One day sitting in college, a free period, my best friend suddenly started. With a certain amount of awe in her voice she said,"Even these people will get married one day!". Looking out at the people she was scanning I could understand her awe. Bits and pieces of gawky, socially awkward, sleazy, guys, some of them dimmer than a 10 watt bulb. Yet, it was true. All of these will one day be marketed as eligible bachelors and some poor girl's family will buy it enough to sent their girl along with them.. for life.
Looking back, I always felt this was a a sort of grand epiphany, made of equal parts despair and hope. Despair, coz it seemed like life is unfair ( and it is). Hope, because even these buggers have a chance in life ( and that is true too! ).
Anyways, when my turn came to go through the 'boy seeing' rigmarole which goes before a wedding, I took it as a chance to study human nature in general and chance to collect stories.
Of all the people I met, most were rather boring or shy to the point of being painful. But one really took the cake when it came to being bonkers! For convenience's sake let's call him Mr.X.
We met up in a coffee shop. He was considerably shorter than me but since he was confident and could talk reasonable well, I figured it would not hurt to actually spend some time. And boy could he talk. and talk.. and talk.. and.. honestly it was rather impressive how he much he could talk without taking a break. Which as fine by me, as I found him hilarious (though I dont think it was intentional from his side but it was great time pass). He would look at me quizzically at times when I end up laughing but clearly he dint take it badly coz he never stopped.
After a while I started noticing a pattern in his speech. He would be going strong in a particular pitch and then it would drop low for around 3-4 seconds, and then would continue back at the his usual pitch. Clearly something was distracting him. As our table was next to the bathroom, I initially though it might be coz of the people walking by.
But the next couple of times, when guys went there was no difference in his tone. Then there was the drop again.. when a girl walked by! The elevator look at the girl and then the monologue continues. and this happened every time a girl, no matter what shape size breed was about. It was not the checking out which was odd, it was the blatant way it was done. Of course, with the endless chatter and elevator eyes, there was no way I could imagine a life time of this and told my mom to politely decline.
And she did. Usually that's the end of story. But he kept calling for one more meeting and I thought fine, if being told to his face that this will not work is the way to do it, fine! So we meet up for lunch. and straight up he wants to know why this wont work coz he felt sure there was something that could be hit off. I was rather unprepared for the suddenness and I did the standard demurring of I see nothing common etc. but he started to deep dive and wanted to know why I felt it and offering counter points etc. It was awkward to say the least as he kept insisting though I made my disinterest very evident. Finally he seemed to accept that this is not gonna go anywhere coz I have firmly made up my mind. At that point the grilling stopped and the conversation moved on to general topics.
I'm not sure how the topic popped up( actually the way he flits from topic to topic itself was an interesting study of of his thinking.. of how he made connections in his brain) but it ended at his ex girlfriends. Of course in his version he was wildly popular thanks to his charm and eloquence. But he dated seriously only one ms.Y in high school. Now Ms.Y had a very unique name and was his junior in school. Incidentally it was also the name of a very good friend of mine and Who's entire dating history I was privy to and there was no Mr.X in it.
But she was miss popular and I've heard a lot of random guys boast about being her 'special' friend not realising that I'm close to her. So while this was not surprising (and I was wondering if I should tell him or not) the fact that he knew a lot of details in her life which the other random guys dint. He seemed to know her parents and siblings. Some part of my brain was sending these SOS signals which I could not interpret immediately. Suddenly it hit me.
While ms.Y did not date X, I did remember a certain person with the name 'X' bullying rather stalking her all though high school. According to her, he was more than a couple of years senior (match), quite popular (match) and infatuated with her(match?). And when she turned him down, he stalked her. The next couple of year were quite miserable for her coz he had marked her as "His girl" and would beat or threaten anyone who spoke to her or interacted with her. It got so bad she had to tell her parents and they had a talk with him (which is how he knew them so well). But since X was a common name, there was no reason for me to suspect this was the same stalker X till he brought up Y's name.
