Pressure To Have Boyfriend

Two years back I tried to reach to a friend through phone. I had lost his contact and got his number through another friend who too was not in contact with my friend since years.

Never the less , I dialed the number and heard a girl's voice on the phone. I inquired about my friend but did found out that this number did belonged to this girl.

I said sorry about disturbing her and did disconnect the phone and forgot about the episode.

Ridhima (name changed ) , the girl whose numbered I had dialed , called after fifteen days . Since we didn't knew each other , we had casual chat before she disconnected the phone.

She then started calling once a week and slowly , I started knowing more about her. She was kid for me since she was 10 years younger to me. She belonged to middle class family , was in 1st year of college , her father was mostly out for work . Her mother was housewife and she had younger sister who was in 11th standard.

Riddhima used to work partime and used to go to a inbound call center.

Riddima was good girl and like many young girls was having conflict in her mind about Indian culture and western influence.

Her most of friends had boyfriends and riddima was feeling the pressure to have one.

Once she called me and said that "every one has boyfriend and so I should also have one"

To which I replied 'Is boyfriend a mobile or laptop that if everyone has one , you should go and have one too?. Getting into relationship is serious thing and one must not get into it for sake of it or for flaunting it'.

Never the less , preachy me could not stop her from getting into relationship . She got a boyfriend in since everyone has mode. Her relationship lasted for 14 odd months before they broke off and this breaking off did take toll on riddhima.

Breakups are not easy to handle and it can take serious toll on mental health , physical health , social health and have serious effect on one's self esteem.

I understand the urge of having someone in your life. I understand the urge of caring , sharing , being loved and loving someone but doing it because everyone else does is something which needs to be avoided.

Because under pressure one might end up in relationship with some one who might not be Mr right or Ms right .

Having someone in life is always good but having anyone in life can make life miserable.

During my college days , pressure was less about having girlfriend/boyfriend as compared to present teens in college .Times do change and with that trends too keep on changing.

Idea is looking for love and not a face to flaunt for and boast off. Because unlike mobile or other gadgets , boyfriend/girlfriend is human being which reacts.Isn't it?