P.S. I've moved on.

“How long did you take to get over her?”

He snapped his fingers. I looked at him in disbelief, “Really? You took no time at all to get over a 3-year-long relationship?”

“Well, I was mentally prepared for it.”

Welcome to our generation. We are the ones who spent half childhood on streets and the remaining half at cyber cafes, where we spent the pocket money we’d have otherwise spent on food. We’re modern. But we’ve lived in joint families. We texted our first crush, and saved and archieved every special message, sometimes deleting special poems from our inbox just so that we could save that one text which made us particularly mushy. And we were ecstatic when phones with ‘locks’ were released in the market.

We grew up watching SRK movies, but we also embraced the Aamir Khan of Dil Chahta Hai who shunned the idea of love. We are experts at moving on.

It’s a pity that we don’t get to choose the time we take birth in. But that’s just one of the many things out of our control.

And the other one is people.

Imagine a game in which everyone is holding a ball. The colour of the ball can be controlled only by the one who is holding, but others may influence them to change it. When you get attracted to someone, both of you change the colour of your respective balls to a same gradient. This indicates to everyone that both of you are involved, so as to speak. Similarly, everyone holds balls the colours of which are defined based on their involvement.

Here’s the take: if the person who is holding the same coloured ball as you drops his ball, you must drop it immediately and without hesitation.

That’s right, immediately and without hesitation. Otherwise, you get ostracised in the society. You can cry for a bit into your pillow at night, but you must drop the ball, and you can never convince the opposite person to pick up his ball again.

Isn’t it absolutely ridiculous? But I’m sure that as you were reading it, you realised how similar this is to the way we treat love and relationships. You, me, everyone.

And for God’s sake, don’t argue by using that one couple who has been going out for years as an example. They are doing great, just leave them, for this is about the rest of us, and this is our problem.

We are taking advantage of the freedom and convenience of changing partners to avoid the hard work that a relationship demands; we wouldn’t be called the ‘baby boomers’ otherwise. But just like that overconfident kid who did all his homework and took extra lessons during summers realised a few months into the school term that he won’t be able to get away with not studying at all, we are going to realise that the hard work at relationships, including our relationship with our parents, is unavoidable.

Until then, slide that finger away across the screen.