Second hand Tinder is good for you!

So I saw Tinder for the first time ever last week. Yes, that means I'm too old. :(

This is why I need to meet my single girl friends more often! I'm unable to test new technology otherwise!

Anyway, it was 11 pm and we were furiously swiping left and right on a friend's profile. I was told all about their experiences on Tinder so that I could get up-to-speed. Call it second-hand Tindering, if you like. Now here was the background given to me:

"Guys have become so spoilt for choice that they won't even meet anyone who's more than 5 km away!"
"They don't want to date anymore. It's quite to-the-point."
"This guy said no to drinks even! 'Why don't you just come over?' he asked me."

Hmm. Faith in men destroyed. So glad I got married before Tinder arrived.

Swipe left. Left. Right. Right. Left. Left. Right.

It's a match!!

There we were, all four of us, celebrating the matches with clinks of our whiskey glasses and football styled ovations.

Then the conversations started. Protests by my friend, who's account we were using, were ignored wholeheartedly. Here's a glimpse into the kind of madness we were creating with our messages.

"Come to Seven Bungalows now!!"
"You're so hot! Let's meet."
"Have I met you somewhere? You look sooooo familiar."
"Let's meet now!"
"My place? Take a rick and say Seven Bungalows."

Why were we doing this? Partly as an experiment, partly for fun. You may not believe me when I say this...not one guy agreed to meet us (or as they thought, my friend). Responses ranged from "It's quite late at night" to "Why don't we have a conversation?" to "Don't you want to get to know me better first?"

1 am and 6 pegs of whiskey (at least) down. And that's when my faith in men was restored.

(Yeah maybe some of them thought we were Mumbai Police. So what?)

Don't do it!

Old post in draft mode found!
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No, no, no!

There are some things that you just cannot say or do to the people you are dating. Or in a relationship with. All of us have some time or the other made the mistake of saying some of these things that end up scarring the other person so much that they just stop looking at you the way they used to. The first few times, we are novices and probably don't know any better. But why doesn't wisdom catch up with us? I've done it and all of my friends have done it. And in most cases screwed up what we had. The difference in the other cases was probably that the other party was more forgiving than the average Joe (or Jane). What are we doing wrong, you ask? Here's a brief compilation.

Tips for the gents:

1. So you've had a fight. Don't, fuckin don't, ever, ever, call her a bitch or a whore! She may not end it right there, but its a start of a downward spiral of lack of respect that will only take therapy to go upward!
2. "Look at you! You're getting a paunch!". This sentence is even worse when the man himself has a paunch but thinks you're the one who should be losing weight anyway. Wouldn't it be better if you said, "I think we should join a gym." It's good for both of you anyway.
3. This usually applies to the ladies, but I don't think even men should be asking women how much they make. I have been asked this question multiple times and I feel like this information is too personal for me to tell just anybody. Even a lot of my friends don't know how much I make, so why should I be telling you?
4. Please have an opinion. Well, not necessarily on everything, but on important things in your life or in the world. Be aware. A woman instinctively wants to mate with the alpha male. "I don't know" said enough number of times is sure to make a woman lose interest.

Tips for the ladies:

1. "That guy has the best sense of humor ever!". Sure we all want to be honest in our relationships. But lets face it, in most studies performed on what women like in men, sense of humor was in the top 5. Men are aware of this and WILL take it as competition. This definitely does not mean that he's gonna let you go for this, but it's really bad for his ego. And unless you have a good plan for why you wanna make him feel jealous, I say stay away from this one.
2. Don't ever tell the man he's not rich! If you feel that way, please leave him and tell him that was the reason. But if you want to be with the man, that's just stepping on his toes with a stiletto!
3. On the first few dates (unless this is an arranged marriage), please don't ask the man how much he makes. Even if he makes a lot, it tends to feel like you're only doing this for his money and are not capable enough of making your own.

Disclaimer: This list is by no means a reflection of everybody's opinion. But I think it's a fair representation of a particular demographic - that of the 25-30 yr old, upper middle class family, with a higher than average income for their age, who has dated or had a relationship at least once in life!

Are you single? Make it large!

I now view relationships unfold from the outside rather than the inside. That's the difference between being married and being single.

