An Investigation

Oh jeez! I feel so wasted. And in the bargain, I think I need to re-think – umm not re-think. I think I need to take a good look at the friends I term as friends and throw some out of the window.

In other words, I need to overhaul my friends list.

You see I befriended people merely because at the time when I was to befriend people, I wanted to be nice and sweet and admired and loved by all.

Not anymore.

I did so much for them and did so many things because of them. Things that I would never have contemplated were they not to put them in my head. I had sex out of wedlock, I began to watch porn, I tried to find humour in crass lewd, third-rate films, and I forced myself to laugh at jokes that I never ever wanted to.

I did so much and what did they do for me? Well, some gave me a ear and a shoulder to cry on when my boyfriend ripped me apart and left. And that same set did make me reason out with myself whenever I quarreled with  my family. These I admit were and are true friends. And they are not the ones who encouraged sex out of wedlock nor introduced me to porn.

The other set – the one that just shut up and kept silent when I was awash with problems is the one I want out now. They are the ones who insist on being around only in happier times. They drink, smoke, leer, lech, and just because they read a few intellectual books term themselves liberated. I think that’s the most scandalous representation of liberty and that has been my opinion only lately. Earlier, I did – like a blind fool – think that all what they did constituted a ritual that freed an individual of restrictions conferred by society.

By George! What a fool I was to think so. The only reason they did all that they did was because they were addicted to being happy and did not want to confront the most intimate of feelings and emotions at all. They thought themselves (and they actually are) inept at handling all that and I was so blind, I did not see the obvious!

Anyway, at 30, I can see all that and more. And I don’t want to have anything to do with that pack at all.

I am better off with my books, my music, my movies, and the select few – my family including – who know me and want me in their lives for what I am.

Off the Block

Some people can be really irritating. Take this acquaintance of mine for example. I had gotten to know him a few months ago – a time when I had just broken up with the boyfriend. We got along well – this acquaintance and I – and we did talk a lot about stuff quite intrinsic to the affair I was in. I satisfied his curiosity about my ‘relationship’ with the boyfriend and he kept asking more.

Well, I did not have a problem answering his questions. But it began to dawn on me that I was forever in the dock so to say. The times I had a question for him, he never ever gave  me a reply that was direct. Instead, his replies roamed all around the words he knew in English and then decided to choose the ones that made his answers rather vague.

Initially, it wasn’t much of a hassle to me. I let it pass. But this morning, while we were talking, he asked me about life and what do I expect of it. I unwound and told him the truth about my opinion of life. I also dug into the recesses of my mind and bared many of my thoughts that I otherwise would not have shared with anyone.

You must understand that I did all that and more all because I trusted the guy. I felt he understood me and I was at ease talking about it all.

However, a few days ago, a bolt of thunder and lightning struck that understanding of mine.

It so happened that I had logged onto Facebook and there he was. Needless to say, we began chatting. One bit led to the other and soon we were discussing my life and thoughts as if I had laid it all out for a barnyard sale.

After I had finished selling myself, I asked him about his plans. Well, he hesitated and then told me he was going through a crisis. His study plans interfered with his career aspersions because what he was studying was not what he wanted to make a career in.

I told him that he needs to then decide and eliminate what he thought wasn’t meant for him. He said yes, he would but there are other compulsions as well.

So, I – like a gentle benevolent fool – asked what were those compulsions? Perhaps he can share them with me.

To that came an answer that put a bee sting to shame! He said: “Oh I don’t think you will understand me. It’s best we don’t discuss it. Let’s talk something else.” All this after I had laid my life bare in front of him.

The heat of the irritation that this guy caused in me swept my anger into a frenzy. I was livid with rage. How can he even come to think that I cannot understand him when he did not even let me show my understanding of him?

It was a hot volcanic rage that ran through my fingers the moment I saw his answer. But I did have the presence of mind to not let my fingers go berserk in anger. I merely typed: “I see. Okay”

“Don’t feel bad.” He typed in reply.

“Oh no, I am not feeling bad. Okay listen: I think I have to log off. I’ll catch you sometime soon, okay?”

