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Chapter 11

2021/22

2021 began with a bang. I had had enough of Berlin and wanted out. At Delivery Hero, the new platform, the data migration and the restructuring were to be completed in March. It was a good time to contemplate my stay there.

After a few days after returning from Stockholm, we reconciled with what happened, let bygones be bygones, and got back together. I had previously helped her a great deal with her Masters, which compensated for my poor performance in Stockholm. She told me there was "something about me" that kept her interested.

The whole Stockholm experience was an eye-opener. She had very specific expectations of a partner, and I realized there were significant cultural gaps and misaligned expectations between us. More importantly, I recognized major flaws in how I conducted myself. How I dressed, how I talked, how I carried myself, my self-deprecating nature, my mansplaining, and my lack of self-confidence hardly projected someone who commanded respect in a relationship. My cozy assumptions about egalitarianism were thoroughly challenged. Nevertheless, by early 2021, we were back together and growing closer than before.

But something more sinister lurked beneath the surface. She soon revealed that she was three years older and still legally married—the estranged wife of a banker whose relationship hadn't gone according to plan. I wanted to deny it, but she wasn't lying. I didn't mind her age; I had a preference for slightly older women. What I couldn't fathom was that I was committing adultery with a married woman who had hidden her marital status from the start.

The reality was that she wasn't working, had few savings, and was trapped in a marriage she couldn't escape. That was why she was pursuing a master's degree: to find a job and support herself. That was when I entered her picture. By that point, I was too emotionally invested and perhaps a bit too desperate to find a partner to simply walk away. Furthermore, I admired far more about her than I disliked. We continued the relationship under the agreement that she would soon secure a divorce. These were glaring red flags I should have heeded, but I ignored them. Was I wrong to stay? I still don't know.

Lin was a singular woman. In her, I found someone vastly more experienced in life than I was. She was headstrong, fiercely proud, and held uncompromising opinions on almost everything. Her worldviews were as controversial as her home country, leaving me tongue-tied and unable to defend my arguments most of the time. For once, I had met someone who genuinely challenged me and was easily my intellectual superior. The only domains where I held the upper hand were computer science and English fluency. In fact, it was the countless hours I spent fixing the grammar in her master's thesis that initially brought us closer.

She was well-read, well-traveled, and relentlessly skeptical, questioning everything and accepting only what she could personally verify as truth. Unlike anyone I had known, she didn't attach herself to people easily. Yet, she held her family fiercely, doing whatever it took to keep them happy, having supported her mother and sister long after her father passed away. She was entirely independent, needing a man only for physical companionship. At times, I felt she possessed more backbone than I did, forcing me to confront the reality that women can often be far stronger than men. She was tough—a true force of personality. I had to shed my passivity and learn to be a proper man to stand beside her. Whenever I grandly claimed I would take care of her, she would shut me down with a lethal, checkmate dismissal: "You can't even take care of yourself, and you talk about taking care of a woman?" Nobody left a deeper imprint on my life. I was profoundly grateful she crossed my path, and despite all our obstacles, we grew deeply close.

I threw myself into interviewing. I lost count of how many companies I spoke with, though I tracked them meticulously in a notebook. Every interview loop involved multiple grinding rounds. February, traditionally my month for an annual escape to India to escape the winter, was spent entirely in a marathon of remote interviews.

When the dust settled, I held offers from Dubai, the Netherlands, Estonia, and Germany, while awaiting results from the UK. Remembering my past frustrations with the UK market, I had demanded an aggressive six-figure base salary—a figure I figured would prompt an immediate rejection.

I seriously contemplated Tallinn; they offered a lucrative, balanced compensation package and went above and beyond to court me. But I had no appetite to learn yet another foreign language.

I was standing in Frankfurt Airport waiting for my connecting flight back to Berlin when an email dropped from Bumble: an offer matching my exact salary demand, complete with a bonus, stock options, and a generous relocation package I hadn't even asked for. I didn't think twice. It was a powerful reminder that landing lucrative job offers is purely a numbers game. The more you put yourself out there, the higher your odds.

I declined all other offers, walking away from the German permanent residency I had been agonizingly close to securing. Though it stung, elation won out—the Berlin chapter was finally closing.

Another harsh reality forced my exit from Germany: my body was breaking down.