Looking at my blog posts from a few years back just takes me back to a different life. What masala! I would love to read sex-in-the-city-ish posts like that today. Does anybody write stuff like that in the mainstream media? I'm discounting Shobhaa De's pretentious column on Mumbai Mirror which I doubt any non-socialite would relate to. Did you read Why Sarojben matters more than Jashodaben where De talks about the middle class from this lens of "Oh this is what others go through"? Most of De's content relies on second hand experiences of middle class people seen by the lady living the good life. We need some real middle class women talking about life in the city. Newspapers and magazines, are you listening? *Grin*

But look what's happened to me now! All the masala I know of is happening in other people's lives. Crushes, heartbreaks, fights, reluctance, being unsure, drama, breaking up, making up, making out - I am only a listener. And it has majorly dented the amount of content I'm able to generate. Lol.

But since I'm in reflection mode, I've been trying to put it all in perspective here. Based on (aforementioned) second hand experiences, what is life like when you're single and 30 - man or woman? Dude, its loads and loads of fun!

Lifestyle
At 30, you've crossed the stage where you were making just about adequate money and are usually into the big bucks. Since you don't have a spouse and/ or children, you have a huge savings surplus that you spend on the good life. Booze, parties, great food, more booze, holidays, movies, more booze, friends, dates, more booze. And then some more booze.

Dating
From time to time, you meet someone who you are desperately trying to fit into your specific requirements for a partner. More often than not, no matter how hard you try and no matter how much you try to convince yourself, there's that nagging feeling that this just cannot be the one. At 30, you can find faults with everybody. EVERYBODY. But that means that you meet new people all the time. You're constantly evaluating - your mind's working full time! And gaining mind blowing experience that you just can't get anywhere else.

Work
Even though you work more, you actually work less. Coz when you're single, work stops at the workplace. Then you're back home and it's just your life. No planning for lunches and dinners, no buying stuff based on multiple family member requirements and (this is the biggest one of all) just one family to cater to. When you're married, your family doubles instantly and now you need to speak to all parties on the phone, remember double the number of birthdays and anniversaries, buy gifts for double the occasions. Work is less when you're single. Enjoy it!

Bedroom
People with your own bedrooms will totally get this. Are you used to sleeping in a bed all by yourself? With a room full of your stuff? Kept in the places that you want them to be kept in? Cherish that! It's the place you can go to at the end of the day and think, laugh, cry, whatever. It's your space. YOUR space! God, would married people kill for that!

Friends
You don't have to go for that chick flick (or that movie with subtitles). You can spend as much time as you want with your friends doing the things that you like. Sleepovers, late night drives, last minute plans, pub-hopping - all with your safe bunch of people by your side. Whenever you want, without checking with your spouse's time table or (like in my case) with your cook if she has already prepared your dinner or not!

Single and 30. Forget the peer pressure. You're living the life you couldn't live when you were in your early 20s and won't be able to live when you're 40. Make it large!

Blogger is back!

Five months down the line.

No blogging, hardly any facebooking, no partying, no time. And I’m only 5 months into marriage!

I’ve reopened this blog after many, many months and it’s only because I was so short of time. First of all, for all of you getting married sometime in the future, here’s a piece of advice – it’s a BAD idea to do it the traditional way with your families getting involved in the planning. You can’t imagine the 500 different interpretations of how a marriage has to performed! And we are toh both Bengalis! Your mom has one opinion on what rituals to perform and how to perform them, your dad has one more opinion, your grandparents have one too, your other relatives have some ideas, your man’s parents have other ideas, and in the middle of all this, the two of you end up fighting, finally realizing that you’re bickering on behalf of other people!

Solution – let your parents handle it. Completely. Don’t ask for anything and you won’t be let down!

Then comes the wedding day and you stay hungry all day. More rituals. You search for your phone. You log on to your FB app. You try to while away ur time while the pandit goes on and on.

The night we got married, we had what is called “bashor ghor” which means all your friends/ cousins stay the night with you and keep you awake, ensuring you don’t “do dirty stuff” that night. See the scene is that you are not supposed to sleep together all by yourselves until the “boubhaat” happens (the boubhaat is the occasion when the girl reaches the guy’s house – Calcutta in my case – and goes through with the reception there). Now ideally, the boubhaat happens one or two days later, but in our case it happened 5 nights later (5 very long nights)!

