DAAR LAGTA HAIN TANHA SUNE TO JEE....

A friend of mine just broke up with her boyfriend… For as long as I’ve known her, she’s been in a relationship—some abusive, some bad for her in other ways, and all of them with one thing in common—they’ve all failed her at some point of time or the other. I thought she was finally done with the last one for good but the next minute, she was back with him. She couldn’t even stay away for long enough to wipe the tears and think about what had happened. I wonder why she’d do that, knowing fully well that going back was perhaps not the best choice she’s made, that he and the relationship aren’t doing her any good. When I asked her why, her answer was simple---my friend is afraid of being alone.

So basically, she’s okay with being in a relationship that is bad for her on multiple levels because of the one fear she has been unable to overcome—the fear of being with herself. It got me thinking about all the people out there who are the same as my friend. Because most of us fear being alone. And I call this phobia SELF PHOBIA.

We say that human beings are social creatures, we like the company of people around us and we thrive under attention. We spend our youth making friends and our adult lives surrounding ourselves with people, friends and acquaintances and now, thanks to social media, we’re pretty much connected to the whole world all the time. And in this constant urge to collect and be surrounded by people, and know what’s happening in their worlds, we forget to introduce ourselves to the most important person in our lives—OURSELVES. In the never-ending process of widening our social circle, making new friends and then developing those friendships, we forget to invest in the best friend we can ever have—OURSELVES. Right from childhood, we are encouraged by our parents to make new friends… In school, we’re almost forced to know all our classmates intimately, play, mingle and make friends. We’re never really given the option to stay alone. And those who do choose their own company over others’ are called problem children. Right from then, we’re made to believe that being alone is a bad thing, something to be frowned upon. And we carry that lesson like a heavy bag on the journey of life.

We grow up believing that the more friends we have, the more popular we are… It gives us a sense of power, makes us feel young and invincible, to be the one with the most friends. It gives us a high, knowing that our birthday party will have the largest crowd, knowing that people would much rather hang out with you instead of someone else. We start people like trophies instead of friends. The more we have, the more powerful we feel. Do you even remember in your childhood, during your school-going days when you were alone for more than a couple of hours at a time? Or a time when you weren’t being told to make friends with this boy or that girl because she was so good at studies, or he was so good at sport? At that time, making the right friends was the biggest peer pressure ever, constantly being judged on the basis of the company we keep. The conditioning was so strong, the brainwashing so persistent, that we actually grow up believing that being alone was the worst fate possible, to be seen as an utter failure of our social skills… We start fearing the idea of being left to ourselves because we’re told that only depressive people stay alone, only the unpopular ones live alone and only those who aren’t loved by anyone are left alone… And over a period of time, we start believing in these notions. We make them our holy grail. And being alone becomes synonymous with being unloved.

The more I talk to my friends, the more I realise how scared we are of silence… Because that’s the time when we’re able to listen to ourselves and see our true selves… And that’s an uncomfortable thought. Because we’ve never taken the time out to get to know ourselves, to befriend the person we are. It’s like being left alone in a room with a virtual stranger, a person who has existed in your space forever, but you know nothing of what lies within. Because we’re all too busy making friends and surrounding ourselves with crowds, the larger the better, because there’s safety in numbers.

I wish we’d open our minds to our one true best friend—Us, Ourselves. I wish we could overcome this fear of feeling unloved unless we have a zillion friends around us, and focus on discovering ourselves… I wish we could be okay with spending time with just ourselves without giving in to the crazy urge to connect with the world, always fearing that if we don’t, we might be left out. Would it make our lives richer? I think it would make our relationships stronger, because then we’d know that the relationship isn’t based on the fear of being alone. Our relationships wouldn’t be obsessively clingy, because we’d be okay with keeping ourselves company. They would be healthier, because we wouldn’t be constantly running for cover, finding ourselves under the umbrella of fear. And most importantly, they would be happier, because the need to be in the relationship would be for positive reasons, for the way the person makes us feel, rather than the fear of the negative… The fear of being alone… We wouldn’t spend our lives looking for a partner, simply because we were afraid of being alone when we’re old.

We never spent time with ourselves while growing up, so we never really got the chance to know ourselves. We were never given the chance to make friends with ourselves and grew up being afraid of being alone. But like all fears, this fear can be overcome too. All we need to do is admit that we’re scared and realise that we need to tackle the problem. Don’t be afraid of your own company. I’ve tried it and it’s wonderful… It takes off so many of the pressures of socialising and makes relationships healthier … It is a welcome relief from having to make conversation all the time, just to be able to keep someone else’s interest in you alive… But it’s not worth compromising our real needs for. Compromising ourselves is not worth the bargain.

If only, as kids, we weren’t told that being alone is a bad thing…

Shayad phir darr na lagta tanha sune main jee…