ask them for it, listening to my rants, giving me time and perhaps even reading this weird blog just because I have written it, IS LOVE.

And the way I write…the need in me to perfectly articulate- at least the best that I can, about what I feel so as to help someone else feel what they are feeling, is love.

There are times when I stay back after events, or I meet people after strenuous office hours, just to ensure they are okay and that is love.

When I use whatever little I know of counselling and healing, just to intervene and help people not make the same mistakes I did, to better understand, to be better equipped to handle overwhelming sentiments and complex emotions, to love and to accept different people, is love.

There is love around us…you and me. We have to just understand it in the little mysterious and inconspicuous ways in which it exists. And if we just keep pushing through, against all odds, against all the cynicism and the capitalist forces, and the political divides, perhaps someday we might actually get to experience love. True love.

And perhaps then when I would commit, when I would say it out loud “I Love You,” I would feel fearless, brave and assured, being fully aware that what we love never really goes away. And I will wait for that day. As my favourite quote goes,

For You, A Thousand Times Over.

Bdw, yeah, happy Valentine’s Day. Whatever.