The guy I shouldn’t have dated but I did

featured in The Open Letters | by Symren Kaur

From Symren Kaur💌

I straightened my hair as if the moody rain clouds wouldn’t ruin it later that night anyways. Red lipstick carefully applied in the mirror, cigarette already lit between my fingers before I had even decided what mood I was in. I was going out with friends. It was a random Tuesday night after school, but that’s how I lived in Toronto back then. Out on any night I felt restless enough. No structure, only chasing thrill whenever it presented itself.

My taxi driver called as my sister and I poured shots into mismatched glasses on the kitchen counter, laughing too hard and telling him to wait five more minutes. We stumbled into the elevator already buzzed before we had even left the apartment building. I loved being driven through the city at night. Streetlights reflecting against rain puddles, strangers smoking outside bars, music spilling onto sidewalks every time a door opened. The stimulation made me feel alive.

When we arrived, the venue was already overcrowded. A small dimly lit bar where bodies pressed too closely together and conversations blurred into music. Our friends were outside smoking when we pulled up, high heels sinking slightly into the pavement, cigarettes glowing between manicured fingers, leather jackets damp from the air. We hugged dramatically like we hadn’t seen each other in years before heading inside.

The place smelled like cigarette smoke soaked into old walls, perfume, alcohol and rain carried in from outside. Somehow we still managed to carve out a tiny corner booth that immediately became ours for the night. Half-finished drinks crowding the table, everyone speaking too loudly over the music, jackets constantly being grabbed for another cigarette outside while melted ice sank into neglected glasses. Men kept sending over free drinks we probably didn’t need but accepted anyways. Hair flicking, laughter, passion, youth performed so naturally we didn’t even realize we were doing it.

And then there was him.

Across the room through the crowd and hazy lighting, standing quietly with a drink in his hand, speaking to someone but never fully looking away from me. Our eyes kept meeting in these brief passing moments that somehow felt longer than they were. Every time they did, my heart beat a little faster. No words had been exchanged yet, but something had already shifted in the atmosphere between us.

A little while later I stepped outside for a cigarette. Slightly drunk and distracted, I realized too late that I had forgotten my lighter inside. I stood there for a moment with the cigarette hanging from my lips, mildly annoyed, debating whether I cared enough to go back in for it.

That’s when he appeared beside me.

“Need a light?”

Before I could even answer, he was already leaning forward shielding the flame from the wind with one hand as he lit my cigarette for me.

I smiled and thanked him.

“No problem,” he replied casually, as though lighting my cigarettes had suddenly become his life’s purpose.

We spoke in short bursts followed by silence, but not uncomfortable silence. The kind that keeps pulling smiles out of you because there’s too much to say and somehow no words feel quite right. He asked what my plans were for the rest of the night and I told him I was out with friends. Not long after, he brought his friends over to our table and somehow the night unfolded from there.

One venue turned into several. Our groups blending together so naturally it felt like we’d all known each other longer than a few hours. Piling into taxis, arguing dramatically over directions, drunkenly disappearing into convenience stores for cigarettes and gum, laughing so hard at diners at three in the morning that irritated waitresses kept glaring at us from across the room.

The city felt endless back then, like there would always be another place to go, another conversation waiting somewhere before sunrise.

We became inseparable after that.

Constant texting. Late night calls that stretched until morning. Random meetups that somehow turned into entire nights together. Every notification from him sent a rush through my body. Every silence made me restless. He moved through my life quickly, intensely, like someone trying to consume every possible version of me before I could disappear.

Back then I mistook that for passion.

We were young and wild enough to believe obsession was romantic.

But after a while the intensity became exhausting. As social as I could be, I’ve always been deeply solitary underneath it all. I need space to return to myself. Quiet. Distance. My own inner world untouched by anyone else. But he didn’t understand that. The more attached he became, the more tightly he held on.

And slowly the excitement started turning into resentment.

Arguments in taxis. Hanging up dramatically only to call each other back minutes later. Yelling outside bars before making out again like the fight never happened. Jealous glances every time another man spoke to me. Possessiveness disguised as devotion. The emotional highs were intoxicating but the lows left me exhausted.

There was always something theatrical about him.

He could charm almost anyone, especially women. Attention flowed naturally from him, almost like performance art. He spoke in a way that made people feel momentarily singular, as though every interaction carried hidden depth and meaning. I understood the effect well because it had worked on me too.

At first it felt magnetic.