So at 7 am the next morning, we had only caught 1 hour of sleep (there was partying and loud music till 6!) and the bidai (vidai) began. One more ritual. Sigh. And to go where? To his place (Bombay house) to get “welcomed” by his mother, have lunch and go to the hotel to get ready for the Bombay reception. We finally caught some sleep only after the reception and I don’t know how I went through with the whole thing. No sleep, no sleeping together. What the hell.

In Calcutta, our 6 day trip was full of family lunches, dinners, Calcutta reception, more lunches, more dinners and shit loads of tea all day long. All in all, all the wedding events just drained all the energy out of us.

My point was going to be – before I started this rant – get married in the family court. Seriously.

Finally, the honeymoon was a pleasant break from it all. Egypt and Morocco. For all you leisure travelers, Morocco is one place you really shouldn’t miss. Vegetarians can skip.

And then we came back to 3 days of me moving in – packing, unpacking, making space at his (now our) house, keeping everything in place, selecting stuff to throw (his, not mine of course hehe).

Three days later, I was back at work. And then there was work, traveling (oh how I hate Goregaon from the bottom of my heart), making time for parents, making time for friends and being able to spend some teeny weeny bit of time with the husband!

I know some people handle this better than me, but I just couldn’t juggle all this together. So I started shaving off time from facebook, blogging, partying. And I think I am just about getting the hang of it 5 months later.

And now that I am getting comfortable with this, it’s time I blogged, with good things on my mind! Life is great, just the two of us. I don’t miss my parents’ kach-kach on how messy my room is :) And I am never disturbed while I’m sleeping, with questions on what I want to have for lunch. And when I miss my parents, they’re just 4 local stations away to meet! I'm always welcomed at my parents’ place with a glass of whiskey now :) How cool is that, eh? Sometimes I miss the cat, and even though the hubby is not an animal person, I'm slowly gonna get the cat into the house (it’s a long drawn process, but I'm confident that it’ll work) from time to time.

And you know the awesomest thing? We can stay out as long as we want, without having to reply to my father’s SMSes on when I'm coming back! It’s a different thing that I feel sleepy at 11:30 pm these days which means that I'm dropping dead half way thru a dinner and whispering “Let’s go home now” into the husband’s ear hehehe!

So anyway, now that I have written to my heart’s content for the day, the blog is now open again!

Her evening alone

It was almost 9:30 pm and the sun had only just started setting. She thought of having her dinner but she kept looking outside and waiting for it to get dark first. She wasn't used to this, this never ending day that meant work lasted longer and the comfort of night shorter. "Just a day earlier," she thought, "I was in his arms, being kissed, being loved. It has only been over 24 hours and here we are, thousands of miles apart. Hardly getting to even talk to him."

A Sunday without you is what he had exclaimed. She knew exactly what he had meant. She knew exactly how he felt.

She looked outside her window again. The brightness was not disappearing fast enough. She closed her eyes and pictures of him flooded her mind. How his apartment door opened to a half-smiling, half-nodding-in-approval-to-her-presence bearded man. Except for that one time when he had shaved off his beard. How she loved the fact that he looked so different with the swipe of a razor blade! That face. The one he quietly appreciated in the mirror so vainly from time to time. She had wanted to tell him that he was as handsome as handsome can get, but she had checked herself and joked about his mirror gazing instead. She wondered if her averseness to being emotionally candid could ever be changed. Because she realized she was capable of being more emotionally overwhelmed than she ever had been.

And she thought about what they shared. Tears had welled up in her eyes on thinking how life had led her to him. She felt somewhat foolish, but also very confused. She'd seen it in some random Bollywood movies before, and shaken her head in disagreement that it ever happened like that in real life. But life has a funny way of proving you wrong, and prove wrong it did. She was in love with this man after less than 2 months of knowing about his existence. He made her feel so happy inside that sometimes it hurt. How lucky she was to have him. And how unfortunate that she wasn't by his side that very moment. In such a short span of time, he meant the world to her. Her life had more meaning. She had more strength, more comfort, more joy.

She wondered if she was able to provide the same strength, comfort and joy to him too. He deserved someone to promise to be by his side forever and to keep that promise. She would aim do this, and more. She might falter sometimes, but it would not be intentional, and she knew that in her mind, she was honest and would always want the best for him. But would he understand the times that she would falter? Would he trust her enough? She was but a 7 on 10 on his scale of trust.

It was dark outside now. In her mind, she kissed him on his cheek while he slept in a country where she wasn't. He was all that she wanted - the strong, intelligent man who loved and cared for her immensely.

