How childhood bullying can outline your life: I’ve by no means had an actual relationship or let myself fall in love. It’s solely now I realise why… and the right way to overcome it: KANIKA BANWAIT

Everyone in my life is suddenly getting married. I was in Thailand last April for my cousin’s wedding, last June the first of my friends tied the knot and this spring a school friend got hitched. My sister said ‘I do’ in October, while another friend’s nuptials are booked for March 2025. Somehow, we’ve reached an age where it’s acceptable to say you’re a bride without others shrieking in disbelief that ‘you’re so young!’.

Meanwhile I am 28, single and have never committed to a proper relationship. 

I couldn’t be happier for my friends and family (no, really), but this abundance of love is becoming quite jarring.

I am very much not in love.

It’s not for lack of trying, though: 2024 has been the first year I’ve really put effort into dating, so much so I set phone reminders to deliberately make time to swipe through the countless dating-app profiles of men declaring they’re looking for a girl who ‘doesn’t take themselves too seriously’ and photos of them proudly holding a fish. (As if a man’s fishing skills are what sets a lady’s loins on fire.)

When I do go on dates, the question of past relationships usually comes up and I have to confess that I’ve never had one. Men all tend to react the same way: surprise, confusion, subtle signs of judgment. I can see the cogs turning behind their puzzled expressions as they start to wonder what’s wrong with me.

‘Well,’ I begin my rehearsed response, ‘I haven’t always looked like this.’

I used to weigh three stone more than I do now. I didn’t know how to manage my textured hair. As for the hair on the rest of my body, well, laser removal was only just becoming a thing. My skin was peppered with hormone-induced spots and I had no clue how to put on make-up properly.

Dress, Zara. Sandals, Loeffler Randall. Jewellery, Kanika’s own

It’s fair to say I’ve had a glow-up. Although, much as I might use these physical excuses to explain my singledom, they’re just a way of skirting around the fact that, really, I was insecure. Why? Childhood bullying, that old chestnut. But deep-rooted trauma doesn’t exactly lend itself to first-date flirtations.

It started when I was six and my family moved from the diverse West London borough of Hounslow to a village in Buckinghamshire. There weren’t many other non-white families and, as if starting a new primary school wasn’t daunting enough, I was also the only child in my class who wasn’t Caucasian.

I didn’t think much of it, apart from the fact that I’d gone from being surrounded by children who all looked different to each other, to now being the only one who was noticeably not the same.

My classmates were generally welcoming but there would be the odd occasion when I was reminded of my differences, like the time I was buddied up with a boy on a school trip. We had to hold hands to cross the road, but he really didn’t want to hold mine and the other boys laughed at him for being stuck with me.

Things escalated as we got older and became more aware of our bodies and our sexuality. Kids poked fun at the black hair that started to appear on my face and body, as others started to become ‘boyfriend and girlfriend’. I kept my crushes secret because, as I began to absorb the bullies’ words, I assumed there was no way anyone would ever fancy me back.

Two boys in particular were the main culprits. They’d ask me questions about my ethnicity and culture, only to then suggest it was weird or gross. When I walked past, they’d make noises mocking an Indian accent, despite my voice being closer to the Queen’s than theirs were.

I was so embarrassed about it I didn’t tell my parents. I didn’t want them to worry or make a fuss. My friends didn’t know how to help – we were children, after all. I told a teacher, who did nothing other than force the boy to murmur a pathetic ‘sorry’.

So I internalised all the hurtful things that happened and went forward with the belief that I was entirely unappealing.

Kanika at her sister’s wedding, in October

Contrary to popular stereotype, my all-girls high school was a much more pleasant experience. I wasn’t cool enough to know any boys, although I did have my first kiss at a party aged 15 with a friend of a friend, who proceeded to kiss two other girls that same evening. I think he’s gay now.

No one made fun of the way I looked (not to my face, anyway), but my internalised hatred continued to fester. I thought it was normal to be so self-deprecating and self-conscious. As a teenager it kind of is, except I never grew out of it.

Throughout university I continued to do what I’d always done. Instead of confronting my painful past, I used it as a defence against my emotions. I built such a solid wall around myself I never had to be vulnerable, I always had the upper hand – no one could hurt my feelings if they couldn’t get to them.

