The Mating Game

This post is supposed to bring back the magic. And announce, aloud, the return of fiction. The return of romance. To this blog. After a year of an almost continuous typed out sequence of psychobabble. And remind us after all, of those days when this thing was read.


Ideally, this post should have been named after the inglorious series 'Men in My Life' . But then that's too cheesy, so lets skip that, should we. Because ideally a lot of things should have happened, which never did, do, will. Hence.

In a crowded room, full of strangers, when the only man I knew failed to give me the attention I thought was due, he had absolutely no idea what game of mutual humiliation he had just begun. Because I had walked down to say hi, totally endowed with the knowledge that he was an ass, after all. And he snapped it back right in my face. How crazy was I to overestimate his skills at being human. Affable and chivalrous, be at bay.

But anyway, we get used to shrugging and walking away. In due course of time, in life, we all do. I assumed that episode never happened. And settled down with a drink. Inside my mind.

Later that evening, things changed. It was getting pretty late. And I stood by the road, trying to hail a cab. But all the cabbies, as usual, hated the place where I stayed. They raised their noses and drove off. And there he was. Shirt tucked out. Tie-less. Loitering. And assuming I wasn't there.

And I know how un-feminist it sounds, but just his being there made me feel safe.Our world is so small, it's too hard not to know people. Most of who I know, fall somewhere between being a friend and an acquaintance. With distinct loyalties towards being the latter. Because sometimes, I don't let them in, and sometimes they run away. But as long as the guy is in between the points, there is a probability, and a few may-be's. The hope of a possibility.

Clinging to that possibility, when he walked up to me, that night, I has an 'apology accepted' written on my face. Somehow, I knew we had been put up in the same hotel. It was honestly, very comforting to know that  now, being the man, he would hail us a cab. So, I stopped screaming for one. And we got talking.

Unbelievable as it sounds. We never ran out of words. It was obviously getting late. But nothing seemed to matter. I assumed that happened, because we had lived similar lives till then. Only at different places. With different set of people. Etc.

But what irritated me was that he wasn't looking for a cab at all. I mean, of course conversations could be taken to other places. Two minutes later, I found out that he wasn't headed to the damn hotel after all. Shock gripped me hard, I wanted to hit him with a hammer. Why did he waste so much of my time if he wasn't going to get me a cab. Ugh.

Some sanity must have dawned on him, and he dropped me at my hotel, before heading to wherever he was headed. And it was a goodnight after all.

Today, he is not someone I barely know. I mean I guess I know him well. Rather well. He assumes I am a friend. I assume he is an acquaintance. And I also assume, he isn't reading this right now.


2 comments:

Syed Ali Hamid said...

Sometimes, acquaintances can be more exciting than friends; sometimes, the distance between being an acquaintance and becoming a friend, is quite interesting. Remember that Jagjit Singh song:

Us mod se shuru karein hum phir ye zindagi/
Har shae jahan haseen thi hum tum thhe ajnabi.

Anonymous said...

How sad :(
*Hugs*