Confessions of a love-agnostic

Valentine’s Day rolls around every year like an overenthusiastic Cupid armed with a bow and a marketing budget. For the lovers, it’s a time for grand gestures and poetic declarations. For the fighters, it’s a battlefield of unmet expectations and passive-aggressive gift exchanges. And then there’s me — neither a lover nor a fighter, just a bewildered bystander in the romcom of life, watching the world drown in a sea of heart-shaped balloons.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate romance — I just seem to lack the skill set. The heartfelt love notes? My texts are about as passionate as a grocery list. And don’t even get me started on candlelit dinners — why are we struggling to read a menu by the dim flicker of wax when we could just turn on the lights? Maybe it was the fact that Indian parents are like jailers, watching every move you make towards the opposite sex. Maybe it was the all-girls convent education that shielded me from the starry-eyed foolishness of teenage romance. Whatever the reason, love and romance never seemed to affect me the way they did others.

Let’s be honest — I wasn’t exactly drowning in admirers, but the few who did show interest didn’t quite sweep me off my feet. Meanwhile, the ones I liked remained blissfully unaware of my existence. And even when I did get introduced to them, they didn’t thrill me as much up close as they did from a distance. I was all about the idea of romance, never the reality.

While my peers swooned over Danielle Steele’s passionate heroes, I was buried in crime fiction, far more invested in solving whodunnits than in romantic entanglements. While they dreamt of a brooding Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice or a tormented Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre, I admired the razor-sharp intellect of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and the cool, calculated moves of Mark Girland from James Hadley Chase’s thrillers. Looking back, that should have been a warning sign — but at the time, I was too engrossed in tracking fictional murderers to notice.

I went through school and college unscathed. College, even more so, because I had transformed into a fiery student leader/activist — a persona that seemed to repel romance with the effectiveness of industrial-grade insect repellent. It was only much later that I realised some guys had actually liked me but were too afraid to say anything. Which, in hindsight, is quite funny.

When people asked me about my dream wedding, my answer was simple: Who dreams of a wedding? The ones who are married are lamenting. And yet, irony has a wicked sense of humour. The only relationship I ever had ended in marriage, and the only man brave (or foolish) enough to approach me actually succeeded. My first Valentine’s Day gift from my now-husband? A crime novel. That’s when I knew — he was the one. Who else could possibly know me better?

I was not born to be a lover, but I wasn’t a fighter either. I didn’t rage against the Valentine’s Day machine — I just sort of shrugged at it, like someone politely declining a chocolate they secretly wanted but were too proud to accept. And maybe that’s the real confession: while I may scoff at Hallmark holidays and sigh at the over-the-top gestures, I’ll never turn down a well-timed box of chocolates. After all, love may come and go, but a good bit of dessert is forever.