Although some parents are slightly more lenient than others, most of them are very strict about the curfews they impose on their children. We have all had to deal with curfews and questions like ''Where are you going? Who will accompany you? Who will drop you home? Will someone have a car? Come home before 9.'' While hanging out with friends, the curfew looms like a dark shadow above us, often causing us to keep worrying and even missing out on the fun for various reasons. Here are some of the things that you might go through when you have a curfew to maintain.

GETTING PHONE CALLS REPEATEDLY

Even though you have told your parents over and over again that you would be back before the curfew they have set for you, you keep receiving phone calls and being bombarded with questions including ''When will you start for home? Where exactly are you right now?'' Can you really enjoy spending time with your peers if you keep receiving phone calls every twenty minutes?

WORRYING CONSTANTLY

''Will I be able to get home on time? If I reach home twenty minutes after my curfew, will I be scolded? What if I am never allowed to go outside again?'' These are just some of the questions that my incorrigible overthinking mind often presents me with when I am out with my friends. If you are as prone to anxiety as I am, you probably keep having similar worries. This makes it much more difficult for you to have fun (even though everyone else enjoys themselves).

MISSING OUT ON THE EXTENSION OF THE PLAN

Your friends are planning to go for ice cream after dinner but you can't join them because you need to be home in twenty minutes. You get home and get upset seeing your friends' Instagram stories. Things like this keep happening to me (and to many of my friends as well) just because of the strictness with which the curfew is being imposed.

BEING MISUNDERSTOOD BY FRIENDS

Not everyone has a strict curfew and because of this many of your friends don't understand the fact that if you don't go home before your curfew, you will need to face consequences. They keep asking you to stay back over and over again and when you say sorry for the umpteenth time and leave, you incur their wrath. You apologise to them a thousand times, but they don't seem to understand the situation. Upset and nervous, you come to the conclusion that you can't make them realise how seriously your folks take curfews. As the saying goes, only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.  

INCURRING YOUR PARENTS' WRATH

If you don't get home before the curfew because of the traffic or perhaps because you wanted to stay with your friends a bit longer, you are scolded by your folks. You might even get grounded for the next few weeks, and even though you have always tried your best to get home before your curfew, your past record is thrown out and they will remind you of this one act of disobedience whenever they are displeased with you again.

When he is not dealing with mood swings, Shounak Reza devours books and tea and longs for eras he has never lived in. You can contact him at www.fb.com/shounakreza