With his thoughts in her mind, she decided to call it a night. "Goodnight, darling. Tomake bhalobashi." she said in her head.

When men go bad

I started writing this in January 2011, and I think I will finally complete and publish it.

"You know it was the worst relationship of your life when even after years of not being together, the man still brings immense grief to you. By his words as well as his actions.

I've been in love a few times, but there are sometimes when you let go of all your mental boundaries and give in to one person more than you have ever given in to anybody. And you give and give, while he takes and takes. This, I realize, is not your love, but your conviction that this man is worth it all. You have convinced yourself that your happiness is in his hands and that's a dangerous place to be in. Because your happiness lies in your hands alone. And you must de-convince yourself that the key to your life lies in another person's hand.

How many people do I know around me who have been trying to move on from their equally unstable lives and while you'd think that being older would make people wiser, how untrue that is! We continue to make the same mistakes over and over again, knowing that nothing good is going to come out of it. Well, it's 2011 now, and for a change, I have a resolution. To really move on. To a more stable life, that is. This isn't about my relationships with men anymore. It's about doing something more meaningful with my life. To steer it in the direction that makes it less fun in the short term, but stronger in the long term. The whole cycle or work, parties, meaningless chatter, unmindful jabs at others...it must stop. Well, maybe not the unmindful jabs bit :)

And so it begins."

It's been 3 months since I wrote this and I don't know how I got the will to do what I set out to do, because my will has always failed me in the past when it comes to staying away from my beloved friends. But somehow, I managed. It has paid, and how! I am far less stressed out and value myself far more. All goes to show, that all you need is some courage to let go. It's never too late!

Solitude

When was the last time you wished for solitude? Before a few days back, I can't think when. Most of last year, I have been wishing to overcome single-hood. I have looked around, dated a bit, been disappointed in the worst ways possible. cried in my weakest moments, punched in my strongest...! It's pretty much been a roller-coaster of emotions for me.

Pan camera to the last few days. Note my daily schedule:
06:00 - Wake up
08:00 - Breakfast
08:15 - Move ass out of hotel and walk to work
08:30 - At desk, laptop open, work begins
17:30 (on an average, not counting the day I left at 20:00) - Walk back to hotel
17:45 - In room, changing clothes
18:00 - In hotel restaurant reading a book
19:30 - Dinner
20:30 - TV or movie on laptop
22:30 - Sleep

My interactions with people are limited to people at work, the hotel receptionists, the restaurant stewards and stewardesses and the occasional old man asking me if I'm wearing Coco Chanel! Oh and of course, the countless people I smile and say hello to, everywhere I go - hotel, streets, office, bus, wherever. On the weekend, I went to Brussels and walked the streets with nothing but a map, some cigarettes, my passport and cash. I saw couples in love, kids having fun and old people generally chilling. I ate waffles bought from the street and heard live music in almost every alley in the heart of the city.

And I'd have thought that all this should make someone want to have company even more. But it didn't. Quite the contrary in fact. I love spending entire evenings doing nothing but reading my books and drinking the occasional beer alongside. It's such a welcome change from the long working hours that lead to a need for bouts of drinking (stress can really make you want to unwind with a drink) that leads to lesser sleep that leads to crappy mornings that leads to not wanting to work the long hours of the week. I feel better, I'm finishing my books in record speed and I don't go to bed thinking what my future is going to be like. Simply because my present is so relaxing! No tension, no concern, no stress. I sometimes find myself looking for more work to do (unlike how I hated waking up in the mornings to get to work back home) and I cannot say enough on how I love the hotel room all to myself! Nobody to ask what I'm doing, why I'm not eating, what are my plans for the day, whether I'll be home for dinner, who's on the phone or who I'm meeting in the evening. I don't want to make my parents seem like monsters, because they're not. They're the most understanding people on the planet (well in some ways at least), but some irrelevant nuances get very annoying when you have to deal with them everyday. And I'm sure somewhere deep down, they feel the same way about me as well. I am SO difficult at times, I wonder how they keep their cool.

Coming back to the point, I find that the constant push for me to excel in a field that I don't care much about breaks me back home. Not that I'm doing anything different here, but that push isn't there. I'm not expected to work a long week in lieu for a life to myself. I sometimes wonder if I did the right thing by taking back my old job. I wasn't making enough money writing, but should I have tried harder? I'd sure have loved 10 hrs of writing a day rather than 10 hrs of rationalizing application landscapes!!!

