The Clingy Ex – Part 01

11^th November 2013

So we both had a subject in common called Machine Learning. The first interaction with her happened when the instructor of the class had given a task to me to collect email ids of every student so that he could send notes to us as the exams were approaching two weeks from then. And as instructed, I started collecting the email ids of every student in the class and there she was, an almost quiet girl who seemed an introvert to me at that time.

So I forwarded all the notes to the students sent by the instructor and I used to reply to all the queries that were asked by the students over emails. Sometimes she used to send some queries too regarding the subject notes. The email queries soon turned into Facebook messages just a few days before the exam. We used to do just normal conversations, greeting each other with a hi or hello and asking whether the preparations for the upcoming exam was done or not and some other type of subject-related discussions. Soon the discussion of two turned into four and we became a circle of four.

28^th November 2013

It was our last exam of the semester and the four of us went to watch a movie. The movie was Ram-Leela. And I guess that day was a trigger point. We both felt that we had a spark. And from that day we started texting each other over Facebook messenger. Texts used to happen before also but they were only one or two-liner texts limited to the subject discussion.

When the semester got over she went back to her hometown and the texts continued from intercity as well. We used to talk a lot over text.

1^st January 2014

This was the day when I said to her, “I like you” but the response I got from that side was very flat. She said that she was already talking to someone and kind of committed to him and she has always seen me as her friend. I was okay with that didn’t get hurt. I told her that maybe I got carried away and I was sorry.

After two days I got a message from her. She said that she realized there was something between us and she lied at that time that she was seeing someone but she was not. She didn’t know how to react at that time and said that she liked me too. I got very happy after hearing that.

Even though we both were on the same page of our bond the first 10 days after her acceptance were difficult for both of us. The transition from being good friends to platonic friends was not that smooth. We were uncomfortable at the start because most of the time we had no idea what to talk about, even though we both liked each other.

15^th January 2014

Our semester break ended and the new semester had commenced. We were glad that the break had ended and we could meet in person now, talk endlessly and remove that barrier of discomfort we had on calls. On that day she did not go to her college and we both decided over the phone that we would meet in the evening So our college had 2 campuses and our campuses were not the same. Her campus was around 24 km away from my campus but she was staying in a pg that was near to my campus, roughly 20 minutes from bus. It was only that ML course we had in common in the last semester which was offered to both the campus students and was taught on our campus and also to mention that our streams were different too.

She came to my college in the evening. So our college had various exit gates and the place where we used to meet was near to an exit gate which a very few people used to take. We sat there and started talking about various things, things we ask just to know more about the person and it was not uncomfortable at all. I also told her that one of our friends used to like her too so we decided to do a prank with him. One of my professors saw me with her that evening near that campus exit. Actually, I told him that I would go straight home from college but I had no idea that he would take that exit and would see me with her. We laughed a lot when he saw us. It was awkward too and so we decided that we would not meet inside the campus again.

26^th January

We had built mutual trust between us. From 26th January till September, the time of our 2nd semester, everything went very smooth. It was kind of a fairy tale. We used to hang out a lot. And one different habit of her was that whenever we used to go out she never let me pay the bill. Sometimes I used to insist her not to pay it or sometimes I would go quietly to the counter and pay the bill but she was so adamant that she used to say that she would keep the money on the table (and sometimes she actually did) and would just leave the money there and it would not bother her if someone else would pick it up. But I thought she was doing it out of love and concern as she knew that my financial status was very weak.

Mid-September 2014 (In our 3rd semester)

She used to come to the mall almost daily which was located nearby to my campus. So my daily routine was that whenever she used to come to meet me, we would hang out for some time then I would accompany her back to the pg and later would take a bus to my house. One day it got very late in the evening and I had some urgent work at my house so I told her that I would not be able to accompany her today and would directly go to my home. She said it was Okay.

At around 12:30 am I got a call from her roommate that she didn’t come home. I panicked badly after listening to her sentence. I called her number but it was switched off and that made me panic more. I decided to find her at the route from my college to her pg. Meanwhile, I talked to a close friend of mine, narrated the entire incident and told him to inform the police if I did not call him in an hour or so. I kept on calling her number but it was switched off. I told my mom that a friend of mine was missing and I would be going outside for some time to find her. She got worried too.

