Like most significant things, this too started as a joke. A couple of weeks ago, fittingly as you’ll see, in one of my school groups, someone mentioned that an official, school-organised alumni meet was scheduled for the weekend. To which another friend joked that his wife has banned him from attending any school reunions, because of the new trend of people eloping with their childhood sweethearts after reconnecting with them at these meets. Since I hadn’t heard about this “trend”, I was both excited and amused and because that is a combination of emotions that I am unable to keep to myself, I promptly tweeted about it. What I did not anticipate was the wave of wistful thinking it would set off in people who read it. Turns out, a lot of you are still fantasising about life with your class IX crushes.
Facebook tracking
Younger millennials quoted my tweet saying, “me and who” in current social media speak, wondering who they will run into and run away with at a future alumni event. Some people replied that my tweet has motivated them to attend the next alumni meet. And quite a few sent me private messages about the current status of their old love affair. “I sort of stalk her on Instagram,” one person wrote, “and the more I see of her everyday life, the more I fall in love with her.” When I asked, this person said he was in his early 40s. Social media was keeping his love alive. Meanwhile, it was utterly ruining someone else’s life. “I unfriended her from my Facebook,” this other person wrote, “I was going crazy watching her post photos with her husband and kids. In fact, a couple of years ago, I deleted Facebook altogether, because the temptation to peep into her account was too much.”
Keeping it simple
What is it about first love that makes it almost impossible to completely recover from? My guess is that a lot of it has to do with its simplicity. Often, your crush is selected for you by friends. “I saw her look at you”. Or “he insisted on guarding you for basketball”. Or, in my case, “you’re the tallest girl in class, he’s the tallest boy”. Once your crush has been picked for you, then all that the romance takes is a few stolen looks, maybe a chocolate that is smuggled between the pages of a chemistry textbook, a few words exchanged when no one is looking and an obscure message scrawled with the sharp end of a compass into the grain of the desk (I might be speaking from experience here).
For some people, it’s perhaps a little bit more, a full-blown relationship flaunted in front of aunties and uncles, throwing caution to the winds, daring the principal to call your parents in (I am absolutely not speaking from experience here). But eventually life forces your hand and you are pulled away by the call of higher education or parental transfers. In my time, that meant the possibility of never seeing the person again. (Now, of course, with Facebook and Instagram, it is almost impossible to never see a living person again.)
Cut to the present then. Some two decades have gone by. Life has wrung you out. The spouse, even when good, is familiar and boring. Work is hectic and often unrewarding. The kids are demanding. You are stretched thin. And then you run into this person you knew from 25 years ago, and suddenly, (foolishly), it seems that you could make a grab for that pure, unblemished love that you imagine you felt all those many years ago.
Happy ending?
The allure of the childhood sweetheart in adulthood lies in its simplicity and innocence. It harks back to a time when life did not demand much from you, nor you from it; time stretched infinitely and hope was a real thing, not an embarrassment you laugh away as an adult. It has an otherworldly sheen, an ephemeral quality, and it is tempting to imagine that you can return to that. I have no data to suggest how things turn out, but if I had to guess, I’d say not very well.
I searched for news reports and could only find one story about two 50-year-olds from Ernakulam who eloped after a school reunion last year. Their families filed missing persons’ complaints, it said, “following this, the police summoned the lovers, who later arrived at the station”. It’s a tantalising end to the report, the real story only starts subsequently. But no one I checked with wanted to know how this story ended. Real life is messy and flawed. Who would choose that over the dream of an escape?
As for me, I sent a copy of my tweet to the school group and cc-ed my tall boy. He did not respond.
Childhood love harks back to a time when life did not demand much from you, nor you from it; time stretched infinitely and hope was a real thing. It has an otherworldly sheen, and it is tempting to imagine that you can return to that.
The author has written ‘Independence Day: A People’s History.’
