A virtual love letter

Mrinalika Goswami

It was 4 am in the morning and I woke up and I was still wearing that same old faded tee shirt from the last two nights. I remember, I was very low those days and my sleep cycle was very disturbed. This is something which most of us haven't been doing for a while. I was stuck. I was scrolling the messages and sooner, I went ahead to download the dating app and shortly afterwards, I got a text from the guy. His name was Yathartha. He was in his mid-twenties. He had this little beard over his chubby face. He had those perfect lips and I swear I wanted to kiss them at the very first sight. But, the saddest part was that we were miles apart from each other.


His profile had some of his cute pictures and his bio read “Petroleum Engineer”.
“Oh.. Petroleum engineer...!! He must be too mature to handle”, I thought.
Ugh !! I tried to put my cheek tint to the best of my abilities, after all, I had to look nice on those video calls. Yes. It was love. To be precise, it was virtual love. I was in love with this guy whom I met on this dating app, a few weeks back. Yes, I am talking about Yathartha. This was the new phase of virtual love that I was going through. My phone buzzed. It was him. You never know, Your call may be the highlight of someone's day. And for my day, it was him and his calls. “Hey! Cotton candy !” He said. Yes, he used to call me cotton candy. I smiled, fixing my hair, we talked and I don't know when two hours passed. We were working and talking. He was bad at multitasking and I was pretty good at it. He needed time to focus on his work, rest, all the time he was focusing on me.


And somehow it felt very good. After hours of talking, we disconnected the call. Our arms were empty, but our hearts were full of love and only love. I don't know when this love became so deep. Our nights used to end with video calls, sometimes sending cute voice notes to each other. He used to snore and I used to listen to that. I remember the first time, when he saw me on this stupid video call, he didn't liked me at all. “You look okay, not that good.” These were his exact words and from that day, till today, I used taunt him for this. We used to laugh like idiots over this. It was a fairytale, yes it felt very new. We used to discuss all our small silly things that happened during our entire day, from discussing our work to discussing the weather report of our cities and sometimes even discussing our favorite ice cream flavors.


We used to have virtual coffee dates, workout sessions and sometimes we used to do this funny dance step that I taught him and I know, he used to feel very stupid about that, but he never said. And this was very sweet of him. We used to take screenshots of the video calls, just to post on our Instagram. And I think my entire friend circle knew about him. I was not sure about him. One month passed and there was still some time left for my birthday to come. I used to be very excited as always. I was not sure about him. It was going very well but on the other hand it was kinda difficult for both of us to handle this. We had no clue about the time when we will see each other and of course, his Instagram handle had lots of girls that used to peep inside out. Being honest, I was a bit insecure about all this. He was one of those typical guys who had
lots of girls following him all around. I used to get jealous sometimes, sometimes a bit offended. I don't know whether it was right or not to feel all this but that's how it was inside me. We used to argue a lot on all these small things and every time, he used to somehow convince me that it's all fine and it will be fine once we meet. I remember I used to get very pissed thinking about all this and I used to think that what if i was just his virtual love. I didn't want reality to sound this bitter.

All I knew was, that, I was in love. This might sound very cliche but yeah ! I was. And I couldn’t deny that. The doorbell rang. It was some courier service, I went downstairs to check for whom it was and to my surprise that parcel belonged to me. It was beautifully wrapped in off-white colored paper with my name on it. As I was looking at that, his message popped up on my phone. It read “Hope you liked this small surprise.” I smiled and I started unwrapping that gift. It was a beautifully potted plant with a note. It also had a frame and two chocolates and the frame had his picture. In all this moment my heart was going aww! And I could feel the warmth of his love that he was sending from miles away. I opened that note and it had this sweet message that read all shades of love and only love. I was very happy and surprised. I called him
and I remember, I was screaming in excitement and I could feel that he was smiling too on the other side of the call.


Our boat was sailing fine. But, we felt many jerks too. I remember, there was a time when it was my birthday and to my surprise, he did not do anything for me that day and I was way pissed at him. We had a flight exactly when the clock struck 12 and he called me up to wish me. The very next morning, when I woke up, he posted four of my pictures on his Instagram and wrote some sweet love notes. I found this thing very forced and it didn't feel as real as things were in between us. The definition of love was totally changed this time. I didn't know whether to blame this time or us. We were hopeless and of course helpless. I was very disappointed that day and I don’t know when sleep overpowered me.
All we did was to make love online. He used to play love songs for me. I remember, he played, “I miss my cocoa butter kisses when you smiled” and yes, I was kinda impressed.


He was putting efforts and it was me who was picking all the small silly flights. I
used to argue a lot with him. And there were times, when, I even used to mention his past girlfriends during flights. But, to my surprise, he used to handle me pretty well. He used to listen to all my things during the flights and that was the nicest part. He was mature enough, atleast mature enough than me. There were days when I wanted him and badly wanted him. As I mentioned earlier, he had those kissable lips and I am repeating this, because he really had those kissable lips. I wanted to kiss them so bad and I was obviously waiting for that
moment to happen. Every night I used to think and feel so lost about him. I remember we used to plan our first date and that is how our immense love for breakfasts occurred. I loved eggs and he loved me. Yes, that’s what he used to say and that moment was filled with air full of love. His sister knew about us and I kind of liked her. There was this night when I went live from my Instagram and I sung his favorite song “Between the bars” by Elliott Smith on that live video. In response, he wrote me a long, long text telling me that how this was the most amazing thing that anyone had ever done for him.


He became very sure about me in just three months. To be more precise, he even officially proposed me for marriage. I was a bit taken aback by that moment because no guy had done that to me ever. From that very day, he held my heart and it was all magical. We had opposite choices in many things, like, he hated books and i loved them. I hated cricket and he loved that. So, we were a complete mismatch in some parameters. I clearly remember, we used to celebrate our monthly anniversaries. We used to rate each other on many parameters like loyalty, compatibility etc. And, those used to be fun sessions.
I am one of those girls who are very conscious about their looks. But, I was very comfortable with him. Days passed by and I remember I didn’t even used to comb my hair for the video calls. I used to talk about my wishes, my stupid bucket list, my anger, my work life, my parents, my complains, almost everything to him. And he never used to interfere me either. He used to sleep like a baby over video calls and of course, he was chubby. I always thought, that, once we are together, I am not leaving him for hours. I remember, the moment, we got into a relationship, he asked me to join his Spotify Family Account. I was like.. What ?? But, I didn’t showed any of my awkward reaction.
Since then, I felt that he was into me from day one. It was me who was not sure. Yes, that was the truth. I had some trust issues and I cannot deny with that. His routine was a mess to me. Sometimes, he used to work during the day, and there were many a times, when our shifts used to clash and we weren't able to talk much.


He used to order pancakes for me from miles away. This used to happen a lot during my period days. “This sudden change in my life was written, just to make me feel something I have never thought of”, I spoke to myself. He was that feeling that happened without warning, rhyme and reason. I cannot explain it. I don’t know. It was an ability to suddenly feel profound, intense and affectionate for someone. It was a feeling when you powerfully get attached to someone as if you know from ages. He was that strange thing that happened to me at obviously the strangest point of time. My thoughts, this time, were more petite and warm and calm. Heart was at a better pace like never before and I belonged to him. Days went by and we started getting close and then we knew that in the world full of strangers, we were home for each other.


1 comment

  • This one is such a perfect love story…🍁🍂

    Himanshu Singh

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