FLASH BACKS & RETROSPECTIVES

I am a romantic. Growing up, my mom would wake me up to watch wedding sequences in movies. In fact my mom and I watched all sort of age inappropriate rubbish together “The bold and the beautiful” and “Santa Barbara”.  All the impassioned lovemaking, the fights, the kissing, I wanted it all. So at the tender age of six, hiding under a makeshift tent, I decided I couldn’t wait. I planted a kiss on an unsuspecting neighbor. It would have remained a secret, been forgotten in time, had my brother not caught me in the act and then gone on to tell every single living person.

The point being that I started early and haven’t stopped to take a breath. From the age of 16 I haven’t spent more than 6months single. I jumped, hopped and crashed from one relationship into another, a few of them serious most of them casual. I fall in love faster than it takes most people to get high. And it doesn’t take much for me to fall in love. A few days of long nights of texting or calling and I’ll be gushing about how great this new boy is, how perfect he is.

Anyway this time around I am consciously trying not to make any hasty decisions. I’m trying to play it cool and play the field before I settle down. Though I must admit finding the boy is harder than ever before. The seemingly perfect boys are very quickly turning into deal breakers. And these aren’t “oh I was being picky” deal breakers, these are “what the fuck are these boys doing in the single dating world” kind of deal breakers.

So far there has been..

The boy from my past, the one who is getting a divorce; turns out he still hangs with the not so ex-wife way too much, in fact they moved back in together. So even though he is as beautiful as beautiful men get, I’m bowing out of that race graciously.

Then there was the candy man, this man who was so seemingly perfect it hurt. He was beautiful, liked dogs, liked cooking and plants. He was just the right amount of weird. We got along really well and we talked till the wee hours of the morning. I flirted with him for weeks. It was getting really cute till someone told me had a girl friend. Dreams crash.

Anyway all these disastrous calamities made me think it’s time to widen the net a little. My mom is dying to pitch in and help with the boy hunt, except she wants to find me a man husband. So I can join the rest of the bandwagon that have gotten hitched in the not so recent past. But I’m so not ready for that kind of plunge. Besides the old school romantic in me wants to be swept off my feet. So I did it, I joined a dating web site. More, on the adventures of online dating soon. 

GAME CHANGER

So since I was last out and about in the dating world. A LOT HAS CHANGED.

Game changer no.1- WHATS APP

Video killed the radio star and what’s app killed the phone conversation.

Now, talking on the phone indicates that some new level of intimacy has been reached. If you have graduated from texting to talking then you either found a keeper OR the many hours of laborious texting finally bore fruit.

Game changer no. 2 – FACEBOOK

Now I know your thinking facebook has been around for a while. But it really hasn’t we had Orkut and some other nonsense. But nothing was or shall ever be as all encompassing as fb.

Just to put it into some context, my 13year old cousin is on fb and she said to me weren’t you on fb when you were my age. And I realized that there was no fb when I was her age. In that instant, I felt really old. 

Anyway the point is that these days you can find out everything you need to know about a person on fb. (or so I used to think) I used to live under the lofty assumption that everyone like me is as open about their lives on fb as I am.

This means three things

1>  If I am in a relationship – its on fb -just so that people know

2>  If I am not in a relationship – its on fb - just so that people know

3>  If I went somewhere, did something or ate anything that was even half interesting then – its on fb - just so that people know

So yeah my life is really an open book on facebook and I presumed that everyone else was just like me but so horribly wrong was I. And how terribly my little bubble was about to burst. 

GHOST OF BOYS PAST- THE FART THAT KILLED IT

There I was sitting in his car as he dropped me back home from a perfectly lovely dinner. He had spent the night talking about the woman he left his wife for, who in turn left him (karma is a bitch). Yes!!! I know and trouble was his name-o. And i am the trouble magnet.

As soon as we got into the car all the stories of heart breaks stop and instead we talked about us. We reminisced about the past. He remembered what I was wearing the first time we met. I finished the rest of the story. It was epic. I was in college and I was working late. Some girl (not imp) was giving me her number while she was running off into the distance, her parting note was- “call me if you need anything”. In walks the boy, coolly, a bottle of thumbs up in hand, sipping it he recites his number. He then smiled that smile that could wage wars and melt hearts. And said you should call me too, he winked,  “if you ever need anything, at all”. I was 16 and this was by far the coolest, smoothest line anyone had ever used on me. I was sold. It helped that he was simply beautiful. We shook hands exchanged smiles and  names and that was the beginning of the strangest friendship ever.

WE LAUGH. We are only half way home.

We then move onto the stories of how I played the pretend gf to protect the actual gf, a girl his parents didn’t approve of.  We talk about the film we worked on together. We talk about the time we met, a month before his wedding. We ate a meal. We laughed. He walked me home. We held hands. It was all bordering on wrong. At my door we lingered. We hugged each other tight. It was a kiss that could have happened but shouldn’t have and so it didn’t.

We laugh some more.

He says now he wanted to kiss me back then. I remind him why we didn’t. He reminds me that now we were both single. I assure him I came to that realization hours ago, but he’s in a fragile state and I just want to be his friend, as I say this I know I don’t really mean any of it.

