So remember I said I had smth to talk about? Yeah Im going to get into that today.
I asked out a guy on October 2nd 2025.
It was my first time asking out a person and I was terrified and nervous as hell.
Lemme give you a bit of the backstory/context to this.
A new semester started in July and till then, I was still talking to R (see: Diary Entry 19) and so I wasn't paying attention to any other guys. And after we ended our friendship, it took me a few days to completely extract the bittersweet feelings.
So one day, as Im sitting in one of the lab sessions, two guys come and sit next to me.
Guy 1: S
Guy 2: E
We're sitting like : S,E,Me
S is the guy I asked out btw. And so throughout the lab session, E was talking to me. I think its mostly just because he was every clearly an extrovert and so I didnt pay much attention to that whole interaction. Meanwhile, even though S was sitting directly next to E, he didn't say a word to me and so he didnt really register to me then. I didn't notice him then.
Cut forward to a few days later and I notice someone's eyes on me. You know how girls have that 6th sense almost? Yeah that.
So I notice that S was looking at me. And over the course of the next few days, we made eye contact increasingly.
It was very VERY frequent and even I, who don't really put much stock in "eyecontactship" and the like was like..."wait a minute this is sus"
( spoiler alert: I was delusional lol )
So I asked my guy friends what is a sign that a guy gives you that he likes you or atleast that he's interested. And all of them said one thing only: eye contact.
So by this point, I myself am getting a lil interested in the guy and decide to see if I can get a lil data on him. Just what kinda person he is, yadda yadda.
And then after days of stalking his friends and linkedin and social media, I find out the guy doesnt have social media at all.
Like! He didnt have an instagram account.
And you know, I was even more intrigued because what sort of a person, in this day and age doesnt have social media??
He seemed like a total introvert and that made me even more curious.
Mind you, I didnt really like him atp. I didn't KNOW him to like him. I was interested. Kinda like I'd encountered an interesting lab specimen. Its not everyday you come across people so disconnected from the social media sphere.
I pride myself on my intellect and my ability to figure people out based on their data points and the fact that I couldn't find anything on the guy was irritating AF but then, I decided to ✨️network✨️ and my best friend had a friend who was in his friend circle. Or atleast talked to him.
Because of what I'd seen of him, he only interacted with his specific friend group.
So over the course of a few days I found out that he liked to read books( he was reading The Brothers Karamazov at a point which was really rather admirable) , was into mobile games(one especially), was into memes (who isn't?) and he was Jain.
And therein I ran into the problem.
The thing with religious or cultural indentities in India is that, they are VERY strong.
And even if the guy is chill, the society and the parents are often Not. And if the person you date or marry is not strong enough, that can end up with your emotions and feelings being bulldozed. Which is what would've happened if I dated R.
In India, guys especially don't want to break away from the toxic part of religion because those systems have been benefiting them for ages. But I do not wish to be with someone who is ignorant of his priveleges or does not care about me enough to fight against them for me, with me.
And in communities like Gujratis or Jains where the sense of community is even more close knit, this almost toxic mentality that the girl who marries into the community is supposed to adjust or conform is often more strongly implemented. If R who was a Gujrati had a problem with me eating non-veg, then a Jain who are even stricter with their diet and lifestyle wouldn't even consider me as a viable option.
But, I was still ready to give S the benefit of the doubt. Afterall, I didn't know him. Maybe he was a chill person with a lax view of lifestyle who knew?
Problem was, at this point, I was getting seemingly obsessed with a guy who I'd never even spoken to before. And that didn't sit right with me.
Because information about him was scarce, I had to go to lengths and talk to people that I wouldn't have otherwise. All for someone I wasn't even sure liked me.
Okay this entry is getting a bit long. Im going to split it into 2. Go on to the next one.