the chase

have you ever watched a romantic movie? it starts with a mishap, a meeting between two people that wasn’t supposed to happen. and then they are swirled into a push-and-pull dance, the tension building, and building. first smiles are shared, first secrets are revealed, and realisations are gathered. and the fall— the fall is so glorious, you almost forget that it is fiction.

and then, finally, comes the bittersweet resolution. confessions, tears, and maybe a bit of rain. it is supposed to feel good, isn’t it?

perhaps it does, for most people. for me, it is the least favourite part of any movie, any book. i hate resolutions. i wish we could watch the magnetic push-and-pull dance forever, because resolutions are boring. they are predictable.

i don’t want the characters to have a sad ending. but i don’t want them to have a happy ending, either. perhaps what i want is for them to have no ending at all. for them to remain caught up in the process, the rush, the chase, forever.

the journey is better than the destination, after all.

it is unrealistic, i know. it is so unrealistic that it doesn’t even happen in movies. everything has an end. and endings are supposed to be satisfying, but for me they’re just— endings. and who likes it when things end?

i certainly don’t. which is why, across the years, i have never had any kind of relationship—except the blood ones— last longer than a few years in their pure form. it is half my fault, i am sure of it. because i like the chase of it, i like the process of getting to know the other, i like to dazzle them with my unpredictable, dry humour, i like to stun them with my unique, never-before-seen personality traits.

i am really good at first impressions, you could say, with the element of surprise working in my favour. i am just not good enough at the impressions that follow.

how many times could i possibly astonish someone? it all grows boring at one point. at one point, the other person turns around and says, i know. and then what are you supposed to say, or do?

the process of getting to know each other has ended, resolving into the stability of already knowing each other. there is no unpredictability, then. the dance has ended. things are stable. everything in universe strives toward it, homeostasis and all.

i hate it. i know i am boring, objectively speaking. i never have anything fun to talk about. i try, i try really hard, but at one point, even the most strangest of opinions become normal. and what is the end, i wonder? everything in the universe is drawn towards stability, but to what end point? to an absolute zero, to heat death, to a state with no energy, to a universe that can no longer sustain life?

is not the process better, then?

i know what that means for me. i will always be the girl who runs. i will always be the person who you will claim to have known years ago, and then wonder if you actually ever did.

i don’t know if that is a blessing, or a curse. all i know is that most days, i pause movies before the resolution, and then forget about it. most of the romcoms i read are forever stuck at a 70% mark.

most of my relationships start with greatness, but then start to devolve into mundaneness, at which point i am simultaneously bored and scared. at which point, i leave.

i am a product of instability—of particles shaking and mixing in unpredictable ways, of stars exploding, of the process of earth heating and cooling, of the tides crashing over and over again on the shore— how could i like its opposite?

this impossible, uncatchable girl, has become a prophecy etched into the fabric of my life.

i will never be caught. because if you look at the moon from a distance, it is a symbol of beauty, but the moment you step on it, it just becomes dirt under your feet.