The Underdog Syndrome | Shrink Tales

We spoke about football.

I'd never thought about the 'rooting for the underdog' syndrome. My philophy of football and life in general is that i will stand with the person or people who are weak. Never knew there was so much to it. By standing with the weaker team, your status gets elevated, as a person who is standing with a weaker person. If they win, it means that underdogs can win. If they lose, well, they were weaker to begin with anyway. If they win, it proves that lesser talent can win. Standing with the powerful team is not really a noble act.

The part that i liked the most is when Ish told me something inji had told me long back and i had got pissed with. My feeling insecure and unsafe when my partner earns more than me and pays the whole rent is a by product of patriarchy. Inji had told me that being independent was a disguise for a lack of support system most of the time. Independence is not being able to pay the rent. What my partner and i share is companionship. Except that when Ish said it, i got the satisfactory click inside me.  (Ishani said it was because unlike inji, i was paying her. Nobody listens to their parents because the advice is free. When you have to pay for it, if you are a person with a middle class mentality at least, you will make an effort.)

I asked her why then, knowing that my body image issue is also a product of patriarchy, i was not able to change it, she said it is because it has had a long lasting impact on me, starting from childhood.

I shared my standing with the underdog syndrome the way i experience it with my partner. He was not considered good looking. Nor was he someone on whom girls had crushes. So i felt superior because i, who was hit on by a lot of males - it was all for sex, i think but nevertheless - decided to 'settle' for him.

God it felt horrible writing that. Ish told me that it was not really superiority. It was indicative of my lack of self esteem. I forgot how that figured. I don't know about all that. I do know that he fills me with warmth whenever i even think of him. I find him too beautiful, sometimes i look at him for minutes together, like an idiot.

Today i got hurt when inji told me that she didn't want me to work during my vacation. I was going to book tickets without telling her. Because i was sure she wouldn't sanction my leave. But she said okay and rejected my offer to work for two hours every day if possible.

I don't understand her games. And i get angry when i don't understand her games. And at the end of it all, she might just have typed something while doing hundred other things or thinking hundred other thoughts. And i will try to analyse her sentence for two weeks and keep adding to my mountain of hate.  

The other major incident during the week was that i blocked inji on whatsapp. We had an argument regarding punctuation marks. I got hurt because she was dismissive. I felt she was talking about things she didn't know. It brought back her sentence 'you think you know English' cried for at least two hours. Decided to look for new jobs. Vai Vow asked me to do the same. Like always i defended inji. Later, when he was not cleaning up after himself, i threw 'this is exactly what i do to inji' at him. He became silent.

The pain was unbearable. Calico tried to help but he is also one of those who hates inji.
Today, i disagreed with her in front of other colleagues and she did not talk to me like how she talks in private chat. So i told myself that i had made the right decision.

I still can't believe i blocked her. Me, who years ago would hope against all hopes that i'd get a call from an unknown number. Because the only unknown number who called me was her.

Coming to think of it, rooting for the underdog turned into something else syndrome is something i have for inji. But she is something else entirely. Starting from the clothes she wears to every single thing she does, she is the perfect feminist for me. A feminist much like me but without the privileges i have, who FOUGHT all along and who survived and who SMIRKS at people who tried to put her down. All while making dosas and babies and leading the exact same life my mother leads. It gives me hope that my mother can also be that. And i value that hope very much. 

The Middle Ground | Shrink Tales

It was great even thinking of a possibility that there could be a middle path. It was right, what Mother says about me. Vettonnu Muri Randu. It's either black or white. No greys for me. But it is the greys that keep one alive and human.

Why can't i be angry with inji on some days and okay with her on other days. I want everything. And i can't have everything. If i am like a child to inji, i am seeking a mother who will not be like Mother to me. One who does not come with restrictions and warnings and plans. The same irritation i get when mother asks me to join a journalism school to get a degree to be a journalist is what i feel when inji asks me to make ten short films or not make a film for ten years. With my mother i dismiss it easily. With inji, i pile it up onto the mountain i have built out of a molehill that i use as fuel to hate her.

I should love everyone like i love Vai Vow. I get pissed with him when he doesn't clean up. But i love him. I know that he cares for me not matter what. Also, unlike in other relationships, every other relationship, i am not always scared of him abandoning me. I was quick to tell Ish that it wasn't because of the right reasons that i didn't have that fear with Vaibhav. I feel it is about knowing that it will be difficult for him to find someone else. I in fact kind of want him to get married so that he knows that it is possible. I am scared that he is sticking with me because he feels that no one else will fall for him.

Ish told me that the reasons didn't matter. But to be honest, it matters to me. I often imagine him being with someone else and feel bad thinking of how less he will be loved. But is that the truth? Won't he be much much better off with a normal person who loves him unconditionally?

I take abuse because i can never see the middle path. If i tell Deep that he can't take me for granted, i will lose his friendship. He will stop coming to my place. Deep was perhaps the biggest step i made towards health. The extreme happened. We stopped being friends and he hasn't visited since. But i stood my ground and told him that a friendship wasn't healthy if i did not have room to tell him not to do certain things that were bad for me.

I don't fear that i will lose my mother. I did lose my sister just like how i felt i would. But even when there have been extremely bad patches, i have always known that mother will be there for me.

The same way, i shoud know that inji will be there for me no matter what. Because i know that she loves me and cares for me. She might stop talking. She might be in full control of when i can be in touch with her but she will always be there for me.

In abusive relationships, i was asked to do things i didn't like and i did them because i thought they won't stick with me otherwise. If i refused to have sex with this man on train, he would stop loving me.

I have to do everything perfect. When inji praises the work of other girls, i look with pride at their work and feel, that's all she wanted? This is not half as good as what i could have done. Sometimes, people just want things done. Not the perfect way, necessarily. Successful people do not cook grand lunches and dinners every day of the week. It's done on weekends. Other days can have unglamorous food. Rice and dal will fill you up just as well as a biriyani.

Ish did try to take the insight about the middle path into food and i immediately felt a wall of insulation build itself around me. I was eating more. Checking weight less. But on the day of therapy, because i had this conversation, i felt i was cheating on my obsession and checked weight again. It was 1 kilo more than what is ideal. Resolved to eat less. Again.

I can't be somewhere in between x and y kilos. I have to be z kilos. Or else, i have failed. To discipline myself and to be control myself. Ish pointed out that i was better than years ago when i was binging, sweet shop to sweet shop in good old calcutta. I miss calcutta so much.

True. I wasn't binging like that anymore, but i still live in fear that i will go back. Once an addict, always an addict.

Inji went on a vacation and came back. I am still sulking around her.

The week went well. I successfully turned Vai Vow into a football watcher. Noted with glee that his hands go cold when a penalty shoot-out happens. In a purely hypothetical situation, i would like to be proposed with this line 'how would you like to watch the rest of the football world cups together?'