We reach my building he gets out of the car walks me to my gate, much to my distress. I’m not sure how much self-control I can manage. We hug. I turn to leave. He asks me to stay 5 minutes. He calls me a tease.  It almost as if it was 3 years ago, except now this kiss can happen (we are both single- kinda). He holds me. We stand there looking at each other and then he leans in. I give in easily. His lips touch mine. It’s a kiss I’ve waited for, for years. And then right in the middle of it, a man asleep on the street next to us, FARTS really loud. And the kiss that took 10 years to happen, it shatters into fits of laughter. The both of us are convulsed in laughter. We laugh for a bit before we both part ways.

TO BE, or not TO BE , or just TO BE continued another evening years from now. Only time will tell.

GHOST OF BOYS PAST

THE INTRODUCTION

It’s as if you send out a beaming signal when you’re single. From the moment I broke up, I met / bumped into/ was engaged in random FB, g-talk, or Whatsapp conversations with every ex b.f, crush or just that random interested party that had ever crossed my path before.

It’s as if they were all entering the ring for a round two. This doesn’t mean there weren’t new interested parties in the list but the old interested parties far outweighed the new one’s.

Just to explain what I mean. On the day I flew to Delhi to try and salvage my relationship with the ‘pastors son’, the day it all went to shit. On that very day I also had the fine distinction of spending the rest of the evening with my ex- bf  the ex before the ex , ‘THE EX- EX’. How does that happen- I’m not really even sure I know? But I’m sure it has something to do with that magnet for trouble thing.

But the positive of meeting an ex on the night you break up with your current b.f is this- you look at this man you once loved and you think wow I have no feelings for you what so ever. In fact you’re a little shocked at the idea that you were once madly in love with that small man (not in character but in size – I went through a small man phase for lack of actual man sized boys in college). So yeah the evening was awkward and weird but I felt hopeful that I would one day meet the ‘pastors son’ and not feel so madly in love anymore.

I have run away from the point and the point is this. The first half of my dating disasters include all the men from before who returned.  So why was the universe adding to my confused mind. Was this a sign? Did I meet the love of my life already? Did I completely miss my chance? Was this redo time?

So I feel I must offer a disclaimer: I am not blonde, and do not bear any resemblance to CAMERON DIAZ from SOMETHING ABOUT MARY. I am 26, a little chubby , pleasant to look at ( I think anyway). So yeah, I am not the hot chick guys spend years obsessing over. I am the fun girl who had lots of friends and invested large amounts of time making people laugh. So yeah that’s me CONFUSED – FUN – TROUBLE MAGNET- WITH THE LITTLE BIT OFF CENTRE MORAL COMPASS

THE DATING X- FILES

THE FIRST ACT

Confused is an understatement when used to describe me. Just about anything can send me into a tailspin of paranoia. Because I AM a complete trouble magnet, it doesn't help that my moral compass is a little bit off centre (just ever so slightly).

While writing a film script- they say that at the end of act one everything should go haywire, the protagonist should reach a point of no return. I think, I am standing at that point.

I just got out of a very long, very serious relationship. And after lots of alcohol, lots of tears I have finally decided to shelve that chapter of my life. but you know that saying about when one door closes ....

Well lets just say right now I stand in front of  many open doors and not cause I went looking but like I said earlier I am a trouble magnet and these things just happen to me. Why you ask would any sane single girl complain about options. It's simple- note para1- I am confused and my moral compass is a little off centre. It tends to complicate matters A LOT.

So maybe to offer me some clarity about the tricky and the unknown world of dating. Maybe just so I wont forget that once upon a time in my life I lived precariously.  I decided to write about my many options behind the many doors. Some days will be fun, somedays not so much.
I am calling this the dating X files, because underneath all the confusion, I am a romantic and I do believe "the truth is out there".

I'm back

After much egging from my mom and a certain faculty that thinks I have talent. I have decided to revive my blog. Not to say it was much of a blog to begin with, this time around I think, I hope to actually continue to fill this up. Oddly enough I think that my last entry was almost exactly a year ago. I guess something about the impending new year make me want to do something special with my life. Oh wait it was two years ago I guess I just slept straight through one year there.

Anyway im not sure whose out there, whose reading this but to fill you in on my life so far . To bring you up to pace with who I AM or who I am trying to be. Who I think I am. I 'm going to be posting letters that I wrote about my life to my friends and family. They began when I was 18 (oh so long ago) and are funny and dramatic blow by blow synopsis of my escapades in life.
Through the years some friends got added to the mailer and some got taken off. I hope you all laugh as much as I  THINK they did .

MORE COMING SOON

why blog

I never understood why people blogged. It was like having your dear diary entries posted on the web. The very few blogs that I've ever read about were always so personal, so intense, that I felt I was invading into someone's private space.  I'm not sure how comfortable I was with the idea that all these people will be privy to my mind. I always found it easier to call friends and let them into my inner mind space. But I am finding it harder and harder to sort the junk in my mind into coherent thought. These days I think all the time and sometimes I shock myself at how beautiful those thoughts are. I think this blog is going to be my little secret. So for whoever wishes to tread and read will know me for only what I thought about and for nothing else. This will be my external vent. Where I can be brutally honest about everything and everyone.  I too like so many others felt that I had some great talent, a flair to write, to make people laugh. So with my "you gotta try everything once motto" here I go.