‘Are you a Shaktimaan Fan?’ came a weird message from a guy who was one of my last matches on Tinder.

That strange message intrigued me in an unusual way. I rechecked his profile to see a boyishly handsome fellow with a comforting aura around him, along with a bio that I vaguely remember reading.

Many of my guy friends who are on Tinder say that I am lucky to be a woman because I get a ridiculous number of matches as opposed to them. But I’m relatively particular when it comes to my matches as I have the tendency to read bios before swiping anyone right.

I signed up on Tinder two years ago along with an old female colleague of mine to write an article on the digital dating culture and somehow I chose to keep swiping. 

However, post that I was off Tinder for almost a year owing to my relationship, but when that fell apart, I returned to the app, looking for distraction, and started meeting different guys.

I went out on numerous dates as I was too engrossed in curing my broken heart. Everyone was questioning what I was doing and soon I began to question myself as well.

But when this guy came from nowhere, out of the blue, with a weird message, I was startled. Somehow, I felt compelled to reply to this mysterious guy, and he immediately replied. We began conversing and it was normal, much to my chagrin. However, he seemed genuinely interested in my pieces when I told him I was a writer and poet. When I sent him my first vignette, he expressed his appreciation- not over the top, but like he meant it– and asked me to send more.

The following weeks passed with me occasionally sending him my writing and him providing me feedback. I did bring up the topic of meeting him in person and he was up for it. But the lazy person that he was, he procrastinated. But we stayed in touch.

Three months later, I gave him an ultimatum- to meet me or to forget about it once and for all.

Well, he did come to the café, with a sleepy face. However, he managed to listen to all my mindless chattering and even ended up having dinner with me at Dominos. It’s a mystery even to this day as to how we spent almost 5 hours together that day.

Though he didn’t speak much and seemed uninterested, which turned me off, I decided to give him another chance. And that was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

We met for brunch the next week and spent the rest of the day roaming around a mall. We discovered that we shared so many similar interests and that we even shared the same zodiac sign– we were born 4 days apart, well, one year and 4 days. I came to know that we were so much alike, yet so different. He calls himself the Generic IT Guy with a Generic name, and I am the carefree girl who’d do whatever my heart wishes. He is an absolute teetotaler whereas I could down pitchers and pitchers of stout when I feel like it.

But of all these, what made him special was the way he looked at me and treated me, from our first meeting to this very day. No, it wasn’t anything superficial. All he did was respect me and accept me for who I am, and teach me that I could love myself too, that I could embrace my past and not lose myself in a spiral of hatred.

He is someone whom you can trust to drink with because you know he’d get you home safe. He’d just buy a red rose and get on one knee in front of everyone, not because he loves you, but because he believes that buying a rose for a girl must be accompanied by a romantic gesture. He’d buy you a ‘Little Hearts’ biscuit packet while you are about to go on a journey because he heard you tell him so during your first meet, or he’d just slip in a packet of those into a bag of veggies he delivered to your home when you were sick.

He’d get you addicted to Game of Thrones by comparing you to Cersei Lannister. He’d bug you to watch Rick and Morty though he knows you will never get yourself to do it. And he’d cuddle with you while showing you all those standup comedy videos and changing them the moment he notices that you aren’t enjoying it.

He’d do things following your cues, get jealous and possessive when you talk to other guys, but he’d be blunt enough to confess that he doesn’t love you. Yet you know he cares, and you’re like family to him in a strange city where he came to make a livelihood.

He’d tell you, he can never have the one, but ‘You’re the one who came the closest’, and you know it’s true.

Because life with him by your side… is beautiful and you’ll slowly realize that these are the happy endings you might be looking for after all!

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