I left my house to search for her. I looked for a taxi but it was taking a lot of time to find at that time of midnight. Meanwhile, I got another call from her roommate at around 1:15 am and this time she said that she was at home all the time and she didn’t go anywhere. I was stunned and almost clueless as to what had just happened. I called her directly and her phone was not switched off this time. After picking up the call the first sentence she said was, “Because you didn’t come home to drop me so I wanted you to know that this could also be a possibility that I may have gone missing.” I got infuriated. I told her that it was very immature of her to even think of something like this what she did. I fought a lot with her over this. She said that it was just a prank and I should take it like that. And in the end, I became normal and just disregarded her behaviour.

Oct-Nov

Before the final semester exams, I called all of my friends from the new circle at my home. So we were four of us including her. After a few hours, everyone left but she stayed. My mother knew that she was a close friend so she was okay with her. It was that time when we used to open Facebook on our laptops. On the laptop, I showed her some videos on Facebook. After spending some time together we both left my house. I accompanied her on the bus to her pg. On the way, she said, “Give me your Facebook password. I want to know what kind of conversations you do with other people.” I gave her a very strange look and directly said no. And I can’t tell you how much we fought over this. The argument became so heated that she even said, “There must be something wrong that’s why you are saying no. Are you doing double-timing?”. And I had no answer to this question. I said, “How could you even say this thing?” She gave her password to me which I didn’t even ask for. There were again lots of fights but in the end, I agreed to give her my password with a condition that she would only access it in front of me to which she agreed. I dropped her at her pg and took a bus back to my house. On the way, I called her but she said she was busy with something so she could not talk. I reached home did some work of mine. At around 11:30 pm, the usual time of our chit chat, I called her. She picked it up and her pitch was very high. Without even greeting me she started asking questions randomly. She said, “In 2010 you talked to this girl and said your picture is nice, you don’t give me time etcetera and it seems that you are talking to her as if you are in a relationship with her.” So this chat was with a girl whom I used to like during my BTech and she already knew about the girl because I had told her at the start of our relationship. So in that 1 hour 20 minutes time which it took me to reach my house she had extracted complete history of the conversations I had with every girl on Facebook. From that question the fighting began. I asked her that even though she agreed to open my account in front of me why did she open it on my back. “You broke my trust”, I said. “You lied to me, you didn’t tell me that you were in a relationship with this girl”, she said. “I had never been in a relationship with anyone. I had already told you that I used to like this girl during BTech and nothing else.” I didn’t have any conversation with that girl after BTech but she was not ready to listen.

It was daily fighting from then. I had written some personal notes on my Facebook about the events which used to happen during my BTech and she even read those. After reading them she said to me, “You could not come out of that feeling yet. You still like her and still think about her.” I told her that these were very old notes and that girl was a past which happened in 2010. I had no feelings for that girl now. But she used to argue over the same thing and the daily quarrels became a part of our routine. Every day on call she would say these things, “You lied to me. I feel cheated. You cheated me.” Once she even threatened me to give her my Gmail password otherwise she would directly question that girl.

During these daily fights, I changed my Facebook password. When she found out about it she again fought with me and said this justified that something was wrong. “I changed it because you broke my trust”, I said to her. But she was not ready to listen to anything. I thought that changing the password would not let her log in to my account and she would not see those old chats again and again and fight with me over them. But I was wrong. She had taken the screenshots of every chat and our fights and arguments never stopped.

My mental peace was going away day by day. I could not understand why was she behaving like that. She suddenly stopped talking to me and didn’t talk for almost a week. After a week I called her to sort things out. I persuaded her that there was no point in fighting about the things that had happened in the past. She understood me and we patched up again.

