Sold To Conformity

(Pic Courtesy: Unsplash.com)

There had to be a semblance to normalcy. There has to be a smile. I had to emanate charm when I knew not how.

“Wow! That is a gorgeous dress.”

“Thank you! How are you?”

“Now that you’re here, I’m good. How have you been doing after…”

“Oh! It was for the best! I am doing great!”

“That is great! He will be here today, I heard.”

“Nice.”

I took a deep breath. An entire night of polite pretences lay ahead. This was just the beginning and I was already a little sweaty and lightheaded. He’ll be here. And if I leave, people would think I didn’t want to be around him because I was not over him. So I found the open bar, mixed myself an LIIT and sipped on it in anticipation.

It had been almost a year since I saw him last. We had grown up together, and had grown to love each other. He was my childhood friend, my college sweetheart and my first everything! The entire world around us just assumed that we would end up married. We were inseparable. But were we?

Last year, I had walked in on him sexting another woman. All hell had broken lose. And that was that. 24 years of friendship and a 5 year old relationship went down the drain. I was always the kind of person who simply went blank, and couldn’t bring out the actual emotional turmoil. I had gone blank then.

Over time, I learned to live with the blankness and the broken heart. I suppressed it deep inside of me. Because is that not what society wants? They don’t want to see your misery, and pain. Their sadism thrives on it. You’ll become gossip in no time, if you let it watch your breakdown.

Today, a year later, I stood by the bar, sipping on my drink, and wondering how we ALL were pimps. We pimped out ourselves for social acceptance. I had pimped out the girl in me. I saw her go to pieces everyday. She wept silently, curled up into the darkest of corner. Darker than the night.

For in her darkness, there was no moon; no stars. Just an unending expanse of black. Her heart, her trust, her strength, her health. I saw it all break piece by piece. Then finally i saw her indefatigable mind, shatter under all that strain. It made the most dreadful sound. It was loudest silence I would ever hear.

And in that moment i saw her spring of laughter suddenly go dry, and watched the colour of her face and that light in her eye go off with a final burst of flames.

And what did i do? What COULD i do?

There were people knocking at the door. The door must be answered.

So i stood over her and pulled her up with a ruthless jerk. Yes. And i pushed her to the door. I made her answer it like she was still the most beautiful woman on earth. For they mustn’t know. No. I couldn’t let them know that all that they were after was gone.

The door needed to be answered with normalcy and poise and a lovely smile. And answer it, she must.So i made her.

But that day I realised that prostitution is so much more than just selling bodies for money. It is in all of us. Yes. All.

That day i saw that girl sell herself for my need of acceptance. For society. For normalcy. For keeping up the show. For needs other than money. For needs far more pressing. Far more urgent.

Yes.

I sold her off to fulfil my social needs of being accepted. For my selfish needs to look brave and beautiful. Never to let the secret of that crying girl in the dark corner be exposed.

I sold her for “what people would say”, if they knew.

And in her, i sold my soul.

I saw him walk through the door. He was here. Oh! My heart! I felt like it’ll break out of it’s cage. He was with another girl. And now he sees me. I smiled. He is walking towards me.

“Hi. How’ve you been?”

“I’ve been good.”

“Found anyone yet?”

“Hahahhaa.”

A couple of people had moved towards us to watch this exchange.

“Isn’t she a darling?! Too bad we didn’t work out. No hard feeling, bro.”

BRO?

“Yes of course. No hard feelings.”

His girlfriend chirped in on this.

“You’ve got to tell me about him. He us the best guy ever. I need gossip on him because I haven yet found anything wrong about this man.”

“Hahahaha. There isn’t any.”

Except the fact that he hurt me to a point of no return, and made me watch the entire world with hostility and mistrust.

“He is a good guy. You two are lucky to have found each other.”

So here i am, and i am sure so are you, sold to the social ideals of normalcy. Going about life like a cheap prostitute. Metaphorically, covered with thick layers of make up and the reddest of lipsticks. Sold. Sold to the society. Sold to the cage that is this world. Sold to conformity.