I picked up a book from the hotel bar yesterday and reading it made me feel like getting back to writing. All I need is inspiration, and working where I am today, gives me none. Back home, all I want to do at the end of the day is to talk about anything but work, or better still, not talk at all. And I don't get to do that. Most days I come home to a phone call from work, asking for more work to be done. And that's because that's just how it works in Mumbai if your employer has given you a laptop. Time to yourself....what is that?

That is solitude.

And I'm loving every bit of it.

Do you know what is expected of you?

Ok this has been pending for far too long. Many months back, I took a survey with a lot of anonymously willing participants about what they expect from dating and relationships. Questions involved items that put people off in the short as well as long term and how they reacted to cheating.

And....(drum roll)........here are the results!!!
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Q: What do u think a man/woman should not tell/ask/do on the first 3 dates?

50% of men surveyed did not want their salary or wealth to be discussed while they've just started dating a woman.
58% of men did not want women to talk about anybody's exes on the first 3 dates.

For the women, results were varied, with a mix of no naughty language, no talking about exes, no showing off, not being rude, etc. Surprisingly, only one woman did not want to talk about her age and another surprising 43% did not want to talk about their salary / wealth either!

(Btw...hence proved, men are predictable and women are complicated!)
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So when asked what people had learned from their past dating experiences, the men were obviously all around the place!

Q: What have u learnt from ur past dates....what should u avoid saying to the girl/guy?


Interesting answers from the men were:

• Do not give advice
• Do not say I love you
• Do not ask for marriage (!!!!)
• Do not compare her with others
• Do not give her professional criticism
• Avoid tactless jokes
• Do not talk to her about something she is not interested in

My favourite response, though, has to be one that was given to me by 2 guys - DO NOT get her drunk!!! Haha. I see that some people have had problems with drunk dates quite a bit!

Women on the other hand, knew exactly what men did not want to hear in the first three dates. Almost everybody knew that talking about salary and exes was a big no-no!
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Q: What do u think your man/woman should not do ever in the relationship?

42% men did not want their women to compare them with other men, while other popular answers were no hurting ego, no lying and no demeaning friends and family.

For women, the expectations of what a long term partner should not do were exactly the opposite. All participants but one did not want their partner to physically or verbally abuse them. So no belittling, hitting or being rude. Simple! Everything else can be dealt with.
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Q: Is cheating once ok? Provided he/she is truly apologetic later?

This was really interesting. 92% of all men said that their partner cheating was absolutely not okay. This, compared to only 57% of women saying the same thing. After a lot of prodding, 25% men said they would forgive their woman if she was truly apologetic (and other best case scenarios). Which meant a change of mind for 17% men. For women, the number didn't change much.


ANALYSIS!!

Honestly, I don't know how men and women live with each other with such a difference in expectations. While women have a multitude of no-nos while they are choosing a man, once they have committed to a relationship, there's not much that will break it for them. However, for men it's the other way round. While they have very low expectations from a woman they are dating, they want a lot from the woman they are looking at from a long term perspective.

Of course, this study is limited by scope. All survey participants were urban men and women between 25 to 28 years of age, earning approximately between 5 to 15 lakhs a year.

Why we need new bags

So why is it that when I look around, people my age are either married or complicated? Or, well, going to be married. There has to be some correlation with age and not wanting to make things work! The older you get, the more rigid you become, the more expectations you have, the lesser you wanna compromise and the more ready you are to look at other options.


Thy name be Rigid
He has to be intelligent
He has to be agnostic or atheist
He has to be non-vegetarian
Preferably not in the same field of work
Preferably large shoulders

He has to be somebody who makes me feel “This is the one!”
He has to be somebody my parents will like
He has to be experimental in bed
He has to make tons of money
Preferably cute boyish looks

He has to be someone I liked the instant I saw him
He has to be someone every other girl wants to have
Preferably plays the guitar


Me, compromise?
Use your laptop. This is mine!
I want to go for that chick flick whether you like it or not! And you will bloody well come!
If you’re not feeling well, I’ll go out with someone else
Cheating is okay if you’re not giving me any candy
We do it when I want, where I want

Opt-in, opt-out
Learnt this way back in 2004 for a subject called customer relationship management. To opt-in is to explicitly select an option among many options. To opt-out is to explicitly unselect an option among many pre-selected options. When I was 18, I was in the opting in stage. Now, I keep opting out.

