There’s this scene in The Runaway Bride, that old Julia Roberts–Richard Gere rom-com, that’s always stayed with me. Richard Gere plays a journalist who confronts Julia Roberts’ character — a woman notorious for leaving men at the altar — and chides her for not even knowing how she likes her eggs. Every time she’s with a different man, she orders her eggs the way he likes them: scrambled with one, poached with another, over-easy with the third. So she goes back home and cooks every kind of egg there is. Tastes them one by one. Thinks. Decides. That, to me, is self-discovery in a nutshell. It’s a simple but powerful metaphor for losing yourself in someone else — and it always makes me pause and ask, “How do you like your eggs?” in the deeper, truer sense of the question.

Too often, we follow others without asking where we’re going. We absorb tastes, opinions, even entire belief systems just to belong. And then one day, we pause and think — hang on a minute, I don’t even like this place I’ve arrived in.

Sometimes we do it out of love. Sometimes to avoid conflict. Sometimes because we simply don’t know who we are yet.

I once dated a guy who claimed to love Indian classical music, ghazals and qawwali, the kind that fills your chest with warmth and longing. Naturally, I was charmed. He said it like he’d grown up with it.

But every time I invited him to a concert — Subha Mudgal at Darbar festival, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan qawwali night— he’d come up with the oddest reasons not to go. “Subha Mudgal is semi-classical.” “Rahat’s too filmy.”

It didn’t take long to realise he didn’t actually like that music. He’d only said it to impress me.

I never once heard him play a ghazal. Not even in the background.

It was a doomed dating experience, but a useful one. Because when someone pretends to love what you love just to win your affection, you’re not connecting — you’re performing in parallel plays.

And I’ve seen this pattern more often than I’d like.

Men and women, desperate to be loved, start mirroring the person they’re dating. Taking up hobbies they don’t enjoy. Laughing at jokes they don’t find funny. Becoming a version of themselves they think will be “liked.”

But when you don’t know what you love, you try to borrow someone else’s identity. It rarely ends well.

That’s why I believe time alone is not just helpful — it’s sacred.

Not lonely. Alone.

The kind of solitude where you begin to hear yourself. I’ve spent enough of it to know I get restless if I sit idle. I prefer long walks to fast cycling. I’d rather talk to my dog than fake small talk with humans who don’t really listen. I know the music that moves me, the people who exhaust me, and the kind of silence that heals me.

Just the other day, I went for brunch with a friend who’d recently moved into his new home. After we ate, he took me for a riverside walk — showed me the cafés at a walkable distance from his, the cinema just ten minutes away, the quiet street he now lives on, the supermarket next door. There was a wide-eyed joy in the way he shared it all — the thrill of discovering his surroundings.

It struck me then: what if he turned that same curiosity inward?

Not that he doesn’t know what he likes. But I couldn’t help but feel he’d enjoy life even more deeply if he spent some of that energy exploring himself. Because when we know ourselves — truly know — we become our own best company. We start to notice what nourishes us. What drains us. What grounds us.

Self-discovery isn’t glamorous. Sometimes it’s just cooking eggs. Other times it’s watching a sunset and realising you don’t need to share it with anyone to feel full.

And it applies to every part of life.

Including sex.

Yes, I said it. The big, taboo, often-avoided word.

But how can we talk about self-discovery and skip the part where you understand what brings you pleasure?

Too many women I know were never encouraged to explore it. Some have never experienced great sex — or even an orgasm.

We’re told to be polite, modest, accommodating. To keep our legs crossed and voices down.

But knowing your body, your rhythms, your boundaries — that’s also self-discovery.

You deserve to know what lights you up — emotionally, intellectually, sensually.

Because self-discovery isn’t selfish. It’s the foundation for every authentic relationship you’ll ever have — including the one you have with yourself.

So maybe the next time someone asks you how you like your eggs, you’ll smile and say — like this.

Not because someone else chose it.

But because you did.