My relationship was way beyond perfect in its initial phase. There was lots of attraction, laughter and tonnes of flirting over Whatsapp messages. That’s the way we do it in this time and age, right? We used to talk all day and night, about everything and anything.
He was a really interesting guy and I loved having conversations with him, to the point where we might have gone a little overboard. Texts, calls, skyping, we did it all and for hours on end some days!
More often than not, our conversations would turn sexual, about how he wanted to kiss me or about how I wanted to feel his arms around me… You know how it goes. My mother would often ask me why I blush and smile so much while looking at my phone and I would tell her I was talking to my boyfriend, which she would take as a joke.
It happened during the college break when he was out of town so he was hardly getting any network and mostly the messages wouldn’t get delivered or he would reply really late. I would often forget about the message I had sent him because I would be too busy lazing around the house.
One of those days, my mother asked me for my phone for she had run out of balance and she needed to call my aunt. I handed her my phone because the last time I had seen, my message hadn’t gotten delivered. It was half an hour later, when I was watching my favourite TV show, that my mother walked into the room and asked ‘Who is Rishabh?’ my heart skipped a beat as I looked up at her ‘Um, he’s a friend, why? Did he message?’ I asked, putting my hand out for the phone, but she didn’t hand it to me.
‘Why has he sent you so many kiss emoticons? And what does RUH mean?’ I looked at her with a blank expression on my face, RUH was him asking ‘Are you horny?’. My mind was buzzing with thoughts and I was hoping she wouldn’t scroll up or he wouldn’t message saying anything else. ‘Ma, he probably is just joking with the kisses, he likes to pull my leg. And RUH? I don’t know what that means!’ I replied, she was still looking at the phone when I suddenly remembered about a very explicit picture I had sent him recently. My body was in complete shock, if my mother was to see that image, I would be better off dead. I had to do something and had to do it quick.
I decided to go the nonchalant, cool way and went and stood by her side but my mind was still not working, when suddenly… I laughed and said ‘Oh, RUH? Now I get it! Haha, mom that’s the name of a girl in our college and Rishabh, he likes her! That’s why the kissing emoticons and you thought he liked me, hahaha!’ I quickly took the phone from her hand as she looked at me with mild curiosity. I turned around before she could see the panic on my face, jumped on the bed and started watching my show again.
My mom looked at my face for a while before saying ‘Ruh is a nice name, you should invite her sometime… And Rishabh too, if he really likes her!’ and turning around to leave my room. I heaved a sigh of relief, glad for the first time that my mother wanted to set my boyfriend up with somebody else.
In retrospect, the whole situation when my mom read my chat with my boyfriend was actually funny, even my mother laughs about it now but at that point of time, I could’ve sworn I was dying of a panic attack.
* Names changed to protect privacy
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