# Misfit The world has a way of sorting itself into neat categories. The civilized and the savage, the rational and the mad, the worthy and the worthless. We spend our lives learning these divisions, internalizing them until they feel like laws of nature rather than human invention. But what of those who don't fit? What of the ones who slip between the cracks, who refuse the shape the world demands? There is a peculiar loneliness in being খাপছাড়া — in being ill-fitted, askew, out of joint with the machinery of things. It is not the loneliness of isolation, though that may come too. It is rather the loneliness of being seen and not understood, of standing in a crowd and feeling utterly remote. The world looks at you with mild confusion, then turns away. You are not quite hostile enough to condemn, not quite harmless enough to ignore. You are the stone that doesn't roll, the wheel that doesn't turn. I have come to think that this misfitting is not a deficiency but a kind of truth-telling. The person who fits perfectly into their time, their place, their society — do they not risk becoming invisible? Do they not dissolve into the texture of things? There is something almost honest about the খাপছাড়া, something that refuses the comfortable lie of belonging. Yet refusal comes with a price. The price is doubt — relentless, corrosive doubt. Am I wrong, or is the world? Am I broken, or merely different? The খাপছাড়া person carries this question like a stone in their chest. They cannot simply live. They must always, always explain themselves — to others, to themselves. Why do you not love what everyone loves? Why do you not want what everyone wants? Why are you shaped this way? Perhaps the answer is simpler than we imagine. Perhaps we are খাপছাড়া not because we chose to be, but because we could not choose otherwise. Perhaps there is no reconciliation waiting, no moment when we will suddenly fit. And perhaps — this is the dangerous thought — perhaps that is alright. The world needs its stones as much as it needs its wheels. The world needs those who do not roll, who stay and question and refuse the easy fit. For it is only through such refusal that anything truly changes. The খাপছাড়া are not errors in the design. They are the design's conscience, its restless heart. To be খাপছাড়া is to live at the edge of things, always aware of the boundary between belonging and exile. It is a hard knowledge. But there is also a strange freedom in it — the freedom of the person who has nothing left to lose by being themselves.

You cannot make sense of any of it, no matter how hard you try!

One day they love you deeply, give you all the time you want, treat you with such kindness; the next day they cast you aside entirely, won't even glance your way.

One day they talk with you all through the hours, plan their entire life around you; then suddenly the very next day they're impossibly busy, can't find a moment to speak with you. You discover, somehow you always do, that they're not too busy for everyone else—it's just you. And that knowledge brings a pain that grows and grows, yet still they will not make time for you.

One day they spend the entire day with you, give you their complete attention, and together you create memories that seem luminous; but the very next day you cannot find them at all. They scroll through the whole world on their phone instead, giving it time they won't give to you. They're not busy—they're busy for someone else. People are not busy; people search for reasons to give their time. And the reason they find must be one they truly value.

One day they are caring for you constantly, telling you delightful stories, occupied with keeping you happy, saying everything you wish to hear, as though you are their entire world. Twelve hours have hardly passed before they no longer seem to know you exist. Let alone conversation—there's no recognition between you anymore. They will not acknowledge you, and you cannot recognize them either. As if there was never anything between you at all.

One day they cannot bear the sight of your absence; if your face looks troubled they writhe in genuine pain, rushing to lift your spirits; and then the very next day, that same person is irritated by the sight of you, feels no pull toward you at all, cannot endure even your shadow.

One day their love for you becomes so desperate, so consuming, that you make them your entire world, arrange all the grammar of your life around them, bind your heart and soul to theirs; then another day this same person appears to you not as a lover but as a stranger. You cannot reconcile it. Watching a person change their face and mask so swiftly would make you dizzy with bewilderment.

One day when they are near, this world seems beautiful and safe, their presence brings you joy and peace; life feels simple and natural. Yet barely a moment later you see them differently. Suddenly, without any visible reason, they withdraw—they seem distant, like someone from far away. And you begin to believe, and keep on believing, that you have come to the wrong place, loved the wrong person, that your entire life has converged at a single, mistaken point. You open your eyes and see only emptiness.

Today, you are even getting it wrong when you try to feel.