We met on Hinge last monsoon.
He was charming, funny, and exactly my type. We started with coffee dates, then dinner, then evenings at his place when both of us were too tired to travel across Mumbai.
We kissed on our second date.
By the fourth, I was spending entire Sundays with him.
He remembered how I liked my chai. He sent me pictures of things that reminded him of our conversations. When I had a bad day at work, he'd call and let me complain until I felt better.
It felt like a relationship.
Except we never called it one.
Whenever I tried to bring up the subject, he'd say he liked what we had and didn't want to ruin it by putting pressure on things.
I accepted that explanation because I liked him too much to risk losing him.
Three months passed.
One night, we were lying on his sofa after ordering biryani. We'd finished eating, and he was showing me a ridiculous video on his phone.
I looked at him and asked, "If you met someone else tomorrow, would you stop seeing me?"
He stopped smiling.
After a long silence, he said he didn't know.
That answer hurt more than a straightforward rejection would have.
I realised I had been treating the relationship as something we were building together, while he was treating it as something enjoyable that might end whenever life changed.
He wasn't necessarily a villain. We'd both avoided the conversation because we were afraid of the answer.
But I couldn't continue pretending that uncertainty didn't affect me.
I told him I wanted a committed relationship and that if he didn't want the same thing, I needed to leave.
He said he understood.
We hugged goodbye.
I cried in the auto home, then cried again the following weekend when I saw the café where we'd had our first date.
It's been five months.
I still think about him sometimes, especially when something funny happens and I instinctively want to send it to him.
But I don't regret asking.
The confession: The hardest part wasn't losing him. It was realising that I had been accepting less than I wanted because I hoped he'd eventually offer more.