The First Time I Felt Seen
I’ve always been the quiet person.
In school, I was the girl who sat somewhere in the middle.
Not the popular one.
Not the completely invisible one either.
Just… there.
College was pretty much the same.
I had friends, but I never felt like the person people noticed first.
Then I met someone who noticed everything.
His name was Arjun.
We were in the same class.
The first thing he ever said to me was,
“You always carry the same blue bottle.”
I looked at him like he was weird.
He laughed.
“I’ve noticed it for three months.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Nobody had ever told me they noticed small things about me.
We became friends after that.
Nothing dramatic happened.
We started having lunch together.
He’d send me notes when I missed class.
I’d send him memes at 2 AM.
He knew I hated phone calls.
I knew he couldn’t eat spicy food but still ordered spicy noodles every single time.
One evening, I was having a really bad day.
I didn’t tell anyone.
I went to the college terrace because I wanted to be alone.
He found me there.
He didn’t ask, “What’s wrong?”
He just sat beside me.
After a few minutes he said,
“You don’t have to talk.”
So we sat there quietly.
After some time, I started crying.
I don’t even remember what I was crying about now.
But I remember what he said.
“You don’t always have to pretend you’re okay around me.”
That was the first time I felt truly seen.
Not because he thought I was beautiful.
Not because he liked me.
Because he noticed that I wasn’t okay when I was trying very hard to convince everyone that I was.
We eventually started dating.
We’re not together anymore.
That’s actually why I’ve never told this story before.
People think every love story needs a happy ending.
Ours didn’t.
But I still think about that evening sometimes.
Because he taught me something I hadn’t understood before.
Being loved isn’t always about someone staying forever.
Sometimes someone enters your life for a while and shows you that you deserve to be understood.
I’m still grateful for that.