Something good may come out of this (it better!). With higher standards than what I had at 18, when I find the right person, it’ll be better than who I would’ve chosen at 18. And yeah, looking back I see how progressive my choices were over the years! The downside is that I don’t know how long it will take. And I don’t like it when there’s no plan. Well, there is no plan. There is hope, but no plan. And being the non-religious types, I’m quite impatient with hope.

Me and my unmarried girl friends are all of 26 now. Everyone is complicated relationship-wise. A guy friend says we just like to make it complicated when it actually isn’t. It’s either on or not on. This guy friend is married. Easy for him to say. At 26, there’s pressure – parental, peer, u name it! And the peer pressure sucks the most. People start getting married and doing their own couple things. You end up looking for a group with more single people. We recently got an old friend back after everyone in his current group was married and he became single. He needed to hang out with single people like us. He told me he thinks it’s the right time to get married because otherwise everyone will get married and he’ll regret not looking for a partner when the time was right! You see the pressure!

No, I don’t want to get married. I’m not ready for it yet. But I miss some things that come with a relationship. Some things that dating doesn’t do for me. It’s a feeling of comfort. Of special moments. Of things that only remind you of that significant other. Of wanting to bring back something special from a trip for that special somebody. Of sharing a stupid thought you had, without the other person judging your intelligence because they know you long enough to know it was just an aberration. Of simply sleeping with your head on somebody’s shoulder at night. And that somebody can’t just be anybody. When u think of that shoulder, most of you will picture a face on it.

And that, fellow people, is known as baggage.

The glory of first dates

How difficult is it to find a date in Bombay? All the men worth dating are either busy, married or gay. And I'm not being clichéd here; I recently met a really funny guy who was gay! So how do you find a decent person to date in this city?

LOSING NUMBERS

The day I was leaving for Goa, somebody called out to me on the road while I was walking to the ATM in my area before catching my flight. As I turned to the stranger, he explained to me how he had seen me around a few times and thought I was cute. He had a dog (big plus!) and wanted to meet up sometime. Being in the happy Goa spirit, I kept smiling and taking in the appreciation. After I took his number and refused to give mine, I saw that the guy had a feeling that I wouldn't call. But I filled in a reminder on my cell phone to call him a day after I was back from vacation. As luck would have it, my phone conked off in the Goa sea and I lost the guy's number. There goes a date in a city where dates are few and far in between.

And even in Goa, I met a nice guy staying in Bombay. In Powai, in fact! So close to my home. And I'd made a mental note to call him when back. He was really interesting and funny and we had such similar interests. But poof! Cell phone drowned, number gone!

Also, have you noticed that a lot more people are interested in you when you already have someone in your life? Whenever I have a boyfriend, men are showing interest. I've even heard statements from my friends saying, "Oh remember my friend XYZ? He was really into you! But he asked me if you had a boyfriend and I said yes. So he was like 'too bad'. I would have set you up with him, but now he's seeing someone." The 'seeing someone' part is easily replaceable by 'left the country', 'left the city', 'married', or 'gay'. Sigh.

I don't know what constitutes a blind date. When I was younger and the internet was newer, I met boys (yes, we were girls and boys then) online and went out with a couple of guys who I found interesting. And yeah, yeah, I met them in the afternoon in a public place so there was no weird stuff coming at me. But are these considered blind dates? Coz I have seen their pictures. On the other hand, I have been out with a total stranger - never seen what he looks like even - set up by one of my friends. I guess we can call them Type 1 and Type 2 Blind Dates! Let's make it sound medical!

TYPE 1 BLIND DATE

Pictures can lie. Well no, let me rephrase. Pictures give you half truths. One guy had ugly yellow teeth. Pictures can very cleverly hide them. But when you meet in person, yech!

Also gets you to thinking on morality and whether you are a nice person or not. A Type 1 Blind Date once led a friend to a coffee shop to see the cute girl he'd been looking forward to meet. When he entered the cafe, there she was, cute as ever. But something looked funny. He noticed that her arms were short and her fingers were tiny. It took him a few seconds to realize that she was a small person. Now my friend is 5'11" and this woman was all of 3 feet. It took a quick coffee and a speedy walking her back home for the date to be the last date. My friend still feels bad about what he did, but I wonder how many people would have been able to deal with dating a small person.