I remember walking home from the station one evening up a long slope, struggling against a sharp, throbbing pain in my right leg, forced to break a 300-meter walk into agonizing segments. It is astonishing how thoroughly a single leg injury can destabilize your entire physical ecosystem. Pausing mid-hill, I muttered to myself, "What the fuck happened to you? You wanted to play the World Cup a few years ago, and now you're practically a cripple."

My career had been my singular obsession, built by sacrificing health, relationships, and basic self-care. That is the insidious nature of professional ambition; it preys on everything else, always dangling the next milestone, the next paycheck, the next title.

Life possesses a heavy momentum of inertia. We move so fast in one direction that changing course feels impossible, postponing vital decisions for a hypothetical tomorrow that never arrives. The more dependencies you accumulate, the heavier that momentum becomes. True control over your life requires controlling that momentum. If it's positive, you thrive; mine had turned toxic.

Lin stood by me through this difficult phase. Her fierce, uncompromising attitude toward life inspired me to become a man of action, fixing a mindset glitch I couldn't have solved alone. Once she finished her master's degree, I mentored her into graphic design, marveling at her meticulous dedication, though a punishing job market eventually pushed her back into teaching.

Leaving Germany properly was a massive project in its own right, packed into a window of less than a week between jobs:

Bumble kindly covered a month of temporary hotel accommodation, which conveniently covered my mandatory quarantine period.

Finding a replacement tenant for my €300 Neukölln studio was an absolute circus. Because the rent was absurdly cheap, the listing drew thousands of views and around 500 serious inquiries, with some applicants offering bribes of up to €2,000 to secure the lease. It was a jarring lesson in why I had struggled to find housing the conventional way—I simply hadn't known how the unwritten rules worked. After running online viewings for 150 applicants in batches, I selected someone with a complete paperwork stack.

Then, disaster struck: with days to go before my flight, the landlord announced he wanted to renovate the apartment, blowing up my agreement and leaving me scrambling to dismantle, sell, or throw away everything overnight. I ended up giving away most of my belongings for free right up until my departure. It was intensely stressful, but it cemented a core habit of Algorithmic Living: documenting processes. Over the years, dealing with visas, apartment hunts, and flight bookings had taught me how easily details slip the mind. By logging these workflows into Google Keep, I ensured I would never have to rely on random online forums again—only my own hard-earned systems.

On June 21, 2021—the day the UK declared "Freedom Day"—I landed back in London.

Returning to London on a proper Skilled Worker visa, with a vastly improved net worth compared to when I first arrived in 2016 with just £200, felt like true validation. Most of what I needed—aside from genuine community and physical health—was now in my bank account and my head.

Yet, my personal life remained a minefield. I was trapped in a state of emotional limbo with Lin. On one hand, she was brilliant, striking, and possessed qualities I deeply admired. On the other hand, she gave maddeningly ambiguous signals—resembling corporate managers who avoid definitive answers to play it safe. Until she finalized her divorce, I couldn't commit; until I committed, she held back. It was a classic deadlock. Sensing the distance growing between us, I began leaning more heavily into my digital conversations with Liz, exchanging long messages, selfies, and late-night calls.

Lin noticed the subtle withdrawal—my shorter calls, my flickers of passive-aggressiveness, the waning attention. The writing was on the wall.

Back in London, Bumble’s generous relocation package put me up in a sleek, minimalist serviced apartment for my mandatory 10-day quarantine. It was the ideal pressure cooker to rethink my life strategy.

My career trajectory had been staggering: starting at $3K a year a decade ago, I was now sitting at $170K annually including stock compensation—a growth exceeding 5,000%. No traditional retail investment portfolio could have matched the ROI of investing entirely in my own skills through a decade of relentless, obsessive learning during my twenties. While financial advisors pushed fixed deposits and mutual funds, I knew my talent was my only true goldmine, perfectly timed with the explosive growth of the web.

Yet, making money was only half the battle. Earning $150K+ in London places you at the foot of the wealth ladder; climbing it requires an entirely different mindset.

Driven by an internal mandate to fix my life's software before things went south, I established clear rules. I needed to untangle my romantic limbo, rehabilitate my broken body, deploy my capital intelligently, and live by strict personal principles.

During a brief dating detour on Bumble's premium tier, I met Yin from China. We shared a strong intellectual and physical connection, visiting scenic spots like the woods in Farnham where Gladiator was filmed. But within a month, it became clear we were both carrying baggage from past relationships, and we mutually parted ways.

