Roxette’s 1994 Crash! Boom! Bang! has nearly seemed like a personal jibe everytime someone seemingly equivalent to a ‘Nice-man’ has come cartwheeling into my life and taken over my heart and mind. No amount of spring cleaning works on decluttering any storm that act causes and it’s the same thing over and over again.
The question and confusion is persistent – did those love stories lie to you when they spoke about fulfilling love stories, when girl meets boy and they try and live happily ever after. It’ll be a lie to make that a definite statement, because it takes mutual effort – the ones who look successful in their endeavour too may be trying hard to be at it, day-in, day-out.
It is in reality a mess that no one wants to truly get their hands dirty in and if it’s easier, it’s better, ’cause why make an effort?
Who is Nice-man?
As the name suggests, he is probably a nice human being but he’s not a superhero. All that matters is that he’s human and may not always be perfect, so expecting something to its likeness will make you a nincompoop.
Beware the niceties though. It’s one of the easiest costumes to don and own this real-life romantic cosplay.
Only if these costumes came with a refractive mirror of some kind so the blackness of one’s heart was as evident as the shades of the attire.
He could be your hero of the moment in blue and red or black and grey or bare-chested Aquaman-like (Jason Momoa, though 😍), but it’s the heart that makes him the real Nice-man, and that never goes out of fashion, even as characters evolve.
Poor connectivity
Some Bollywood hero, decades ago, might have said that he could go to the moon and bring back a chunk for his Lady Love and everyone believed it to be true. Then there was some technological advancement and people became hooked to their smartphones and relied heavily on WiFi to keep the spark in their relationships alive. It was all happy and peaceful when the mobile/WiFi networks were full, while feelings dwindled on intermittent connections and love was a matter of poor connectivity. Possibly no one stumbled upon the revelation that poor connectivity exists in the heart, everything else follows by chance.
I love you is a responsibility
Being in love with someone, with love, life or just the idea of romance is indeed a warm, fuzzy feeling because it keeps your hormones charged up, and those oxytocin levels eventually make you do things you will term stupid on days you feel your most cynical or ‘pragmatic’ because hopeless romantics are seen as more hopeless than romantics.
Note: Romanticism doesn’t mean coupling or always having a man (or partners depending on your preference) around you to make you feel fulfilled. Sure, it’s not practical, but when did it practicality lead you to do anything you’ll either be proud of someday or feel badly enough about to tell a story about your learnings?
But leaving all that aside, even when those words mean a little more to some people and a lot less to some others, those 3 ‘magical’ words can sometimes salvage a broken heart or partially assuage it to look out for hope around us. Let’s just say, it is a powerful self-care tool too.
Imagine you have an inbuilt pot of love and goodness and you always believe that it’s meant for sharing. Now imagine using a bit for yourself too. It won’t make you any less of a wonderful person, and that’s kind of the ultimate goal too… to be a better version of the wonderful person you wanted to be, and what Nice-man and other people around you believe you to be.
The unfortunate truth is that we’re all quite conditioned to find the one who can fill some gaps and so every prospect might seem like Nice-man and when he tells you he loves you or that he’s crazy about you (maybe your craziness), you want to believe it. It’s true for the strongest souls out there so no one should feel like they’ve defaulted wanting to feel loved by someone other than themselves — if you struggle with mental health issues, then finding love for yourself is also questionable which needs more than an app reminder or a knock in the inner corners of the mind that has its ways of playing games every now and then.
Ghosting your way through life
It is one of the most unkind flipsides of modern love, ghosting, also a popular dating term in recent times. Why get involved if you don’t want to bear the burden or the responsibility of everything that follows a night or a few similar nights of putting a bait out for the one you want to keep on the hook? Don’t do it. It seems like fun till it comes back to you when you least expect it. (Justin Timberlake’s What Goes Around is playing in my head and I’m not sure if I should be sorry about the revelation 😁)
If being in love equates to walking up the garden path, but you’re not looking to commit in any way, just do it alone, the scenery will look the same then too. And before you misunderstand, it’s totally fine to want to be a loner, it’s a lot of fun actually. It’s when you make relationships a game of throwball where the ball is someone’s heart, it’s not fun and games, and sure I too don’t subscribe to being a people pleaser (which is pretty evident through my choices so didn’t really have to explain it) but the least you can do is set the right expectations. Read more about building yourself into a wonderful person above.
Modern love (probably lust), dating apps, hook ups, no strings attached relationships are as much a personal choice as they’re some of the truths a lot of us live today but ask yourself if it’s something you chose to do because you feel entirely yourself that way or is it a way to compensate for an emotion you’ve dusted under the carpet. My guess is, it could be the latter and it’s a generational curse to choose yourself over any of this, to be single by choice, to be a loner and even if you wear your heart on your sleeve, it can’t be as bad as the one who has been wearing masks before the modernization of masquerade balls, or more recently the Covid-19 era, taking up space in your heart and mind catfishing as Nice-man.
PS: Nice-man is an original term and a version of some real-life examples, partially fictionalised for this story. Happy reading 💗
MasakaliBytes | Saumya Sharma 