I drunkenly snogged boys and convinced myself they only kissed me back because they were under the influence. If I ever felt excited by a possible romance, my inner voice quickly interjected to say, ‘as if!’.

But something shifted as I approached my 20s; the most exciting years of my life, I thought, and I wanted to be the best version of myself.

I slowly started to lose weight and gained just enough confidence to stop hiding behind a mane of unruly hair and baggy clothes. As it happened, I wasn’t so invisible to boys my age any more. A colleague at my summer-holiday job told me he liked me, another man hurried after me as we got off the bus to ask me out, but still I brushed off the idea that someone could truly fancy me.

In my final year at the University of Warwick, I fell into a ‘situationship’, which is the closest I’ve ever been to having a boyfriend. I had matched with a fellow student on Tinder. Our first date went well, as did the following two. I expected this tall, muscular, sparkly blue-eyed guy, who I had already decided was way out of my league, to lose interest. To my surprise, he persisted.

We dated for a few months, but it felt safely noncommittal. I kept him at arm’s length and whenever he tried to get serious I’d bat him away with a joke or self-deprecating comment. Then the boy went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid like, ‘I love you’.

Don’t get me wrong, I really liked him – he was the first man who held my hand walking down the street, the first man I shared a bed with, the first one to hold my face in his hands and tell me I was beautiful – but I couldn’t ever believe him. I could not understand what it was about me that he could love.

This one-sided situation continued for months and eventually, just before we were due to leave university for good, I felt such an overwhelming love for him that I finally said, ‘I love you’ back.

But with this declaration came the realisation that I didn’t want to be in a relationship – not with him, or anyone – because I needed to work on the relationship with myself first. It’s true what they say about not being able to love someone else until you love yourself – or at least aren’t so nasty to yourself.

And so I dedicated myself entirely to finding a job and then proving myself in it. I couldn’t have cared less about having a boyfriend. By the time I felt settled enough at work and wanted to give dating a proper go, I was 23.

Then Covid happened.

It was goodbye to the Sex and the City life I had planned, where I exchanged dating stories with my friends; hello to hugging myself to sleep after watching Paul Mescal in Normal People on a loop.

When life started up again I got a new job and a flat in London. The world, finally, was going to be my oyster. Something was still holding me back, though. I had spent years working to improve my confidence, but still I couldn’t get over my mental hurdles around men.

Kanika at school aged six

It took me until 2023 to be brave enough to start therapy. I signed up wanting help with general anxiety, but to also get to the bottom of why the idea of committing to a relationship still terrified me.

It took a fair few sessions to be able to lower my guard, but in doing so I have uncovered reasons for my behaviour and reactions. I didn’t let anyone help me with the childhood bullies, and those I did ask for help let me down, so I’ve spent my life since doing things for myself and being defensive so I couldn’t be hurt again. The defence mechanism included being my own worst enemy: no one could be as mean to me as I was to myself.

Falling in love and being in a relationship means you’re in a vulnerable position every day. You place your heart in the hands of someone else in the ultimate test of trust. So until now I’ve avoided it.

I also couldn’t trust a man who loved me when I didn’t believe there was anything special about me to love. I’ve spent so long apologising for my existence, through humour and people pleasing and deeming myself unworthy, that for a man to single me out and say ‘I want you’ felt like a lie.

But now that I’m aware and have unpacked those thoughts, I can see how that’s the little girl talking; the girl who didn’t know any better than to believe what she was being told. Now, I can separate the woman from the inner child.

As enlightening as it’s been, therapy unfortunately doesn’t make dating apps any less arduous. I’m on Bumble, Hinge and Raya, and I don’t know anyone who enjoys using them. The endless swiping, matching, chatting and carrying on a conversation that may not end in a date can feel like a full-time job. 

But I promise I’m going to stick with it. In fact, I’ve been on 12 first dates since the beginning of this year – that’s more than the past three years put together.

After 28 years of sabotaging any chance of love, I finally feel ready to be in a relationship. I want to know what it’s like to be with a person now that I know myself a bit better.

I am still scared, but that’s OK. You accept the love you think you deserve, so the saying goes. And I’m slowly silencing the demons to learn that I do, actually, deserve it.

Stylist: Jessica Carroll