If you've ever fantasised about living the life of your favourite TV/movie character, I will tell you right here and now: don't, because it's hardly as fun as it seems. I have wanted to be Carrie Bradshaw all my life and now that I have morphed into her, thanks to a recent trip to New York City, it's a Sex And The City nightmare -- guy with commitment issues included.
I never imagined this day would come, but I'm guessing it's also largely because we tend to only think about the nice bits, when in truth, you get the whole package if you want in. Carrie manages to write her cultishly admired relationship columns, but it's only usually after she's been subject to some level of torture that gives her material to write about. With my own recent misadventure, I will at least try to make something out of my unpleasant experience, because, well, I'm trying to emulate what my favourite character does and does best. Here's me hoping to offer my two bits of consolation, thanks to the over-pumped occasion of tomorrow's Valentine's Day.
The first obvious lesson is that falling in love with someone living 12 time zones away is possibly the dumbest thing you could do to yourself. What follows of course, is the feeling of getting hit by a truck and ageing 10 years within a day -- none of which are very pleasant, nor does it pass away within a 30-second montage. Avoid it if you can help it, but if it's too late, I guess the next best thing is to really let it sink in that things happen in their own time.
This will, of course, be completely lost to millennial ears, a group I happen to fall under. Love in the time of social media is not necessarily easier and possibly even more frustrating. It was ridiculous and driving me nuts that my potential Mr. Big and myself were only a few fingertip taps away from each other, but our rapport was progressing at the rate of a slug on crutches. But what my generation fails to realise is that the advent of digital portals does not mean we can think any faster. Yes, it has never been easier to communicate, to send your message across 12 time zones and 8,000 miles in an instant. But that doesn't necessarily mean one has anything to say, despite the convenient channel available.
Both of us need to brood on our own terms and in our own time because relationships cannot be rushed to bud any sooner -- just like you cannot force trees to grow, cakes to bake, or stalagmites to form any quicker. In this age of instant gratification, it can be especially hard to be patient when the internet spoils us, and for the worse. The need to be happy and to know immediately is so pervasive that, sometimes, it's rendering us into being completely lousy at doing the most basic things, like connecting and waiting.
The message that other millennials and myself can't hear enough is probably the fact that deep down inside, feelings happen in their real time and over their natural course, so forget what the internet says (or doesn't say), because that's just unnatural and also the source of unnecessary panic attacks.
After a little memory refreshment, I arrived at a new calm that I probably need to chill the heck out because Carrie and Mr. Big don't happily end up with each other until the end of Season 6. At that rate, however, my outlook is bleak -- especially with my barely getting out alive from what felt a lot like the first season. Maybe I'm taking off after the wrong character here, but on the whole movie note, I'd like to end with a quote that's always managed to lift me up through all the lows and is definitely worth taking after. In Om Shanti Om, a line by lead star Shah Rukh Khan has always stuck by me: "I am convinced that our real lives are like our Hindi films, where everything ends on a positive note. Happy endings. And if everything does not turn out well in the end, then that is not the end, there is more to the movie."
Parisa Pichitmarn is the editor of Muse.