When Two ‘Not-Okay’ Intellectuals Found Love

–Supratim H.

I don’t know when I first realised I wasn’t okay. Maybe it happened gradually, like a leak I ignored until the room was flooded. Every morning, I scrolled through the news, texts, and social media, pretending the world’s chaos didn’t touch me. And every time someone asked, “How are you?”, I replied, “I’m fine.” Polite, easy, convenient.

But lying to myself had become a habit—a way to survive in this decaying world of human relations. Two words that felt like borrowed clothes: acceptable, presentable, but never truly mine. Stumbling through philosophies, as I often do, religious thought gave me no answers—only superficial optimism. So I turned to other pages for answers. Not immediate answers, but the kind that make you question even more. My family often criticises me for being a “critique”—someone who finds no good in anything. I don’t blame them. If I cannot be optimistic, I have no right to take that pleasure away from them, however superficial it may seem.

What I loved was not what could be seen, but what remained unseen; not the audible, but the unheard; not the noted, but the discarded; not the loud, but the silence. For me, the path always lay elsewhere—in confronting the raw, unspoken truths of existence. And with these questions and “critiques”, I found Sartre—Jean-Paul Sartre. The madman with exotropia—strangely iconic, recognisable at first glance. It’s funny how a medical condition becomes someone’s symbol of identity. Then I read that “madman”—and felt strangely free. He wrote that we are “condemned to be free.”                    At first glance, freedom sounds exhilarating—the idea that we alone define our lives and our choices. But freedom can also be terrifying. Every act, every hesitation, every failure is ours alone. Sartre called this weight of responsibility anguish. Most people, he said, flee from it into bad faith—pretending to be what society expects, pretending everything is fine, denying the freedom that terrifies them. I realised that “I’m okay” was nothing more than bad faith. It was refusing to confront my freedom, my choices, my existence.

To admit I was not okay meant confronting the absurdity of life, taking responsibility for my being, and accepting the moral call to act authentically.

And then love enters.

I cannot define love; perhaps no one can. If someone defines love, they are probably no lover at all. Sartre, the great categoriser of human experience, never tried to define love. And that, ironically, made his understanding the sweetest. It was Beauvoir—Simone de Beauvoir—the radical feminist who declared, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” The woman who wrote, “Man is defined as a human being; woman is defined as a female. Whenever she behaves as a human, she is said to imitate a man.” A radical to the world, but a flower to her lover Sartre. She wasn’t just his partner; she was his intellectual companion, his rival, his mirror.

Their relationship was not about kneeling or proposing. It was something mankind may never fully understand. Their love didn’t require marriage or social conformity. They were intellectually already married. “Marriage?” Sartre would laugh. “Marriage is for others,” Beauvoir might reply. “We are already bound—in thought, in freedom.”

They shared mornings in cafés, evenings in heated debate—Marx watching from a photograph on the wall—and nights in each other’s arms. Beauvoir pushed the otherwise drifting Sartre to confront himself. She teased, challenged, and held him accountable to his own philosophy. In their intimacy, in the quiet vulnerability of love, Sartre could not hide. Not being okay was never merely personal. Beauvoir’s presence was a mirror—sometimes tender, sometimes demanding. She saw his anxieties, his insecurities, his paralysis, and refused to let him escape. She made him articulate his freedom, acknowledge his anguish, and confront his bad faith. Their love wasn’t easy. It was raw, intellectual, intimate—but liberating.

In her eyes, not being okay was not a weakness. It was honesty. And honesty, they understood, was the foundation of authentic love.

Sartre spoke of “the look”—how another’s gaze can objectify us. Beauvoir’s look was different. She observed, yes, but also engaged. She demanded truth, and in that demand, she offered liberation. To be truly seen—to expose your not-being-okay to someone who refuses to accept the mask—is both terrifying and freeing.

Their romance reveals the political dimension of not being okay. Sartre believed personal anguish cannot be separated from responsibility. Beauvoir pushed him outward—to write, to act, to engage. Not being okay wasn’t just inward suffering; it was the beginning of ethical action.

When you confront your own discomfort, you cannot ignore the discomfort of the world.

I see this in my own life. When I admit, “I’m not okay,” it feels like standing on a cliff—exposed, raw. But it is also alive. It is a declaration of authenticity, a refusal to perform the calm that society demands. Like Sartre, I feel the weight of choice. Like Beauvoir, I feel the quiet encouragement of someone who refuses to let me hide. Their love teaches that not being okay makes intimacy possible. Vulnerability opens a door. When Sartre allowed himself to be seen, his anguish became a shared space—transformative, tender, political. Not being okay is no longer solitary; it becomes a bridge.

And so, I stop apologising for my unease.

I stop hiding behind “I’m fine.”

I sit with it, name it, and let it teach me.

Sartre’s freedom, Beauvoir’s gaze, their shared life—each reminds me that anguish is not weakness. It is evidence of being alive, conscious, responsible. It is the starting point of love, thought, and ethical engagement.

Sartre wrote, “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”

Beauvoir lived that truth beside him—demanding the same from herself, from him, from everyone. Their love wasn’t conventional, easy, or comfortable.

It was relentless in its pursuit of authenticity.

Two minds met in quiet despair,

Books between them, truth in the air.

He spoke of freedom, raw and torn,

She smiled—of pain, revolutions born.

Not okay, yet deeply aware,

Their love was thought, stripped bare.

No vows, no masks, no heaven above—

Just two ‘not-okay’ souls, redefining love.

So when I whisper, “I’m not okay,” I feel fear, but also liberation. Like Sartre, I feel the weight of freedom and the intimacy of connection. I feel Beauvoir’s tender, demanding gaze urging me to confront, think, and act. Admitting my unease becomes the first step toward authenticity, responsibility, and love—both romantic and ethical.

Not being okay isn’t a confession.

It is a declaration.

It is the moment where personal anguish meets shared consciousness. It is the spark of freedom, the heartbeat of intimacy, the call to engage without pretence. In a world that demands masks, admitting “I’m not okay” is a radical act of courage, honesty, and love.