Dating had become a routine for her –
meet, get a table, talk about work, order, talk about hobbies, eat, dessert,
hug, and leave. It had become similar to cleaning dishes or doing laundry. She
had lost count of the number of men she had dated.
Her school friends for Vadodara
would not recognize her now. Having grown up in Vadodara and studied there till 10th standard,
she had left that place to study engineering in Delhi. Since then she hadn’t
been in Vadodara for more than 1 month at a stretch. And studying in Delhi,
then working in Bangalore and studying for MBA in Mumbai, she had gradually
shed Vadodara. It would be difficult for her to her to say where she was from
or to identify with being middle class, like her parents. And that was the
reason why she was could not identify with any of her school friends.
She did have friends in Pune, where
she worked at Vodafone – friends from college and work. Most of them were
married now, some even with children. She felt she did not belong to their conversations
about children, marriage, maids and mother in laws. The conversations she had
on her dates were, on the other hand, underscored with practical restraints,
awkwardness and attempts to impress – she could not recall the last meaningful conversation
she had where she was not trying to impress or fake being impressed.
She had tried desperately to find
love, but apart from a few flings in college and office, nothing much had materialised.
In the process, she had often given up on love but had come crawling back in
search of it when she felt that emptiness at the pit of her stomach at 2 am in
the night. At 30, to her shock and surprise, she finally had felt that time was
running out for her now.
She would eventually get married. But
at 42, listening to an old song one winter evening she would realize that she
had lost the perfect man for her long back when he had left for the USA. That
would be the last time she would cry from the empty feeling at the pit of the
stomach, she would never feel that emptiness again.
That evening she was meeting a guy
for the 5th time. They had been introduced through common friends
and were meeting at a pub. She was wearing the long evening dress that made her
feel confident; she felt she needed it that particular evening. The guy was
wearing a black shirt with black trousers. She thought it looked good of him
but he seemed a little over dressed for the occasion. He talked a little too loudly
and took a few too many liberties, but alcohol does that to people, right? And
the music was nice and the wine good and she was glad she was not going to have
dinner alone; though she thought McDonalds, where they eventually ate, was a
poor excuse for dinner.
They talked about the best beers, he
talked about the time he had visited Belgium, she told him about the store
which she thought sold the prettiest dresses, he talked about shifting closer
to office to reduce the commute, she talked about her favourite instagram
accounts. And when the he left to go to the washroom, for a brief moment had she
missed him.
On her way back home, she inadvertently
started thinking about the guy. He seemed like a steady person – had a good
job, steady income and decent family. He was average looking and slightly balding,
but looks didn’t matter much, right? What mattered most and what was important
was that he was a steady guy – steady was good, stead worked for her. She
started wondering if he was THE guy. And then her mind drifted off and she
started thinking about what to wear to office the next day. Maybe, she thought,
she would wear the red top that she had bought long back but had never worn.
After all, she was in love, right?
