I was just another 18 year old, first year student of a college in Bombay… New to a lot of things and always up for trying them out! My first year in college was a year full of trying things I’d never experienced before. Whether it was drinking, smoking or my first random hook up!
During that same year, I started dating a senior from college, Nikhil. I met him for the first time at my friend’s birthday party. I had had way too much to drink that night… By the end of the party, I found myself slow dancing with this tall guy I’d never met before. And that’s how it all started. I was 18 and he was 24. His age was definitely one of the reasons I loved hanging out with him!
Two months into the relationship we both realized that it wasn’t working out. Though we had become great friends, we both had very different expectations from a relationship. Breaking up was quite easy since we both weren’t too invested in the relationship. In fact, in these two months of going out, we’d made out only a couple of times. We stopped talking for a couple of days after the breakup but it was all back to normal very soon.
Nikhil started dating his classmate soon after and I started going out with an old friend from school. It was all going good but then…
A couple of months later, I found out that Nikhil had broken up with the girl he was dating. He was quite serious about the relationship and the break up wasn’t as easy on him this time. And guess what? This happened around the same time that I broke up with the school friend I was going out with!
I started drinking more often after the break up and was usually hanging out in a bar near college after lectures. One such day, when I went out to get myself a drink, I bumped into Nikhil! It made me weirdly anxious. Since we had been in such committed relationships, we hadn’t spoken to each other in a long time… For obvious reasons! We decided to go out for drinks sometime soon and hang out like the good old times. I sensed sexual tension between us and I felt that we might actually be good for each other now!
We went out for a couple of drinks the next weekend and I can never forget what happened! We were heading to my friend’s place after that for a house party and the entire time from the bar to my friend’s place, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other! Once we reached my friend’s place, there was no stopping us. We were doing things we’d never done while we were in a relationship. We went from passionate kissing to a hot makeout session in no time. That night was just so much fun! I felt like maybe we could go back to being together… But after doing this with him for about a month I realized it’s nothing but physical attraction we both feel for each other. So that’s when the Nikhil chapter ended.
Two years and a few months later, during my final year, I had just gotten out of a very traumatic relationship. The guy was a male chauvinist and wanted everything his way. The relationship had left me feeling broken and lost. It was at this time that I started talking to this guy from my class whom I had successfully avoided for two years. (Remember about the random hook ups part?) Karan and I made out at a friend’s party long back in first year and never bothered talking about it or talking to each other in general after that night. It was only now that we really started getting to know each other. And he was everything my ex wasn’t! Being around him was liberating and we actually had SO much in common! It was crazy how we hadn’t talked before.
Given our history, I was quite obviously attracted to him and so was he to me. But I wasn’t looking for a relationship yet. We enjoyed each other’s company and I would find myself at his place every weekend. We had the same taste in music and loved jamming together. One of those weekends we had a little too much alcohol in our system and because we were already so attracted to each other, we started making out. I think we both saw it coming. We didn’t officially start going out though, it was just a casual thing between us.
One day, Karan told me that he had called his old friends over for drinks and asked me to come too. When I went to his place, I realized what a mess I’ve made out of my life! There he was, sitting and playing the guitar in Karan’s room. Yes, I’m talking about Nikhil. Nikhil was super secretive about his personal life and hardly ever spoke about women he was with. So I wasn’t surprised that Karan had no idea about Nikhil and me! That night I found out that Nikhil and Karan were quite thick and used to be ‘best friends’ before Karan moved out of the hostel.
That night was by far the most awkward night of my life! Later I told Karan everything about what Nikhil and I were up to 2 years back. He was quite surprised and irritated initially, but was quite matured and understanding about it later. And that’s how I became the girl who made out with her boyfriend and his bestie!
* Names changed to protect privacy
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