I apologize for the frivolous post, but this is something that I just can't bring my head around: Relationships. For some reason I seem to be unlucky in the field of relationships, from friends to family to lovers. A shrink once asked me what I am doing wrong; at that time, I adamantly shrugged off the possibility that I was at fault, but now, looking at all the relationships I've seen crumble, I'm not sure. Maybe I am at fault. According to my friend, relationships are based on an equation of needs: Pam has x; Sam wants x; therefore Pam and Sam form a bond. However, let's say Pam and Sam spend years together until Pam loses x. Does Sam leave? In my life, Sam always leaves.

Scenario 1: The family

My family is a tragic story that is now almost non-existent. On my father's side, a feud of sorts broke out between my aunt and uncle. This led to the choosing of sides by the other family members. We chose the fence; our silence was manipulated by my uncle and we were kicked out by my aunt because we "chose" not to support her. The real culprit: Money.

On my mother's side, my aunt kicked us out of her life because we attended her step-daughter's (who I consider to be my cousin) wedding. This led to the choosing of sides by the other family members. The real culprit: Power.

Now I consider myself to have no extended family, save for a handful of cousins on my mother's side. People that I had grown up with, helped out, and shared timeless moments with were able to toss out lifetime bonds because of things as petty as money and power. Is the world that shallow? Or is it insecurity?

And I ask myself: What did I do wrong? Maybe it was my lack of action. Maybe I should have gotten involved. Maybe I should have been less hard on them. Maybe I should have persisted to resuscitate the relationships despite the angry farewells.  Did they just not need me anymore?

Scenario 2: The man I love(d)

It's been six months since we last spoke, five months since the I-never-want-to-have-anything-to-do-with-you email, and seven hours since I last saw him. Before that, it had been three years of being tortured by the false hopes of unrequited love. My friends don't understand why I still think about him; their reasoning is that we never went out; therefore there is nothing for me to mourn over. I believed that I loved him in that unconditional, "I don't need anything from you" way. My friend believes that I was infatuated and that love only exists when it is mutual.

Nevertheless, we were good friends. We studied together (sometimes even on Sundays), we wrote a book together, we were dumb together. My point is that he was not just a random man that I was in love with, he was a part of my life and I helped him out a lot. True, he did go through cycles of being mean and then being sweet, and usually we met up because he needed me in some way, but it wasn't nothing (or so I keep telling myself).

Then he fell in love with one of those "hot chicks" who hacked into his Facebook account and spent three hours convincing me that she was him and that he was madly in love with me. I don't understand pranks; I mean, someone has fun laughing at things that are important to someone else (be it a policeman or school or me). Anyway, that was when the man I loved told me that I meant absolutely nothing to him. That hurt more than him telling me, three years ago, that he will never love me because I was ugly. I feel used. They say that time heals all wounds, but this one just gets more septic with every day that passes because every day that I see him, it just stabs deeper: "Yes, you really did mean nothing to him."

And I ask myself: What did I do wrong? Maybe I was too gullible. Maybe I was too nice. After all, the worse you treat someone, the more they like you. Maybe I should have been less upfront about how I felt. Maybe I should have spent more time at the gym. Maybe I should have treated him better. Maybe  he just did not need me anymore?

Scenario 3: The friend

I've had a multitude of friendships dissipate into thin air — people who I gave my all to under the title of "best friend." My dad always told me that there are no such things as true friends, just people who use you. He also said that all one has is their family. I never believed him. A friend, that I hardly keep in touch with due to some petty fight, told me that I was a hard person to hold down, and at the same time, she only remembered the mistakes I had made; whereas I had only remembered the good things I had done.

And then I asked myself: What did I do wrong? I don't know.

Tharuna Devchand