How 3 years in Chandigarh have made me a better person and i am forever grateful for this city
M21 here. Might be a slightly long read.
I moved to Chandigarh in 2023. I was fat my entire life, but around 8 months before coming here, I lost all the body fat and realized I wasn’t that bad-looking. Life started going well—I was getting attention almost everywhere, something I had never felt before. Initially, it was amazing. My uni life was great, my social life was on point.
I always had a private Instagram, but I started getting requests from mutuals of mutuals in Chandigarh. Coming from an insecure childhood and a very small city in Punjab, I always wanted to be one of those “cool kids.” The kids from schools like Strawberry Fields, Mount Carmel, Sacred Heart Girls School, Saint Kabir, Stephen’s, etc.—they were exactly the people I wanted to meet and interact with, both online and in person. I remember having this strong urge to impress them and be accepted by them.
I’m sharing my journey, so excuse me if I come across as arrogant. I would often find myself in situations where girls assumed I must have had many girlfriends or that I was some kind of f-boy. In reality, I would get attached to people very easily. To this day, I haven’t had alcohol, cigarettes, vaped, or anything like that. But wanting to be in those “cool” circles, I almost slipped into that lifestyle—thankfully, I didn’t.
I would get DMs from guys blackmailing me about talking to their girlfriends, even though I was never that type of guy. To my surprise, I would later find out that the girls were lying to them about being single. This kept happening multiple times.
Here’s where it gets bad. Even though I initially felt good about the attention, I slowly got addicted to it. Whenever I started talking to a girl, I would lie about my hometown (I thought it ruined my status). I would lie about having past relationships—even though I never had any. Validation-seeking behavior showed up in every conversation. I couldn’t stand anyone being better than me—whether it was singing, speaking, playing guitar, looks, or even height. It was childish and messed up, I know.
At the same time, despite validation-seeking from things God gave me—like singing, looks, and communication—I never took action on things that actually needed improvement. I got deeply involved in circles of posh people from Chandigarh University, Chitkara, SD, MCM, DAV, etc. I was a complete teetotaler, yet I got so caught up in that lifestyle that I failed my first two semesters and had to reappear in all of them.
I was constantly involved in gossip, hanging out with rich kids, pretending to be one of them (which I definitely wasn’t). They were fashionable, had great outfits, great music taste—but were heavily involved in alcohol, cigarettes, and especially hookups. That lifestyle didn’t align with me at all.
I’m the kind of guy who believes in:
Having one woman for life and keeping body count as low as possible (just my opinion, I respect others’ views).
Never being addicted to any substance.
Hating any kind of disloyalty.
Being an empathetic person.
Being highly career-oriented.
My values never aligned with theirs. Yet I kept sabotaging myself—wasting time with them, taking pictures, posting them, hanging out, then coming back and regretting wasting another day. Deep down, I knew it was all validation-seeking.
I eventually started dating my first girlfriend—from those same circles. For the first time, I felt a genuine connection. Somehow, I convinced her I wasn’t an f-boy and didn’t have a double-digit body count. But her friends didn’t like me. They constantly talked negatively about me, and I still don’t fully know why. After 2.5 months, she left me on a random Monday.
That breakup hit hard. I went back into validation-seeking mode to fill the void. It got so bad that lying became my first instinct. Looking good became something I did only for others, just to fit in. Meanwhile, I still wasn’t doing the important things—studying, improving mental health, practicing self-love, or taking real action to build actual self-esteem.
There’s a Hindi saying: “Jo hota hai, woh achhe ke liye hota hai.” That became real for me. When she left, I was genuinely broken. I remember opening up to my dad for the first time in 20 years—crying in front of him, talking about everything.
That moment changed everything. It marked the beginning of a deep relationship with my dad. He became the mentor and friend I truly needed. Through our conversations, I realized my validation-seeking came from not fulfilling the promises I made to myself daily—lying, not studying, not working hard, not being competent, not being truthful.
I had ambition, but my effort didn’t match it. And when ambition doesn’t match effort, self-esteem drops—and validation-seeking increases. In my case, it was even easier because of looks and other attributes.
When I turned 21 in late 2025, I slowly started working on myself. I started small but stayed consistent. I tried therapy—it helped, but it was expensive, so I left. I tried medication—felt okay, but left that too. Eventually, I relied on meditation, hard work, and becoming a man of my word.
I quit social media completely—stopped seeing what others were doing, stopped posting, and eventually deleted my account. I meditated for an hour every day, trained harder in the gym, and studied for long hours.
Now, I’ve finally found peace within myself. I’m with people I genuinely want to be with—without worrying about how I look to them. I speak the truth about everything—my past, my fake shoes, low grades, insecurities, small-town background. I stand on my beliefs and have found people who align with them.
I’ve cleared almost all 14 backlogs in college—only 2 are left, and I’ll clear them before the end of third year. Yes, things got messed up badly, but I made something out of it. I’m genuinely proud of that.
Chandigarh has been a beautiful chapter of my life. It gave me experiences that helped me find myself, and I’ll always be grateful for it. I’ll probably move to Bangalore soon as my skills improve, but I don’t think any city will ever be this close to my heart.
Ik it was kinda corny, but I had to come here and talk about it because it might help someone. I’m not really a very, very bad guy😭, so I’m open to talking to people here if they want to share their journeys or just talk about it.yes i did use chat gpt for the grammatical errors and making it easy to read by adding paragraphs