I was one of those naive young girls who sought for, dreamt about and longed for love to enter my life. But, some people thought I would find it difficult to find true love due to my physical appearance.

I am extremely fair (and not too proud about it) and that was the only quality that made people look at me in a positive way. I was slightly overweight for a girl my height and age.

During my growing up years, I experienced heartbreak and emotional pain quite often. I was infatuated a couple of times. When I realized that my feelings were one sided, I was heartbroken. I realized there was a big difference between infatuation and love but that did not lessen the degree of the pain that I felt. Somehow I felt my physical appearance was the reason behind this rejection.

I experienced love for the first time when I was 20 years old. A boy from my school asked me out on a date when we met at our class reunion. For a person who had always been ridiculed about her personality, this seemed like a miracle. We met twice for a date. We developed strong liking for each other every time we met. One fine day he finally asked me to be his girlfriend. I was ecstatic.

A guy had proposed to me. He liked me just the way I was. I had neither given out any kind of signals nor said anything to attract his attention and this was a very big deal for me! As we met more often, we grew closer.

And before I knew it I was involved in a great deal of intimacy with him. It wasn't completely sexual in nature. We were just making out passionately but it felt heavenly!

I felt like my life was finally turning into a dream come true not due to the intimate moments that we shared but because we were also growing very fond of each other. I thought I had the ability to create the kind of love that we could find only amidst the pages of story books.

Weeks turned into months but the intimacy neither died nor faded, it grew and intensified every single time. One day he told me that he would like me to be his first. I succumbed to the passion that we were experiencing during a heated moment and said that I will.

When the day came and it was supposed to happen, a heavy feeling made me stop him. I moved away, telling him I was not yet ready for this.

He was okay with it and behaved in a completely cool manner about it, or at least I thought so. For weeks after this happened, he hardly spoke with me on the phone, and rarely texted back. We met twice more after this and the intimacy didn't stop, but it wasn't as great as it used to be. I could sense that he was preoccupied and was thinking about something. I asked him about it several times. But he gave various vague excuses saying that there were a couple of issues at home or just came up with any excuse that seemed relevant at that time.

One day, I received a text message from him saying that our relationship would not work out anymore because he was moving to the USA with his family. He said he could not stay with me. He used the excuse that a “long distance relationship won't work out" for both of us!

Though my heart was screaming with pain, I somehow managed to keep my emotions in control. I maintained a calm and cool façade and even convinced myself that what he said was true and bid him goodbye.

None of our friends knew about our relationship, because he had told me to keep it a secret for various reasons. So I didn't know whom to talk to about this. I finally opened up to a friend from school and told her everything that happened between us.

At first she was surprised. But she didn’t react. She listened to my entire story. She gave me a concerned look after hearing it and told me that the boy was not as genuine as I thought him to be.

He had done this with many other girls before me, and left them whenever his thirst and lust was satisfied. He'd had his share of fun with me and moved on. I had mistaken his gestures for love and was heartbroken.

In a way I should actually thank him, because after this experience, I felt more confident about myself. I didn't bother about people's opinion or what they thought about me at all.

I learned several lessons from this experience. I didn't believe in the magic of love anymore. I thought that even if love existed, it was certainly not the fairy tale kind of love that I had dreamt of.

Things changed when my fiancé walked into my life. The proposal was arranged through my parents but both of us fell madly in love with each other and feel we share a strong bond of love. Both of us are eagerly waiting to get married.

Do you know what the best part is?

He stays in London and I live in Mumbai. I am waiting for him to come home and take me along with him so that we can start a new life together. It's a long distance relationship.

Yes, the same kind of relationship that had caused me so much heartbreak. The same kind of relationship that many people believe won't work.

Yes, there are bound to be some weak moments, but it is trust, faith and patience that holds any relationship together.

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