The story of A&A - Part 1
Based on public demand, I am unfolding the story of how I met A. Like all the years I have spent searching for Mr Right, 2010 was no different. As soon as the New Year bounced in, I paid for online matrimonial memberships and wasted hours of scrolling Internet Pages, only difference being, with growing experience and maturity. I had almost become a Pro, I made a decision not to end up in heart breaks. The process got slower and more boring, I had decided not to meet anyone, until I was sure, we stood a chance to make relationships happen. Looking back, I feel it was a good decision, I met only three people the whole year, and Arun was the third one I met, that too only in December, thanks to Mumbai vs Bangalore, we were on a 2 month probation since October'10.
The first person I met in January, was 9 years older than me, my parents shot down the idea. I begged them to allow me to meet this person more, so that I could understand why age plays an important role. With demanding jobs, we met only on Sundays, either for a quick lunch or coffee. February was not bad, in fact I spent the Valentine's day with this guy, because both of us were lonely. We just went together shopping and bought us gifts ourselves, we didnt exchange gifts/roses nor chocolates. In fact, when I got home at 4 pm after a day's shopping, I had to show my parents the credit card receipts to prove that I had bought myself all the gifts and that I was not fooling around under a Valentine's day drama.
Friends and family were wondering if I had given up on the idea of marriage. While I couldnt make up my mind if it was right to marry this guy, I at least wanted to know, why/how things woudnt work between us. And he helped me, when one fine day, he decided to break up, after some silly(according to me silly) difference on opinion about our weekend meeting schedule. May be he thought it was time to move on, as I wasn't making any decision yet. For the first time, I didnt feel my heart breaking. I did feel sad that things wouldnt be the same anymore, there wouldnt be someone to talk to, but then I was relieved that I didnt have to make any decision. I had a new assignment at work, and I got busy working on my Korea travel.
While I got busy at work, I spent the weekends logged into matrimonial sites again. In April, just before my birthday, I bumped into another person, who was everything listed on my partner preferences, and a bonus, someone working in my field. Yay, there was someone who could understand what I work on. Height was always my problem, so before meeting anyone, I made sure, I had scrutinized all his photos multiple times to make sure, he was not shorter than me. So after few days of telephonic screening, we met one fine evening at Casa Del So on Residency road. I think it was one of those sudden April showers at 6 pm, we ended up reaching the place, drenched in rain. It was the perfect romantic beginning I could have ever dream of! He was not very tall, but he had this dark, handsome, sharp eyes and intelligent looks, and with a perfect weather what more could I ask for.
He was a Canadian return NRI, an avid salsa dancer and loves to experiment on good food. I ended up doing all the talking, until I realized, he was done with his dinner and waiting to laugh at me, looking at my full plate !! I was a good sport, so I ate as little as possible and told him, I wasnt that hungry ! Casa Del So has Salsa Nights from 8 pm on Sundays, where many salsa dancers join in there. When he came to know of it, he jumped onto the dance floor, while I sat there watching everyone dance. He was pissed off with few females who refused to dance with him. Most of them were kids from colleges, and preferred to dance with some one their age or liking, unlike him, who was passionate only about the dance movements and not on the partner. So after around 2 hours, when he had enough, we decided to leave the place.Meanwhile, I had 2 hours to myself, wondering and making myself understand that he didn't like me that much, and thats why, even though we met to know each other, he ignored me for 50% of the time. It was hard to convince myself, bcos deep within, I liked him, so I kept defending his actions in my thoughts. Around 10:15 pm, I told him, I had work on Monday, he joined me and we took separate autos. He didnt bother to ask me, if I reached safe, which was another indication on how less he cared for me, and the following day, I got an email -> "I think you are a good person but not the person I am looking for. We can be friends if thats ok with you" . I had another of those lonely birthdays that year.
I traveled to Korea in May and I returned with more work. I was in touch with both the guys. We are friends, so we keep inquiring about our matrimonial searches. There were more online rejections from either sides, my memberships were about to expire, my parents started taking control of things, they advertised on classifieds, created more profiles. There was also something funny yet irritating, a guy whom I had talked to and rejected online, was picked up by parents login and accepted for further process, and he wanted to have the last laugh, so forwarded my dad's email to me !! Well, he actually helped me, because, I got to know about the duplicate profiles my parents had, and with all the disgrace/embarrassment this whole thing brought onto me, I demanded that they handover all profile logins to me, failing which I will sue them that they have misused my pictures and personal details on the internet. My poor parents had enough of me already, so they just gave up all electronic access to matrimonial sites and stuck with the newspapers.
I did meet 2 other people who were based out of the UK. Since I had a valid work visa for UK, I decided to move to UK and then start life and matrimonial search afresh. My online interactions with the UK guys were also minimum, thanks to the timezones, and secondly, since I was planning to relocate, I was focusing more on job searches. For a change, I was scrolling job sites instead of matri sites. And I had no pressure on making a decision, everything seemed like a long term plan, move to UK, settle down, meet new people, and also consider these 2 guys after I reach there. I was open about my plan with them also, and they were fine, and they were not in a hurry either to settle down nor to narrow down their choices.
