A happy chapter ends

Three weeks ago, on March 8, my happy and "settled" life as I knew it, came to an abrupt end.

There seemed to be many reasons for C. leaving after almost 6 years of being together. He was always a loner and yearned again to do what he wanted, not having to consider someone else's feelings. He realised that he had accomplished little in his life at the age of 28, and felt that the relationship had held him back, and was still holding him back, from an all-out attitude towards his work. He wanted to spend more time with his family, whom he had neglected during the time he was with me (and we were together almost all the time). He said he wanted out of relationships with anyone, not just out of a relationship with me. He wanted to be himself again, disappear from the community, shut himself into a room and be anti-social.

But the one single reason that really mattered, I think, was that he had simply fallen out of love with me. And though he still cared for me as a good friend he would like to keep, he was feeling trapped in a relationship he had no courage to back out of. I was simply not the guy that he thought I was -- too childish and immature, too lazy, too unadventurous, too fat and maybe this: too nice. I should have realised this, given his penchant for "bastard"-type role models in life, like the brilliant but stand-offish Taiwanese songwriter Bobby Chen.

He said that he considered just leaving me a note and disappearing from my life, forever unreachable. But he decided that he owed me more than that, and decided to explain exactly why he was leaving. He said that he would still take my calls (and he has) in order to help me get through this. He said that for once in his life, he wanted to stop running away from his problems. And that he still wants to be friends, if I would let him.

Friends rallied around as soon as it happened. The verdict from most of them was that he was too young, just 22, when I met him. Tethered to a relationship just when life should be most unpredictable and exciting, something like this was bound to happen. A few listened to the long-winded explanation wordlessly, as if to comtemplate other reasons that had possibly been left unsaid. Could it have been something you did, which got back to him? Could he be seeing someone else, given that he has now all but disappeared from public view?

He told me that he is now one of two tenants in a flat owned by a gay couple he befriended on Fridae. He refuses to say who they are. I guess the theories could well be true but they are, for now, hardly relevant. I believe he has been honest with me, but if it turns out that he hasn't, so be it.

There are many things that I could be similarly angry about -- like the fact that he never liked to talk about problems which had no solution and always tended to let things snowball. He'd get irritated if I probed further, and the result was that I learnt to leave things be and hope things improved on their own. The fact that I was not given a second chance, and remained (mostly) unaware of the seriousness of the problems. But I've lost the energy to be angry about anything anymore because it just won't make any difference to the outcome. Once he has made up his mind, it's hard to change it.

The fact is: I lost the game fair and square. No one snatched him away from my grasp, and even though some people sowed seeds of discord, we never took any of it seriously. There were hints of trouble (stray comments he made, the drifting apart of the last 6 months) but I didn't take them seriously enough. He was partly responsible, so was I. In the end, could it have been any different? If he raised those fundamental problems, would our relationship still have been as happily smooth and drama-free as it was? I guess we both messed up in our own ways. And in leaving, he has also been fair to me.

All this is quite separate, of course, from dealing with the giant hole in my life that his leaving has created. After almost 6 years together, his imprint is on nearly everything. And no matter what anyone says, his leaving came as a total shock to me.

Within 2 weeks, I found myself booked on a last minute flight to London, to think about things and regroup. London is the one place I could think of that doesn't hold memories of C., who hated to travel to any Western country. It's also the one place which represents the person that I was before I met him -- a slightly insecure boy trying to hold it together as an adult, wondering what lies in store in life and love, looking on in amazement at the cultural smogasbord on offer all over the city at any time. Listening to quintessential London bands Everything But The Girl and Saint Etienne as I waited for, and changed, trains on the Underground, walking the length of Shaftesbury Avenue to the Virgin Megastore on Tottenham Court Road, it all came back to me. I'm not sure whether I prefer the pre-C. me or the post-C. me, but it was good to be reminded that both exist. Despite the odd bout of depression, it was a good two weeks of shopping, clubbing, meeting new people and catching up with old friends.

Now I'm back and a life without C. properly begins -- rather unsteadily if events of this past weekend in Singapore are any guide. Somehow I'll get through it, and it starts by holding onto concrete things which I know that I still have -- friends, music, my work and my 80kg weight (still my proudest achievement to date). One step at a time, I suppose, with only songs on the CD player signposting the changes.

Look at you now, you're disenchanted
Can't believe how things can change
Take a little out of life and things get strange
Now you find the wishes you were granted
Things you thought were in your hands
Have slipped away
How much can you withstand?
... and everything is at a standstill
Where's someone who'll be on hand till
you're no longer disenchanted
thinking everything is wrong?
You know you're not the only one to wait so long.
I wonder, can you try again
Are you that strong?
- "Disenchanted", Everything But The Girl