It all fell into place in a snap and then I could not run out of there faster. I made up some excuse and got out as fast as I could. Later I confirmed with my friend what X's full name was and it was a match!! :-/
It's quite scary to know the kind of people out there looking to get married!! But it sure makes for a funny story!
Looking back, I always felt this was a a sort of grand epiphany, made of equal parts despair and hope. Despair, coz it seemed like life is unfair ( and it is). Hope, because even these buggers have a chance in life ( and that is true too! ).
Anyways, when my turn came to go through the 'boy seeing' rigmarole which goes before a wedding, I took it as a chance to study human nature in general and chance to collect stories.
Of all the people I met, most were rather boring or shy to the point of being painful. But one really took the cake when it came to being bonkers! For convenience's sake let's call him Mr.X.
We met up in a coffee shop. He was considerably shorter than me but since he was confident and could talk reasonable well, I figured it would not hurt to actually spend some time. And boy could he talk. and talk.. and talk.. and.. honestly it was rather impressive how he much he could talk without taking a break. Which as fine by me, as I found him hilarious (though I dont think it was intentional from his side but it was great time pass). He would look at me quizzically at times when I end up laughing but clearly he dint take it badly coz he never stopped.
After a while I started noticing a pattern in his speech. He would be going strong in a particular pitch and then it would drop low for around 3-4 seconds, and then would continue back at the his usual pitch. Clearly something was distracting him. As our table was next to the bathroom, I initially though it might be coz of the people walking by.
But the next couple of times, when guys went there was no difference in his tone. Then there was the drop again.. when a girl walked by! The elevator look at the girl and then the monologue continues. and this happened every time a girl, no matter what shape size breed was about. It was not the checking out which was odd, it was the blatant way it was done. Of course, with the endless chatter and elevator eyes, there was no way I could imagine a life time of this and told my mom to politely decline.
And she did. Usually that's the end of story. But he kept calling for one more meeting and I thought fine, if being told to his face that this will not work is the way to do it, fine! So we meet up for lunch. and straight up he wants to know why this wont work coz he felt sure there was something that could be hit off. I was rather unprepared for the suddenness and I did the standard demurring of I see nothing common etc. but he started to deep dive and wanted to know why I felt it and offering counter points etc. It was awkward to say the least as he kept insisting though I made my disinterest very evident. Finally he seemed to accept that this is not gonna go anywhere coz I have firmly made up my mind. At that point the grilling stopped and the conversation moved on to general topics.
I'm not sure how the topic popped up( actually the way he flits from topic to topic itself was an interesting study of of his thinking.. of how he made connections in his brain) but it ended at his ex girlfriends. Of course in his version he was wildly popular thanks to his charm and eloquence. But he dated seriously only one ms.Y in high school. Now Ms.Y had a very unique name and was his junior in school. Incidentally it was also the name of a very good friend of mine and Who's entire dating history I was privy to and there was no Mr.X in it.
But she was miss popular and I've heard a lot of random guys boast about being her 'special' friend not realising that I'm close to her. So while this was not surprising (and I was wondering if I should tell him or not) the fact that he knew a lot of details in her life which the other random guys dint. He seemed to know her parents and siblings. Some part of my brain was sending these SOS signals which I could not interpret immediately. Suddenly it hit me.
While ms.Y did not date X, I did remember a certain person with the name 'X' bullying rather stalking her all though high school. According to her, he was more than a couple of years senior (match), quite popular (match) and infatuated with her(match?). And when she turned him down, he stalked her. The next couple of year were quite miserable for her coz he had marked her as "His girl" and would beat or threaten anyone who spoke to her or interacted with her. It got so bad she had to tell her parents and they had a talk with him (which is how he knew them so well). But since X was a common name, there was no reason for me to suspect this was the same stalker X till he brought up Y's name.
It all fell into place in a snap and then I could not run out of there faster. I made up some excuse and got out as fast as I could. Later I confirmed with my friend what X's full name was and it was a match!! :-/
It's quite scary to know the kind of people out there looking to get married!! But it sure makes for a funny story!
Very nice post dear :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Anjali! :D
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