Occasionally when I got bored with job related emails, I logged onto my matrimonial accounts to take stock of the situation and the market trends. Most of my login attempts convinced me that there were no more choices left for me in this country, and I needed a complete new life to begin everything afresh. The UK plan was progressing all well, I had even started looking for cheap tickets to schedule interviews, until I bumped into his profile on October 4th.Everything in his profile was negative to begin with. He was based at Mumbai since July'10, he has never lived in India before that, the only thing Indian about him is his birth, parents and the 2 years he spent his infancy running around naked in his maternal grandparents home. 18 years of Dubai and 11 years of US, a complete NRI, I didnt want to get into trouble again. But, you can't ignore a 6ft'3" guy just like that, so I decided to send him an email. And his first email was not impressive, he talked about blocking time on his calender and all, so I decided to ignore him. But sometimes, you decide one thing, but you end up doing the other. So I ended up replying to him and ask him for some time on his calender. He said, he had a sore throat, so he couldnt speak on phone, but we could chat on IM. We chatted for a day or two, and he called me up one evening. He had this American accent and with his sore throat, I couldnt grasp what he was speaking. The only thing I remember was trying to keep the conversation short and hang up.
Over the next few days, our chat conversations were about ourselves. I was boasting about my UK plan and co-incidentally he was leaving to the UK for a 2-week business trip in the next 2 days. He was busy packing stuff, and promised me he would call when he gets time waiting in the airport lounge. After my first conversation with him, I hoped he would never call me back, I wished his calender would be full and I dont have to break my head understanding what he says. But he did call me after 2 days when he was at the airport. His sore throat had got better and I could follow him much better. We spoke till 1.30 am, my airtel network dropped down suddenly, and we got disconnected. By the time, I restarted my phone, his phone was switched off. His sms came in a few seconds later -> "It says you are out of reach, Good Night, I will miss our chats". I didnt know if he was trying to flatter me, but I knew, I was going to miss the chats. I looked at my mobile screen, Oct 12, 1:47 am. I wanted 2 weeks to fly fast, wanted to get back in touch with him, know him better, I kept wondering how many people was he talking to, did he have other options, will he meet some one in the UK, what if he felt I looked different from the pictures I had sent him., there were more and more questions, and answers were fewer. I suddenly felt a familiar pain within, which I had not felt for a long time, a fear of rejection, a fear of hoping things would go smooth, a fear of wanting him to be all that you hope him to be. I finally understood, when it comes to the heart, no amount of experience helps !!
.. to be continued..
PS : I didnt expect I will end up writing a long story :(
The first person I met in January, was 9 years older than me, my parents shot down the idea. I begged them to allow me to meet this person more, so that I could understand why age plays an important role. With demanding jobs, we met only on Sundays, either for a quick lunch or coffee. February was not bad, in fact I spent the Valentine's day with this guy, because both of us were lonely. We just went together shopping and bought us gifts ourselves, we didnt exchange gifts/roses nor chocolates. In fact, when I got home at 4 pm after a day's shopping, I had to show my parents the credit card receipts to prove that I had bought myself all the gifts and that I was not fooling around under a Valentine's day drama.
Friends and family were wondering if I had given up on the idea of marriage. While I couldnt make up my mind if it was right to marry this guy, I at least wanted to know, why/how things woudnt work between us. And he helped me, when one fine day, he decided to break up, after some silly(according to me silly) difference on opinion about our weekend meeting schedule. May be he thought it was time to move on, as I wasn't making any decision yet. For the first time, I didnt feel my heart breaking. I did feel sad that things wouldnt be the same anymore, there wouldnt be someone to talk to, but then I was relieved that I didnt have to make any decision. I had a new assignment at work, and I got busy working on my Korea travel.
While I got busy at work, I spent the weekends logged into matrimonial sites again. In April, just before my birthday, I bumped into another person, who was everything listed on my partner preferences, and a bonus, someone working in my field. Yay, there was someone who could understand what I work on. Height was always my problem, so before meeting anyone, I made sure, I had scrutinized all his photos multiple times to make sure, he was not shorter than me. So after few days of telephonic screening, we met one fine evening at Casa Del So on Residency road. I think it was one of those sudden April showers at 6 pm, we ended up reaching the place, drenched in rain. It was the perfect romantic beginning I could have ever dream of! He was not very tall, but he had this dark, handsome, sharp eyes and intelligent looks, and with a perfect weather what more could I ask for.