“Okay, and I am sorry if I have caused you any hurt.” Well, if you know you have, saying this doesn’t lessen the damage. But I didn’t say that to him. Instead, I logged off and promptly blocked him in my chat list.

Random musings

I was walking home the other day. I had got down at Sion circle and had crossed the road to take the lane opposite to the bus stop. I noticed the flyover had not changed appearance. It was as lame and dirty it was in the morning. The roads too felt stale and the buildings that stood alongside it made me feel jealous of their occupants. After all, I cannot afford those apartments therein and I feel miserable that inspite of such a fabulous salary, I cannot even contemplate buying one of those flats that were looking at me at that very moment.

Anyway, I walked and felt the heat and the humidity competing at getting me to curse them. As I did so, I noticed a woman in shades and looking very much like someone I knew in college. She came closer and I saw her breasts were small and tightly wrapped by the blouse she wore. And her jeans too had decided to cling to her thin thighs.

She came close, she looked around and passed me just as I passed her. It was then I realized who she looked like. She looked like Carolyn – the elegant shabbily dressed bitch I knew in college.

I had a crush on Carolyn. She had this lovely hair – all curled and positioned at just the right places around her neck and shoulders. So, when she walked in, a set of curls bounced away from her shoulders to make way for another set that was just next to it.

She also had a lovely voice. I remember it well. But the thing about her that I remember the most is the fact that she was a snob of the most spectacularly horrible variety. I tried to talk to her when we were both in the 11th standard, but that woman! Whew! She would reply in monosyllables. It was so humiliating and insulting. However, when she wanted stuff such as notes, journals, etc, she was a picture of sweetness.

I was young that time and quite quite naive. So I let it go. Of course, I did grumble and complain about her to people I considered my acquaintances then, but now, those acquaintances and that woman seem so stupid and not even worth knowing at all. I really feel a little stupid about the whole episode – about I letting myself be driven around by that squirrel of a woman and that bunch of idiots I termed my acquaintances.

Oh man! Thank God for something known as growing up! Or else, I’d never know what’s right and wrong!

The Fight

I fought with a friend yesterday. Well, not actually fought as such. I did not quite like what she said to me and so, have stopped talking to her.

It began, as all grand fights do, with a harmless conversation that we were having online.

“I am so bored,” I said.

“Me too.”

“Is it because there’s nothing to do?’

“Well you always have something or someone to date.”

‘Oh I haven’t any now. I don’t seem to find anyone worthwhile.”

“Well me neither. I am so bored, really.”

“Do you want porn? I can give you stuff – you know several handsome men trashing around in the tub.”

“No thank you,” came the curt spirited reply, “I had rather have a man sitting next to me in a fancy restaurant than trash in the tub!”

“Haha, so let’s get married,” I typed in jest.

“Yes why not?”

“It’ll be an ideal sexless marriage,” I said and added a smiley. I was amused by the idea and I was suggesting that in a lighter vein.

“Well first of all,” she typed back, “yes, we can marry, but you’ll have to be straight for that. And secondly, how ever can you think it’s gonna be sexless? How can you expect a girl to wait for 30 years for such an arrangement?”

“Haha, well,” I said, “I was just commenting.”

“How can you expect a single girl to enter into such an arrangement?”

Till now I had no idea she had taken this seriously but she had for here’s what she typed thereafter: “Just because you lost your virginity to a 1000 sluts doesn’t mean you get the right to make such a comment. When did you become so insensitive!”

In one quick flash, she had slapped me when all I was doing was making some idle mundane conversation. This was unbearable.

“Okay,” I said, “we are never having this conversation again.”

Granted, I have slept around, and granted I may have slept with sluts, but even so her remark hurt. Probably, because I expected her to understand my situation and understand me better than I expect others to.

Evidently, she did not. Or else, she would not have said so. You see, as I write this, it feels rather stale and insipid – my whole anger and annoyance at her. I am not holding anything against her, but I cannot bring myself to talk to her at all.

Well, in due course of time, I will start to talk to her again. But our equation will never be the same.

And I have no intention of changing that either.