Because

Looks good. Sounds good. Feels good. You hear good reviews about it. But it is very difficult.

Being in a relationship with a fellow human being.

It starts with being all smitten, continually ensuring you smell good, keeping up appearances and grooming to the T, ensuring your partner doesn't get to hear your bathroom noises, keeping all vulnerability at bay because, bleh, why would you want a stranger you met yesterday make so much difference in your life?

Until the point where you stop all pretense.

You will be privy to each other’s bathroom noises, to say the least. You will know each other’s good and bad days. You will see each other at your best and your worst. You will see each other at your most vulnerable. Finally, you will definitely see each other in a new light, at your nastiest. That’ll be the end of the honeymoon phase.

You will hurt each other, intentionally and/ or unintentionally, it will be cruel, you will feel like beating the shit out of your partner. For some, you will have self-harming tendencies, will imagine this little fight, that tiny spat to be the worst fight ever.

Until one of you decides to put an end to the silliness. Until one of you decides to put all ego aside. Until one of you decides to just muck the details out so there isn't any more miscommunication. At least about the current argument. Until one of you decides that it sucks to fight with someone you like spending time with.

I never imagined myself to be capable of spending most of my time with a fellow human being. I mostly stay away from people (I do belong to Planet Earth). And yet, for about six months now, I've unlearned all my capabilities of living alone. I’ve unlearned how to take care of myself. I've unlearned how to be by myself. I’ve unlearned how to entertain myself. Involuntarily.

I have a constant companion, be it home or work. I loathe waking up alone. From the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep, there is not a single minute of the day when I feel like I am not being taken care of. From the glass of hot water first thing in the morning, to the dry towel at the end of a shower, to the 2 minutes just for us after returning home from work to the pats on the back until I fall into deep slumber. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, weekend getaways, weekend brunches, evening walks, foosball at work, sleeping at night, going for a run, reading our own books, watching our own shows, 

I have a constant companion.

I honestly have no clue as to my contributions to this contract!

At this point, I've realized, I've to relearn all the things I’d taught myself in the first five to six months of living alone and taking care of myself because this constancy may or may not be there throughout, there will be absences, there will be misgivings and there will be disappointments.

But, from my little understanding, I can tell you this: as of now, I’d rather not be elsewhere. Because:

Found the picture somewhere on Facebook