January-February 2015

We had to submit our thesis work in the final semester for the completion of our Master’s degree. She was very worried about it and thought she would not be able to complete it. She panicked to the extent that she had completely stopped working on it and was ready to drop out of the degree. Even after a lot of convincing she did not listen to me. The mere thought of her dropping out of college created turmoil inside me so I picked her thesis topic, boggled my mind on it and started studying about it. So, I being an Electronics and Communication Engineering student did not have the slightest knowledge of her thesis topic of Deep Neural Networks. But somehow I could understand the gist of the topic for I found it to be interesting. So daily I used to perform some experiments in the lab for my thesis and after that, I used to work on her topic.

As the placement drive was near we used to study together in the college. So the placements started and the first company visited our college. It was a mass recruiter. I did not sit for it as there was a rule that if we get selected by any company we are automatically out from the placement season. I was confident that I would get selected for this company if I sat so I didn’t sit for it moreover I wanted to go in any core company of my field or wanted to pursue research in my field only. She insisted me a lot to sit in this company as she also appeared for it but I did not for the same reason. And she got selected for it.

March-April 2015

I could not get selected at any of the core companies of my field. In some of the companies, I got rejected just before the last round and in a few of them, I gave all the rounds but did not see my name in the final list. In April one company visited our college which I guess was one of the last few companies left before the placement season. I knew that I had to sit for it even though it was not of my field. So I gave the test and the interview and got selected. She fought with me over this also. She questioned me that why I didn’t sit for the company in which she got selected so that we both could be together even though I had explained my reasons several times in the past. Another reason for the fight was that the company in which I got selected was the one that my BTech friend (the one I used to like) joined after graduation. She used to fight a lot with me over these things. We started meeting less, just once in two weeks.

June 2015

The meeting from once in two weeks turned to once in a month. This was the first time in our relationship when I said that I needed a break from this. She said, “You just can not do it. I knew that this day would come, now that your reach with your ex is easy. I spent a lot on you. You can’t go like this. You will not be the one to decide.”

I blocked her number and also from the messenger. I did not talk to her for almost 2 weeks. After 2 weeks I got a call from her cousin. She said that her condition was not good at all and she was depressed and was going crazy. She insisted me to talk to her. I got worried when she said that. I talked to her normally. We kind of sorted all things out and decided to give it a fresh start to our relationship.

July-November 2015

I had started with my PhD in the same college. Also, I was home tutoring around 16 students at that time. So most of the time I was either busy with the PhD work or with the classes that I had barely some time left to talk to her. And whenever we talked we used to have some arguments. She used to tell me that I should not go and teach any girl student and I should only teach boys. I felt very disgusted when she said that. I had reached my saturation level in fighting with her that I lied to her that I was only teaching boys. In order to avoid meeting her, I used to say that I was very exhausted from PhD work. I used to meet her once or twice a month and that meeting would be full of fears and anxieties. So mostly on Sundays, I used to meet her. The day would start with a normal fight about coming late. So she used to decide the meeting time to be 10:30 or 11 but I always got late and would reach her pg at around 12 or 12:30 pm because most of the time I used to wake up late in the morning because of the classes on Saturdays. The evenings of the meetings were painful too. She used to expect that I would spend a full day with her till 11 or 11:30 pm at night and then leave but at around 6 or 6:30 pm I used to tell her that I would have to leave. She used to just stand at a place and would not move. She used to say that she would come in front of a car or scooter. So I had to convince her a lot to go. She knew my address so sometimes even when we had not decided to meet she used to come nearby to my house, would call me and then threaten me to meet her otherwise she would not go and I had no choice other than to meet her.

December 2015

We had our convocation of the college. I had made a firm decision of joining the new company and leaving my PhD. She knew that I would be joining this new company and would be moving to another city. She realized that there was no point in holding things up. The toxic relationship of ours finally ended from her side as well, but for me, it had ended long before.

March 2016

My joining letter had come and I was doing preparations for it. She asked me to meet her one last time before my departure. I was very scared to meet her for I knew about her unpredictable nature but I somehow met her. It was a peaceful meeting and in the end, she wished me with Happy Journey. I was glad that it had finally ended and a new phase of life was waiting for me. But as they say, exes just won’t go away peacefully I guess that was perfectly valid for my case too.

– Story of an Anonymous guy

(Link for Part-2 : https://badalkr9.com/2022/08/17/the-clingy-ex-part-02/)