Promises built on ignorance

Whenever I hear the word "promise" these days, I no longer pay much attention to it or even take it seriously because it has been bastardized and lost all its meaning. People just blurt out the word "promise" in every sentence just to get what they want but it still remains a sacred word to many of us who still know what it truly means. A promise is basically a pledge to keep to your word and it's something built on trust.

So, saying "I promise" is just you telling the person that they can rely on you and they should trust you to deliver what you promised. Do you see how sacred that word is? That's why these days I never use that word to assure a person that they can rely on me because even when you're very confident that you can keep to that promise, something might occur that will eventually lead to you breaking it.

It doesn't matter if you genuinely want to uphold that promise, sometimes things don't always go the way we plan them and the person might understand or they may not but it's mostly evident that broken promises alter relationships, and it's not in a good way. I have had my share of broken promises over the years, both the ones where I'm the victim and the ones where I was the one doing the breaking, but all that happened when I was much younger and I can say I know better now.

A notable experience

This happened back in 2016. I met a girl in a WhatsApp group and after a short period, we got closer and would always chat for hours. This girl had a boyfriend who was also my friend and anytime this girl is having problems with her boyfriend, she comes to me for advice. You see, back then I was a very witty, funny, and knowledgeable person (still am, by the way 😉) who seemed to have all the answers about relationship problems, so my friends always came to me for advice, meanwhile I was single 😂.

So, this girl (let's just call her Bella) would frequently bring her relationship problems to me and I would give her non-destructive advice (I have no intention of sabotaging their relationship) but one day, her boyfriend did something terribly wrong and I found it hard to come up with a good advise because that was the first time I had to deal with something like that. Long story cut short, they broke up.

From there, we became even much closer and my friends will always tell me that Bella has fallen for me and I should ask her out but did I do that? No 😅 why? Because I was afraid of commitment. I will always flirt with girls (did that a lot back then) but when things start getting serious, I back off. I was doing the same with Bella, just flirting here and there until out of nowhere she asked me out and what did I do? Of course I agreed, Bella was a very beautiful girl.

So, we were officially in a relationship (sort of) and it was pretty exciting. I made all sorts of promises here and there but the notable one was when she asked me to promise never to leave her, foolish me was just screaming "I promise, I promise". If there was a ring I probably would have sealed the whole thing right there 😅. Well, a couple of weeks later, something happened to my phone and I had to get it repaired but the parts weren't available in my city.

By the time the phone was repaired, 2 weeks had gone by and in that 2 weeks, I didn't speak with Bella or messaged her. I'm a person who always prefers texting or chatting to calling, so most of the time I always chat with her on WhatsApp. I didn't know her house and she didn't know mine (our parents would kill us if they got a sniff of our Romeo and Juliet kind of relationship 😂), but we sometimes met at the place where I worked.

I called her after getting my new phone and before I could even explain, she started accusing me of abandoning her because I didn't call her for 2 weeks. Then I asked her if she called me to find out what happened. Lo and behold, she didn't even bother to call me all this while and she gave an excuse like "You're the guy, you're supposed to be doing the calling" Then I asked her if she was getting her relationship tips from Korean movies and she ended the call.

My friends heard what happened and after telling them my side of the story, they said I should forget the whole thing and apologize to her. But me being Mr. Logical didn't agree to that since I did nothing wrong (in my humble opinion). From there, we never spoke to each other again. All the promises I made, especially the one where I said I would never leave were all broken at that point but did I care? Not at that point, I was just happy that I was free from the stress of the relationship and could resume flirting around again.

How did this affect our relationship?

Well, as I said earlier, we didn't speak to each other again after that incident, and the happily ever after ended in just a month. "I promise to never leave you" ended up leaving after a month, but I guess I didn't know any better back then, I was still a teen and very inexperienced in matters of the heart (but that didn't stop me from dishing out relationship advice 😂).

Bella and I unofficially broke up and it was officially because nobody said "I'm breaking up with you", we just stopped talking to each other (yeah, very mature). Anytime I remember all the promises I made, I always feel stupid and I keep asking myself; what pushed me to do all that? Love? Or maybe lust? I never spoke to Bella again until 2 years later when I just got admitted to the university.

I was walking with a friend and she called. They talked for a while and the next thing I heard was "Yeah he is here" and my friend just put his phone to my ear and said; "Talk". Talk? What the hell should I say? But luckily she talked first and asked about my wellbeing. I was feeling very guilty at that point but still managed to talk with her for a few minutes. After the call, I told my friend that I regretted leaving her, but I guess it wasn't meant to be.

These days I never make any promises again. Sometimes some people will be like "Kushy promise me o" and I will always tell them "I am not making any promises but I will see what I can do". Sometimes I even use that sentence when they simply ask for a favour without making me commit to a promise because sometimes, people will take it as a promise when you tell them you will do them a favour, even though you didn't say it's a promise.

In matters that concern the heart, it's best to refrain from making promises you don't intend to keep or will be difficult to accomplish. The crazy thing about all these is that I still have Bella's picture saved in my drive, I don't know where I still kept it but I guess it is there to serve as a constant reminder of the promise I didn't keep. That was the only promise I have ever broken, and I plan to keep it that way.

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