He was a Canadian return NRI, an avid salsa dancer and loves to experiment on good food. I ended up doing all the talking, until I realized, he was done with his dinner and waiting to laugh at me, looking at my full plate !! I was a good sport, so I ate as little as possible and told him, I wasnt that hungry ! Casa Del So has Salsa Nights from 8 pm on Sundays, where many salsa dancers join in there. When he came to know of it, he jumped onto the dance floor, while I sat there watching everyone dance. He was pissed off with few females who refused to dance with him. Most of them were kids from colleges, and preferred to dance with some one their age or liking, unlike him, who was passionate only about the dance movements and not on the partner. So after around 2 hours, when he had enough, we decided to leave the place.Meanwhile, I had 2 hours to myself, wondering and making myself understand that he didn't like me that much, and thats why, even though we met to know each other, he ignored me for 50% of the time. It was hard to convince myself, bcos deep within, I liked him, so I kept defending his actions in my thoughts. Around 10:15 pm, I told him, I had work on Monday, he joined me and we took separate autos. He didnt bother to ask me, if I reached safe, which was another indication on how less he cared for me, and the following day, I got an email -> "I think you are a good person but not the person I am looking for. We can be friends if thats ok with you" . I had another of those lonely birthdays that year.
I traveled to Korea in May and I returned with more work. I was in touch with both the guys. We are friends, so we keep inquiring about our matrimonial searches. There were more online rejections from either sides, my memberships were about to expire, my parents started taking control of things, they advertised on classifieds, created more profiles. There was also something funny yet irritating, a guy whom I had talked to and rejected online, was picked up by parents login and accepted for further process, and he wanted to have the last laugh, so forwarded my dad's email to me !! Well, he actually helped me, because, I got to know about the duplicate profiles my parents had, and with all the disgrace/embarrassment this whole thing brought onto me, I demanded that they handover all profile logins to me, failing which I will sue them that they have misused my pictures and personal details on the internet. My poor parents had enough of me already, so they just gave up all electronic access to matrimonial sites and stuck with the newspapers.
I did meet 2 other people who were based out of the UK. Since I had a valid work visa for UK, I decided to move to UK and then start life and matrimonial search afresh. My online interactions with the UK guys were also minimum, thanks to the timezones, and secondly, since I was planning to relocate, I was focusing more on job searches. For a change, I was scrolling job sites instead of matri sites. And I had no pressure on making a decision, everything seemed like a long term plan, move to UK, settle down, meet new people, and also consider these 2 guys after I reach there. I was open about my plan with them also, and they were fine, and they were not in a hurry either to settle down nor to narrow down their choices.
Occasionally when I got bored with job related emails, I logged onto my matrimonial accounts to take stock of the situation and the market trends. Most of my login attempts convinced me that there were no more choices left for me in this country, and I needed a complete new life to begin everything afresh. The UK plan was progressing all well, I had even started looking for cheap tickets to schedule interviews, until I bumped into his profile on October 4th.Everything in his profile was negative to begin with. He was based at Mumbai since July'10, he has never lived in India before that, the only thing Indian about him is his birth, parents and the 2 years he spent his infancy running around naked in his maternal grandparents home. 18 years of Dubai and 11 years of US, a complete NRI, I didnt want to get into trouble again. But, you can't ignore a 6ft'3" guy just like that, so I decided to send him an email. And his first email was not impressive, he talked about blocking time on his calender and all, so I decided to ignore him. But sometimes, you decide one thing, but you end up doing the other. So I ended up replying to him and ask him for some time on his calender. He said, he had a sore throat, so he couldnt speak on phone, but we could chat on IM. We chatted for a day or two, and he called me up one evening. He had this American accent and with his sore throat, I couldnt grasp what he was speaking. The only thing I remember was trying to keep the conversation short and hang up.
Over the next few days, our chat conversations were about ourselves. I was boasting about my UK plan and co-incidentally he was leaving to the UK for a 2-week business trip in the next 2 days. He was busy packing stuff, and promised me he would call when he gets time waiting in the airport lounge. After my first conversation with him, I hoped he would never call me back, I wished his calender would be full and I dont have to break my head understanding what he says. But he did call me after 2 days when he was at the airport. His sore throat had got better and I could follow him much better. We spoke till 1.30 am, my airtel network dropped down suddenly, and we got disconnected. By the time, I restarted my phone, his phone was switched off. His sms came in a few seconds later -> "It says you are out of reach, Good Night, I will miss our chats". I didnt know if he was trying to flatter me, but I knew, I was going to miss the chats. I looked at my mobile screen, Oct 12, 1:47 am. I wanted 2 weeks to fly fast, wanted to get back in touch with him, know him better, I kept wondering how many people was he talking to, did he have other options, will he meet some one in the UK, what if he felt I looked different from the pictures I had sent him., there were more and more questions, and answers were fewer. I suddenly felt a familiar pain within, which I had not felt for a long time, a fear of rejection, a fear of hoping things would go smooth, a fear of wanting him to be all that you hope him to be. I finally understood, when it comes to the heart, no amount of experience helps !!
.. to be continued..
PS : I didnt expect I will end up writing a long story :(