Eventually it became almost embarrassing to witness.

The more clearly I saw him, the less enchanted I became. He was “madly in love” with me by then, but I was already emotionally pulling away. And I think what bothered him most was not losing me entirely, but realizing I was no longer under the spell of his intensity.

What I’ve understood about myself now is that intensity is not intimacy. Nervous system activation is not love.

There are people who know how to make you feel alive very quickly. They move through the world creating emotional atmosphere wherever they go. Attention feels intoxicating coming from them because it never arrives quietly, it crashes into your life all at once. Your body responds before your mind has time to catch up. Your heart races, your thoughts spiral, your stomach tightens every time your phone lights up with their name and you call it chemistry.

But eventually the nervous system settles enough for reality to enter.

And when it does, you realize some people are not actually making you feel safe, known or deeply loved. They are simply activating you.

I think a lot of women confuse being intensely desired with being deeply cherished. I know I did.

Real safety in love feels entirely different in the body. It doesn’t leave you anxiously waiting for the next text, emotionally exhausted after every disagreement or addicted to the highs and lows of someone’s attention. It feels grounded. Spacious. Quiet enough for you to remain yourself inside of it.

You don’t feel consumed.

You feel held.

And contrary to what I once believed, safe love is not passionless. It still holds desire, playfulness, tension and attraction, but without the constant emotional instability underneath it.

There’s devotion in ordinary moments.

In being carried to the car alongside your purse and heels because you insisted on wearing shoes you could barely walk in after midnight. In drunkenly reciting famous Bollywood dialogues — “ek chutki sindoor ki keemat…” — while he laughs and tells you to be quiet before someone hears you. In water already placed beside your bed before you even realize how thirsty you are.

In someone quietly cleaning your cat’s litter box the next morning while sunlight spills through the blinds and you sleep in, still wrapped in yesterday’s exhaustion.

In someone massaging your feet after a long day while half-watching a movie together. Setting up your TV because they know technology frustrates you. Standing beside you in grocery store aisles debating snacks and pasta sauces like it’s somehow the most important conversation in the world.

Existing together in sweatpants, silence and soft domestic routines without needing every moment to feel cinematic.

And somehow that kind of love becomes cinematic too.

Not because it’s dramatic, but because there’s something profoundly intimate about being witnessed gently in the ordinary parts of life.

There’s something deeply intimate about being loved by someone whose eyes do not constantly wander. Someone whose devotion feels quiet, steady and unquestioned. Someone who notices your facial expressions changing halfway through a conversation and instinctively knows you need space without taking it personally.

That kind of love leaves room for both people to remain whole.

You can still have your solitude, your inner world, your own life outside of the relationship and they do not experience that as rejection. They trust the connection enough not to grip it too tightly.

There’s a difference between a man who creates chemistry everywhere he goes and a man whose presence allows your nervous system to soften.

One leaves you constantly stimulated.

The other leaves you at peace.

One makes your body brace for intensity.

The other makes your body exhale.

When I was younger, peace felt boring to me.

I think our generation sometimes confuses nervous system activation with aliveness. So when peace and emotional stability finally arrive, people think they’re bored, when really they may just be experiencing safety for the first time.

I wanted passion, obsession, pursuit, dramatic apologies, longing. I wanted to feel chosen so intensely that it consumed us both.

But all intensity eventually burns through itself if there’s nothing grounding underneath it. What lasts is much quieter.

Not because real love lacks passion, but because it leaves room for humanity. For space. For individuality. For nervous systems to rest.

I no longer confuse love with adrenaline.

Love is not the electricity of two storms colliding.

It feels more like gravity.

Steady, invisible, always there.

Like the relationship between the earth and moon, close enough to feel each other’s pull without destroying one another in the process.

Some people enter your life to awaken parts of you.

Others enter your life to hold them gently once they’ve awakened.

I didn’t understand the difference back then.

I do now.

“What if Mary was in the club before she met Joseph around hella thugs?” (Wolves — Kanye West)

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About the Author:

Symren Kaur is a Canadian writer whose work explores memory, identity, tenderness, and the quiet process of returning to oneself. Through reflective essays and lyrical prose, she writes about emotional safety, womanhood, longing, discernment, and the inner lives we often keep hidden beneath performance. Blending psychological insight with softness and emotional clarity, Symren’s work lingers in the space between beauty and grief, inviting readers to look more closely at the stories they carry within themselves.

Substack ID: Symren Kaur

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