One day, a short video clip began to circulate on social media. It showed Gaurav getting out of a girl’s bed naked, and walking towards the camera. The girl, a relatively unknown social media entity, posted it online. Overnight, she became a sensation, while my life fell apart.

‘Do you have any idea what you have done?’ I screamed at Gaurav. As usual, the wrong words came out. ‘You have destroyed me! Destroyed us!’ I couldn’t stop the wave of emotion that was screaming to be let out. I didn’t want a fight, I was ready to admit defeat the moment I saw the post online, but I was humiliated.

‘You are always so dramatic, Jhanvi,’ he said, his mouth curved into a cocky smile as if he was enjoying my pain. ‘You have always known what this life brings with it, and you aren’t exactly pure and innocent either,’ he continued, ignoring my tears. His smug expression was all I needed to see him for who he really was.

Online, sides were picked, and a few times after the initial outburst, I did try to tell Gaurav how betrayed I felt. But, ultimately, I couldn’t find the inner strength to get my point across. Comments flew around online about how the girl was nothing special. Gaurav occupied a different girl’s bed every other day. I let out a breath I didn’t realise I was holding. Our relationship was over, but I had no idea what kind of damage would be done to our reputation—or my reputation, specifically.

I was humiliated, but I did not feel the emotional devastation I had when Aarav split up with me. The day I decided I could not bear it any longer, the words finally came. ‘Sleeping with these other women is so disrespectful to our relationship, Gaurav. We are two people who decided to commit to each other. I trusted you, and you betrayed me.’

He tried to apologise, but it was too late. In the aftermath, I filled my time online posting excuses for why my relationship had deteriorated, and building a facade that everything was all right. Behind the scenes, I plunged myself into my work, watching how my followers increased and how the demographics changed from young women trying to emulate me to young men trying to offer me some comfort.

And then, there was Puneet. I didn’t meet him online; I decided after Gaurav to shy away from any man with a popular online profile. We met on a bus, and he didn’t know who I was, which I found intriguing. At the beginning of our relationship, I hid my social media presence from him. Eventually, as our relationship progressed, I had to be honest with him. I needed to make social appearances, even if they were few and far between. Slowly, Puneet was introduced to my lifestyle: restaurants, clubs, clothing. I enjoyed dressing him up and introducing him to my followers and my world. But as he became more involved in my life, he also became more distant from me. He was more concerned about what people thought about him than my presence in his life. Days spent wandering the markets, holding hands and having deep conversations were replaced with superficial shots of us pretending to be in love. And it wasn’t that I didn’t love him, I just wished he would pay the same amount of attention to me as he did when we first began our courtship.