That experience laid bare an uncomfortable truth: I had spent years hiding behind digital screens, using the internet as a shield to escape the raw vulnerability and potential embarrassment of real-world rejection. Here I was, working for a company built on digital matchmaking while simultaneously growing deeply critical of the very concept. Compounding this was the ever-present, low-hum pressure from family to succumb to an arranged marriage.

India's society is caught in a high-speed transition from traditional to modern, often leaving children unequipped with the emotional support systems required for contemporary life. Insecure parents breed insecure children, perpetuating a generational cycle. My own academic struggles between ages 18 and 22—where failing initial semester exams branded me an underachiever—left deep psychological scars and a relentless chip on my shoulder. I learned the hard way that early insecurities metastasize into permanent personality traits unless actively excised. You become the average of the environment you curate, which is why surrounding yourself with positive role models who treat failure as data rather than disgrace is non-negotiable.

Through hours of deep introspection, I realized the core philosophy of my evolution: Small things done over a long period yield big results. Success, much like software engineering, requires architectural efficiency, regular debugging, and long-term maintenance. Until then, my life had been running on buggy, reactive code.

To establish order, I codified my life into seven core pillars: Relationships, Health, Finance, Career, Home, Travel, and Entertainment—prioritizing the first two as foundational, the next two as essential, and the final three as optional.

True to my new framework, I immediately tackled my physical health, consulting a physiotherapist in hopes of a surgical fix for my twisted ankle. The verdict was sobering: no quick fixes existed, only targeted rehabilitation exercises. Furthermore, chronic flat feet were causing systemic alignment issues across my entire body. It was an unmistakable biological warning that my youth was fading. I quietly quit recreational cricket, stopped smoking, overhauled my diet, focused on sleep hygiene, and resolved to redesign my physical vehicle.

Housing proved equally humbling. Through my personal website, I secured a room in a shared flat in Mile End with three others, managed by a flatmate named Tor. Living with roommates again felt like a step backward, but it was a necessary staging ground. During my time there, I briefly fell for Mon, a Polish flatmate preparing to move to Shanghai as a teacher, though my romantic overtures went unrequited before she flew east.

Professionally, transitioning to Bumble threw me for a loop. Moving from an independent web builder to an embedded engineer collaborating closely with cross-company designers and long-tenured teammates like Mit triggered my old inferiority complex. I initially assumed everyone else possessed vastly superior knowledge, entirely underestimating my own senior value.

Seeking to expand my horizon in August 2021, I launched two ambitious side quests: applying for a computer science master's degree at Queen Mary University (which, to my surprise, rejected me despite my extensive industry footprint) and taking up private pilot lessons.

The aviation bug bit me while staring at aircraft contrails from my living room window. Curious if my new financial standing could support it, I booked a trial flight at Redhill Aviation, eventually training out of Shoreham-by-Sea along the stunning Jurassic coastline. A Private Pilot License demanded £10K, rigorous study, and mastery of a three-dimensional machine. While landing was terrifyingly difficult, the rest was surprisingly intuitive—akin to driving in 3D. However, the logistical friction of dedicating entire days to weather-dependent lessons eventually caused me to shelve the project after 10 hours, with every intention of returning to the cockpit later.

As I navigated London's property market over a two-year property search—befriending an agent named Aud along the way—my mindset around wealth fundamentally shifted. Encouraged by Lin, who argued that paying rent was merely funding a stranger's mortgage, I began exploring property investment. For the first time, I overcame my deep-seated "poor man's mentality" and started making offers on flats across London, observing firsthand how radically differently estate agents treat you once your net worth commands respect.

Eventually, Lin finished her master's and moved to London to live with me, bringing our unresolved relationship status to a head. We ignored her ongoing marriage, diving headfirst into London life—exploring neighborhoods, cooking fiery South Indian meals, and sharing mutual passions. She was an absolute sexual powerhouse, demanding an intensity that forced me to elevate my physical fitness and stamina just to keep pace. Earning her high praise in the bedroom offered sweet redemption for the humiliation of Stockholm.

Yet, the relationship remained suspended in a gray zone. Neither of us made a definitive play for lifelong commitment, drifting instead into an unspoken friends-with-benefits arrangement. True to form, once I secured the ego validation of capturing an "alpha female," my internal desire began to wane, and my attention drifted further toward Liz.

It was a profound psychological realization: my pursuit of certain romantic ideals had been driven entirely by ego—a desperate need to prove that a woman of Lin's caliber would choose me. Once that box was ticked, the illusion dissolved.