Me and my neighbor – Shantanu and family have not being in talking terms for almost 2 years now. I thought it might be good to dedicate one post to this.

First thing first – this is my version of the story , far away from their version for sure and further far away from the reality. ( This blog is being published after sharing the same with Shantanu and modifying it as per the objections)

First let me share with you the journey in few sentences.

2014-2017 : Peaceful friendship Phase, we worked together, ate together, discussed , shared ….

2018-2019 : Some level of distance crept in, relationship not deepening but becoming more formal, few hurts on both sides – but we continue to co-exist peacefully.

2019–2021 : Hurts take over, talks stopped, blame game is ON, No longer in any kind of conversation or relationship.

My version of What happened ?

Frankly, I realize it was majorly my fault in judging them. They are what they were. I saw them through romantic glasses. I saw them through colored reality and hence had a different picture that I wanted to believe. Over period of time, my glasses were partially broken and I could see some glimpses through the crack. It started hurting me because I had a different image. When I look back, all that I blame them today for , was perhaps present right from day 1 but I didn’t see.

I am not saying that they are wrong or bad – all I am saying is that what they were , I misread it. This misreading led to many confusions and some hurts. If I could go back in time start over with my current reading of them, I am sure that today we would have been in perfectly sound relationships with almost no conflicts.

Lemme further simplify with a funny analogy – Say you meet a girl, you fall in love and decide to get married in that heightened state of emotion. Later you realize that this girl would have made a great colleague but not a great wife ! Someone who would be great wife may not be a great colleague. If I could treat the girl as my colleague right from the beginning, I wouldn’t have felt hurt, I wouldn’t have caused hurt. Thus, its the reading that matters. I misread. I had to pay the price.

My version of “Their version” of what happened ?

They feel betrayed. A lot of the rights , privileges , benefits and scope they received are being taken away by me because of my changed reading of them. Road for instance, was agreed to be shared for free but with new reading , I feel they must either pay for the road or just find another one. No wonder they feel betrayed. If I allow what they want, I feel exploited.

Because I was reading the girl to be my wife, I could share everything I had, freely. Infact, girl had the right to my things. The girl got used to it and when I now treat her like a colleague, she would naturally feels hurt. I can only say sorry for my misreading, making her wife again looks quite difficult.

Further, I feel that just like how I feel I am flawless , they feel the same. Strongly than me , I would argue. They feel they have done no wrong, all wrong is being done on to them. For no mistake of theirs ,they are being put through all this torture. This is exactly where I lose hope. For one who sees no fault in his approach and all wrongs being inflicted upon him – I feel it’s little difficult to find a way out.

One thing that could have Saved our relation !

Communication, conversations , dialogues …I think we both failed at keeping communication alive. If we were chit chatting, small things would have remained small and we could have sorted differences amicably. We used to talk once (by talk I mean deep sharing or longer conversation with lot of time and space) or maximum thrice a month even in best of our days. Slowly it came down to once a month and that’s where one of us should have blown the whistle and put effort to increase communications. I feel this would have avoided most of the issues we hold right now.

Way Ahead :

At one point I was quite determined to resolve conflicts. I was willing to do whatever it takes to get to terms that are at least not hostile if not amicable. But right now – I do not see a way ahead for resolution. At best, we can come to terms where we do no further violence to each other. I would be happy with that. But unfortunately, I’ve seen in life that relationships are like water, if flowing they continue to flow and eventually meet ocean but if they do not move, they gets worse with every passing day collecting more and more stale.

May God give us all sanity to learn a way to be with others. !