Known Streets, Unknown Belonging!!!

People often ask me, “Don’t you get bored doing things alone?” or “Why do you go on solo dates so much?”
And honestly, I never really answered them truthfully.

I always called these solo dates “self-love,” which isn’t a lie… but it’s only a partial truth.

My own hometown taught me how to be alone.
My own city forced me to walk its roads alone.

Ever since school, I was somehow always left alone. I had friends, but not really friends. I sat alone in classrooms, wandered alone during lunch breaks because my so-called friends were always too cool to be seen with me.

Then came college. I started going to cafés alone because there was simply no one willing to come with me. I was never the wanted person. Maybe I was never “cool enough” for people to genuinely want to hang out with me. And it’s not like I didn’t try — I did. But somehow, I was never enough. I just couldn’t fit in with the cool kids.

So I had no option but to find happiness in solo dates.

Then I moved to a completely new city where I knew no one, and once again, I had to do everything alone.
People often miss their hometowns because they miss their friends, their people, the memories they made there. But I had nothing to miss. My own hometown had already made me feel like a stranger, so moving away didn’t really change anything. In fact, this new city felt better because at least here, the strangers didn’t pretend to know me.

And slowly, I started enjoying my own company.
I found comfort in solo dates.
I even went on a solo trip once, and it gave me so much peace. That unfamiliar place, filled with unfamiliar people, somehow felt safer than home ever did.

I thought maybe now I wouldn’t feel bad about not having friends anymore.

But then, as usual, I came back to visit my parents in my hometown. I stepped out, and those same streets reminded me of how lonely I used to feel… how this all started in the first place.

And even now, I’m sitting alone in a café, sipping coffee by myself.

But this time, I’m not enjoying my solitude.
This city doesn’t let me enjoy it.

It reminds me of the version of me who wasn’t choosing to be alone, but was forced into it. The version of me who suffered through loneliness so much that it almost convinced me I’d never be able to make real friends.

It’s funny how some places are supposed to feel like dal chawal — comfort, home, familiarity — but end up becoming that one expensive dish on the menu you can look at, but never really have.