was a stranger
The weirdest thing happened.
I met a stranger… but it felt like I had known her my whole life.
I knew her name.
I knew her siblings—how many, who they were.
I knew her parents.
I knew where she lived.
I knew her favourite colour, her favourite food, her favourite place to disappear to.
I even knew how she coped when life got heavy.
And the strangest part?
She knew all of that about me too.
But the truth is… she wasn’t a stranger.
She was my first real love.
Let’s call her Betty… (that’s not her real name).
I met Betty in my second year of university.
And from the beginning, she felt… different.
Quiet, but bold in her own way.
Soft, but sharp.
Beautiful without trying too hard.
Intelligent in a way that made conversations feel like something you could get lost in.
She felt like mine.
Or maybe… I wanted her to be.
We started talking.
She liked me.
I liked her… (at a point during the relationship, I thought we were going to get married).
And just like that, something began.
It was supposed to be magical.
And for a while… it was.
We only dated for about a month, but somehow, it felt longer. Deeper. Like we had squeezed a year’s worth of emotions into a few weeks.
There were nights we would stay on calls for two hours.
Just talking. Laughing. Existing in each other’s space.
It felt like heaven.
At least… on the days we weren’t fighting.
Because the truth is, even inside all that “magic,” something wasn’t right.
I was giving more.
I could feel it.
But I ignored it.
Because when you really like someone, you don’t measure effort… you justify imbalance.
She would pull away randomly.
Give reasons that didn’t quite make sense.
End things suddenly.
Three days.
A week at most.
Then she’d come back.
And I’d take her back.
Every time.
My friends saw it before I did.
They warned me.
But I was already in too deep.
Love does that to you.
It makes you defend what is hurting you.
It makes you protect the person who is confusing you.
It makes you blind to patterns that are obvious to everyone else.
So I stayed.
I adjusted.
I excused.
I hoped.
Eventually, we had a big fight.
The kind that drains everything out of you.
And for the first time, we both said it out loud:
Maybe this isn’t working.
So we ended it.
Or at least, we tried to.
We decided to just be friends.
And we actually tried.
But feelings are stubborn.
They don’t just disappear because you rename the relationship.
So we found ourselves drifting back again.
Talking more.
Laughing again.
Missing each other in ways we didn’t admit.
And somehow, we convinced ourselves to try again.
That was the mistake.
The day we got back together felt right.
We hugged.
We talked.
We laughed.
It felt like maybe… this time would be different.
The next day, I was watching a football match.
Liverpool vs Inter.
(We won. One goal. Szoboszlai. I can still remember that part clearly.)
She texted me.
I saw it… and ignored it.
Not intentionally. Just… in the moment.
Then she sent a voice note.
Five minutes long.
I didn’t play it.
Something in me already knew.
She called.
And the first thing she said was,
“I’m sure you already know where this is going…”
I didn’t want to hear it.
So I ended the call.
She called back. Tried to explain.
I ignored it again.
But feelings don’t disappear just because you avoid them.
A week later, I gave in.
We didn’t get back together… but we agreed to be friends.
Even though I had already promised myself one thing:
I would never date her again.
We talked occasionally after that.
Nothing serious. Just… surface-level.
Then one day, out of nowhere
She ended our Snapchat streak (you wondering why I was still keeping on Snap and tik tok? well, I don’t joke with my streaks even if we fight).
Deleted our saved chats.
Unfollowed me.
Blocked me.
And then she sent one message:
“I will never associate nor keep streaks with someone I deem an associate.”
That was it.
My friends laughed.
Honestly… I don’t blame them.
I would laugh too.
But here’s the strange part.
Sometimes, I still see her.
And when I do, something in me pauses.
Because I remember everything at once.
The late-night calls.
The laughter.
The moments that felt like something real.
And also
The confusion.
The inconsistency.
The quiet hurt I kept excusing.
And in that moment, I realise something I still don’t fully understand:
I knew this person so deeply.
She knew me too.
We shared pieces of ourselves most people never and might never get to see.
And yet…
Now, all I see is a stranger.
Maybe that’s what your first love does to you.
It teaches you how deeply you can feel.
How much you can give.
How easily you can lose yourself trying to make something work.
And then, when it ends, it leaves you with memories that don’t match the present.
So now, when I think about it…
I don’t say, “I lost someone.”
I say something else.
Something quieter.
Something more honest.
I met a stranger… and somehow, I loved her.