TYPE 2 BLIND DATE

It takes a lot for this type of blind date to work. The odds are working against you. The man I went out with went rambling about how his job sucked, his MBA degree sucked, and I felt like a shrink out there listening to his problems. I'm sure he didn't like me either, to give him some acknowledgment. But it was by far the worst date I've been on. Only solace was that the coffee was nice and paid for.

Now I've been talking to a few of my guy friends and I see a scary pattern emerging among Bombay girls. Women, what's with the panties with holes? A plain cotton panty will not even cost you that much! Just like expecting a guy without body odour or smelly socks, the guys expect you to have panties without holes. It's not much they're asking for now, are they? The experiences range from seeing the holes when the woman squatted down to look at a book on the lower rung at a book store to seeing the hole staring back at the man in the bedroom! If I may quote one friend, he actually said he felt like he was "humping a beggar"! I wished these were not women from Bombay, but I was in for a rude shock. Ladies please, if you have a hole in your panty, it better be because you're wearing a crotchless one!

MONEY AND WEIGHT

On a first date, it is extremely rude to ask a man about how much money he makes and a woman how much she weighs. Most of my friends are below 30, so the age factor doesn't apply yet. But you are NOT gonna get any more dates if you are already calculating the man's bank balance or deciding whether you can lift the woman up. You may as well just say you have something urgent to do and leave. It's more polite and you don't have to see the person again. One woman once asked my friend (1) if he had a car; and (2) if the car had power windows!

SEX

And then there is the first time that you have sex with your date. The stories here are countless and because I want to use discretion with my and my friends' experiences, we'll just skim through this. Apart from not having holes in your underpants, it'd also be a good idea to avoid being smelly down under! A big problem many women face is dealing with a small...ahem...willy. It's like the small woman my friend dated. You feel like a horrible person for being bothered by it, but if it doesn't work for you, there can never be a happy relationship coming out of it. With men, it's fairly simple. You get what you see. With women, you don't know what you're getting into. Or what's getting into you!

And with stories like these, you can imagine, getting motivated enough for that first date is a little difficult. Coupled with the fact that it is easier to get into hell than to find a good date in this city, being single sometimes means that you'd rather spend time with your friends, their significant others, acquaintances and exes. Until you stumble upon the person you really wanna go out with. Provided you don't lose their number!

The changing toothpaste lifestyles

So many people I know are either having problems or have already broken up with their partners. And these are not flings I'm talking about; these are relationships. What is it that makes people so inflexible today? Sometimes I think its the consumeristic attitude we have acquired over years and years of moulding by the retail and the advertising industry. We like to have multiple options from which to choose a product. If a product stops catering to our growing needs, we choose to discontinue using that product.

Over the generations, people have become more and more conscious about the options around them. Colgate, Pepsodent, Anchor, Babool. Like toothpaste, I think relationships also have one universal truth - no matter how many you change, eventually you realise that they're all the same. One just tastes more minty while the other one has more salt. So apart from the small (but most noticeable) differences in the toothpaste, they're having the same effect on your teeth.

This does not mean that relationships are all the same. Some are fun while some can be really boring (minty versus gum care). But after years of being together (toothpaste or relationship), it eventually becomes a routine. And that's where people start looking for change - not realizing that the same cycle will repeat itself after another few years.

And so people keep changing their toothpastes, unlike in the old days when my grandfather used Binaca all his life (until his daughters made him switch to Colgate). Is this trend alarming or simply natural? Both I guess, in its own ways. We like to choose in order to get the best (which is completely fair), but when will you know that the best has arrived? And what happens if there is no best fit for your criteria? In relationships, is it fair then to hurt the person you have once loved so much? What happens if you don't like Pepsodent anymore and leave the unfinished tube, only to realise after Colgate Salt that you liked Pep better? And what happens then if someone else has already started using your Pep tube.

Its a risk everybody today is willing to take. "If I don't find anybody, I'll have an arranged marriage". Heard it before. After all the consumeristic attitudes we throw, our parents finally get us married - probably to prove a good point. They're from the days when people were happy with the toothpaste they owned.


Give me something to laugh at again
Show me how i can find
A place in your heart without all the qualms
And maybe a place in your life