Men and Myopia

The thing with being in love is that you become the most annoying person ever. Especially if you're a girl. Your uncalled for, eternally sunny disposition can be of gross irritation to an entire nation and its populace. But see, being in love, especially falling in love, is the best, most blinding feeling in the world. It doesn't matter who thinks what, as long as the apple of your affection is twinkling away at you. It makes you ecstatic, but also seriously myopic. 

The leading cause of my myopia is Funny Men. Let me explain-

I was watching Louis CK the other night and he's, MY GOD, such a riot! My insides were instinctively curling with want. Imagine a man who can make me laugh all day; why wouldn't any woman want that. I proceeded, in my usual obsessive gusto, to look him up online. Somewhere among lots of videos and text, here is what I found him say, "Marriage is just a larva stage to true happiness- which is divorce!" Followed by lots of laughs I'll admit, some even awkward, and sure I'll consider it very talented writing- merely a script, but it suddenly made me realise why I'd sworn off the funny boys and their stupid funny bones. 

Funny guys are my cryptonite. Or have become, I have come to realise. 

Take the desi-type-funny guy I dated when I was 21. Or the subtle-but-hilariously-funny guy I dated when I was 23. Or the whiny-funny guy when I was 27. They have two things in common. They were funny. And they were seriously immature. Like a special kind of immature (read escapist) that deserves a brand new adjective to describe it. 

FunnyGuy #1: Having lived in the south of India most of my life, my exposure to real-life people who could tell really great jokes in Hindi was limited. Very limited. I met him through work, and I admit I kind of didn't like him too much when I first met him. Actually, scratch that. I kind of hated him. He was new levels of difficult to work with. Never answering my calls, never following up on anything he was supposed to follow up on, disappearing at important times. That should seem like a great, big SIGNBOARD in my face, right? STAY AWAY. ESCAPIST AHEAD. But err, no, no. Myopic remember? 

I hung out with him, dated him, and laughed a lot. A LOT. Until one night, he decided to get wasted, and confess to me that he was in love with me. The words came out of HIS mouth. And yet I found that it was only barely ironic-funny when he immediately put on his running shoes (metaphorically obviously), and sprinted out of my life.

FunnyGuy #2: Eerrrmmmaaagawd, so damned witty. He was Chandler-meets-Jeeves-meets...well, I don't know who. But man, he was funny. He took my breath away. He also knocked the air out of me when after three years of fabulously entertaining laughs, he ran for the hills for no real reason. 

Literally. Ha ha.

Guess that sounds funny. But isn't.

FunnyGuy #3: This one is my fault entirely, but in my defense, it was kind of trial-basis- like an outfit I was trying on. He was so slapstick, and I don't even like slapstick, but others did, so I thought I'd swing it. Try it on, y'know? He was just so funny with his 24/7 whiny, disgruntled jokes. But three weeks into it, his whining-funny suddenly seemed to take on dementor-like qualities. He sucked the sunshine out of the world. As if, god forbid, something nice should happen to him- his world would end, wouldn't it? I was out of there as soon as I could find an exit sign. 

Truth is, I still haven't gotten over my Love-Funny-Guys myopia, and I will admit I'm still looking for that perfectly funny-but-mature guy combination. But hopefully in the meanwhile, I can find myself some thick glasses to repair my vision. A knock on the head will also help.

Another Me, Another You.

Will you ever find another me if I ever leave you?

Will I ever find another you?

They say there are several Mes in the

Seven billion of us,

With our world full of differences.

Different Yous, and different Mes.

Maybe there are two of us each,

Or maybe four?

Will I bump into you in Hungary,

In Budapest,

On Sale Day, looking for a carved wooden table,

That we both put our hands on at the same time?

Maybe I’ll bump into you in New York,

In a jazz bar because we both like

Georgia,

The song, not the place.

Or perhaps I’ll see you on the Internet.

On a dating website,

While I’m still with you,

While you’re still sleeping in our bed,

Your hands on the book I’m reading,

Your book lying next to me while I look for another you,

In a parallel universe.

Will we be happier with each other’s

Other Me and You?

Will you be happier if you had me without me.

Warming My Cold Feet.

See the thing about fear is that it can seem bigger than you.

What’s funny is that most fears actually start as tiny little thoughts. Minor what-ifs, really. They sit there, festering and gestating, coming and going, becoming bigger, asking for more attention and whining if you don’t give them any. Far from giving them attention, we ignore them. Ask them to bugger off and come another day.

