X2's Past

Some couples discuss their past, some don’t. Today, I’m unsure where I stand on this idea. When I met X2, I was extremely curious. Somewhere in my naive mind, knowing each other well was a way of getting closer and building trust. I was quick to blurt out my few experiences with my ex(1), how it began and how it ended. X2 wasn’t nearly as inexperienced.

She might have been 16 or 17 when she met her first boyfriend, a Hindu guy she met him during school. He was a bit older and he was possessive of her. He needed her attention and he wanted to speak to her regularly. X2 wasn’t nearly as passionate. Going by her behaviour patterns, it was clear she was perpetually distracted. Priorities would change, arbitrarily. There was never knowing what her plans were, because promises would be made, then broken without informing anyone. She moved to Pune to complete her graduation. Busy with friends and now completely isolated from her boyfriend in Bombay, she would lose track of time. Her friends were her world, then her classmates, then any activity and she could snap ties with them for her boyfriend, the next moment detach the boyfriend.

One time, she didn’t speak or respond to messages for a few days. This upset him, so he traveled to Pune to meet her. Things quickly got out of control there. They had an argument and he lost his cool. The result of that outburst ended with him tearing and burning her journals. X2 was upset but still stuck around him. Her boyfriend would move to the US for further studies, to become a pilot. X2 lived her own life while interacting with him over the phone and chats, much like my long-distance interactions. While he was there, he began sleeping around with others, cheating on her. There was a Chinese woman, but on the face of things, he kept X2 close. Clearly, an opportunist guy, much like X2 in many ways. Eventually when he returned, X2 got news of this from someone or he goofed up somehow. A fight took place, and they decided to break up. Months later, they patched things up, but things did not progress beyond that.

X2’s habit of being distracted was the biggest hurdle in trusting her. Personally, I’d seen it several times in the span of a few months. She’d complain about her own drinking habits, where having 3-5 drinks a day through the week was common place. As a somewhat conservative guy, I’d urge her to reduce it and show restraint. She’d agree, then randomly disappear. Hours of impatience and a sleepless night later, I’d get a reply on WhatsApp. Turns out, she’d gone drinking again, and ended up at a friend’s boyfriend’s friend’s place. Too drunk, she’d spend the night there and wake up at 2 in the noon, to reply. This happened quite randomly and there was no knowing what she was up to and what trouble she could get into. Her parents were entirely clueless of these habits. A few days later, she’d promise to not drink for a few days. The following morning, she’d tell me her room-mate had invited her drinking the last evening at a place that had Happy Hours. Irresistible! The day she’d complain about an annoying, competing colleague, she’d go to his place for dinner.

X2 wasn’t exactly the romantic kind, she was transactional and very selfish. She was very erratic in her thinking, very scattered with her attention. If you weren’t her partner, it was easy to steal her attention. She could break plans, not inform anyone about it, jump to something else while never bothering to reply. This was her way, from the very early days. I guess this is a result of parents who lived their own life, while their children wandered. This never stopped.

After the ‘pilot boyfriend’, she found a new boyfriend in Pune. He was a Goan, a nice guy, a Roman Catholic, someone her parents would approve of. He was a year or so older, and he had just started working. From what she told me, he was dedicated, polite and he would go any distance to keep her happy. He gave her space too, so she was free to do whatever she wanted. He lived with a room-mate, another Christian Roman Catholic guy. He must’ve been 32 years old, X2 might have been 21 then.

X2’s boyfriend’s roommate, the 32-year-old found X2 attractive and interesting. He started hitting on her. I’m not quite sure how things progressed to this point, but X2 had started sending him nudes. I’m not sure if there was anything romantic, and why a young girl would send nudes to her boyfriend’s roommate. This was disturbing enough. What’s even more disturbing is that when X2’s roommate traveled to Singapore for a few days, he called X2 asking her to go through his mails to help with him some critical information. He did not have internet access. While she scrolled through his inbox for the information he wanted, she also found some suspicious mails in his sent box. These had her nudes, being sent to his friends.

This room-mate even told her he wanted to marry her. I’m baffled that a 21-year-old girl would cheat on a nice guy, with someone who’s more than 11 years older. Things quickly turned sour between the roommate and her boyfriend. They started having confrontations, and they started fighting over her. I still feel sick about X2’s boyfriend, because that wasn’t the end of the ordeal.

X2 finished her studies in Pune and moved to Bangalore. She wanted to get into one of the world’s largest MNCs. An internship was one way in, which could result in a full-time job, or something similar in a competing company. She had to create and present an impressive portfolio to be taken seriously. What better way, than to call in favours through her friends. She took the help of a guy a few years her senior in college, a guy who was engaged to her classmate. He helped her get this made, and she would get the internship she so desperately wanted, launching her successful career.

During one of the visits, he visited Bangalore and stayed over with her. X2’s room-mate lived with her boyfriend, so it was just the two of them. From what I was told, he was the one who got her drunk. They got home and ended up having sex. Apparently, he came prepared with condoms and he had that intent. To me, all of this was outrageous but knowing that she was cheating on her boyfriend, having already cheated on him before with someone else, I don’t know why I bought in to the idea that she was the victim. She said she felt used and honestly, I was infuriated. I lost my mind over this.

But things were not as simple as that. When I snooped around, as i always do, I found an album on Facebook. It was X2 at the same guy’s wedding, the one who took ‘advantage’ of her, both smiling happily, all hand-in-hand with his wife, her classmate. The two of them had cheated on their significant others, and here they were, smiling. What a proud, successful bunch!

I nearly ended things with her over this incident, and I felt like I couldn’t trust her. She cried and told me to stand by her and she wasn’t that kind of person.

Eventually, she found another guy in Bangalore, breaking off the relationship with her nice-guy, ex-boyfriend in Pune. She said it was the confrontations between the two room mates that made her do it. I think otherwise. Sadly, he had no clue of the things that conspired.