And yoohoo, they do. At which point, we have the audacity to actually be surprised. We expect the another day, to be an other day that is not today. We act petulant. We keep asking the fear to go away, until such a time as when it becomes louder and more demanding, and then we try to negotiate with it about its it next ETA.

Like a deadline that we’ve forgotten, we’re astounded, annoyed, and frustrated when it shows up again. We then try to actively, and rather stupidly, run away from it.

Stupid, I say, because the one thing that we cannot do (and yet, most of us do do), is run away from anything in our own minds. The longer we run from it, or hide it under our beds, the bigger the imaginary monster gets. It grows in size, new and shiny claws pop out, and if you leave it unattended long enough, it starts to speak in strange, scary tongues, with added spooky background music for effect.

I had one of these episodes recently. Mine was called Cold Feet (here on referred to as CF). Unlike the most well-known type of CF (the wedding bells variety), this one was rather unusual, and therefore one that I took time to recognize. You see, quite contrary to the wedding bells variety, where you’re shitting bricks about committing your whole life to someone and wondering if you’re making the right decision, my CF was my fear of committing to myself.

Surprised? Yeah, me too.

Here’s the story of my CF—

A couple of months ago, I finally decided to do the thing I’ve been thinking about doing for a while now— live by myself. I had been running around house to house, broker to broker, landlord to landlord, on my new-house hunting expedition. I had done this before, but the difference this time, was that I had to do it all by myself. As I’ve outlined in this post, I’ve always had a problem doing anything by myself (or rather, without company—which if you really think about it, is a different kind of problem, really).

When I started this, I wasn’t sure if I was looking for the right things in these houses, or if I had been talking to the right people, or making the right decisions. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to answer the preposterous questions that landlords ask you.

(Example1: Why does a single girl in Bombay want to live alone?

Example 2: Will you have many parties in the house?

Example 3: Will you get married and move away soon, you think?).

I also wasn’t sure if I would know how to pick the right refrigerator, or know if I got duped while getting the carpenter to do some minor repairs (actually, this one I still don’t have answers to).

I was just beginning to realize what I’d taken on.

It hit me, full scale, one morning a few days before I was to move in. I was supposed to meet the landlordman that evening to give him 11 post-dated cheques, and sign a contract with ONLY my name on it (how adult is that!).

And hence came the full descent of the CF. Because, dear god, will I be able to, or more importantly— do I really want to do this! ALL.BY.MYSELF!

Eating by myself, cooking myself, handing all responsibilities- big and small- BY.MYSELF. And the worst of them all, SLEEPING all by myself in a house. Oh, the horror!

I’m feeling hot and cold even as I write this (a watered down version compared to that day, I’m pleased to report).

But here’s what I did to battle my CF (it was the plan for today anyway. I believe in baby steps)— I wrote. I wrote about how this felt.

As I wrote it, I felt like I was, in part, conquering my fear. Or rather, telling it, that it’s silly, by doing something that reminds me of why I’m doing this at all. I was reminding me of the good stuff.

I sat by myself in an empty apartment with a suitcase full of books (it was the first and only thing I brought there that evening :) ), and my laptop, and I typed away in a silent house. I listened to the trees rustling outside, felt the wind come in (I have HUGE windows in my living room, whee!), and reveled in the sound of the tippy-tap of the keyboard.

I realized that this was one of the things I’ve wanted for the last few months. Nay, this is what I’ve craved for.

I’ve wanted silence. I’ve wanted just me. I’ve wanted my words, and my very own world.

And so here’s the conclusion to my theory on fears— you don’t banish them, and you don’t even need a grand plan to conquer them. Instead, what would maybe work, is to just show them the good stuff. Tell them that while they are very much real, so is the good stuff.

   

The Problem Is

The problem is, always was, that I loved you too much.

They told me. Everyone told me. To not do that. To never love you like that. But see, I didn’t see it. All I could see was you. You were a high. Something I could sniff when my day went south. Something I could inject to make my day go north. Something I could wake up to, with a feeling of elation. The feeling that I had done something right.

And the problem is, always was, that you played the part. To the T. You danced and pranced for me. You made me laugh. You made me cry, just enough to consider you an achievement. You made me feel like I was the only thing you lived for. You made me feel like a million bucks was tepid in front of me.

They told us. Everyone told us. To not to that. We may never stop loving each other, but what if we lost each other? What if something happened to either one of us? How would either of us get through it.

Well, you showed me how, didn’t you. You disappeared. You left me with a faith that I couldn't practice anymore.

The problem is, always was, that which they didn’t tell me. They told me not to love you like that, but what they should have been telling me is this – love yourself more. So that at least this way, when you’re gone I will still have had something left to love.