Table Manners

While waiting for someone to show up at a Chinese joint, I couldn't help but overhear a couple's banter on the opposite table. The guy looked like as if he had skipped his date with the gym to be with the girl. The lady, it was quite obvious, liked the dude but the dude was playing it cool. A little too cool. Maybe. The boy had broken up and the girl was busy trying to coax some vital information out of that gym manufactured body.

I think you should just go back to her...

NO WAY!

So you are over her...?

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah

I don't think so...what if you see her here...say on that table with someone else?

The dude and the girl both look towards me; I'm alone. Waiting for someone, maybe that Jane Doe is the one I await. If that happened it would be the best example of how small this world can really be.

It won't make a difference to me!

She just smiles and manages to mouths 'good' but there is no sound that accompanies the word.

They are eating some sesame seed laden snack and washing it down with beer. The seeds play havoc on then woman's system and suddenly she starts sniffling like crazy. That’s the end of the snacks.

Back to the beer.

She looks at him and waits for him to say something. It’s so obvious that he fascinates her but he just doesn’t budge. Is he dumb? Or he just looks dumb? She starts liming her beer and she waits.

He lights a cigarette. She makes a face. This could be trouble.

She undoes her hair and the band hold it rests in her hand; she plays with it while her hair behaves like an old lover- hanging precariously on her left shoulder refusing to fall.

She starts the game again.

Give me some.

Points towards the cigarette.

This is the point where the guy should just pass the one he’s puffing on for it will take the conversation to the next level. Maybe that’s what she wants but he has other plans and offers her a brand new stick.

She looses the plot and in just a whiff of nicotine-laced smoke everything of the last seven minutes goes down the drain. She looks around and nothing comes to her mind.

She mulls over it for a while.

The guy looks at her like an expectant pup.

She gives in. Decides to try it out once more.

Haven’t been to 4S in a long time…

Oh I was at Stone yesterday….

I don’t like Stone…there is no place like Toto’s here in Delhi…

I like Mumbai…

No way I prefer Delhi…….

Opposites attract?

Image Courtesy: Prince George Theatre Workshop

On Compatible Differences

A friend’s friend is having some trouble in paradise. I heard her talk about how her friend is finding it tough to carry on with her marriage but still can’t get herself to walk out of the loveless cycle. The lady whose life was a subject of discussion thinks that she is still compatible with her isn’t-it-obvious-you-are-not-the-one better half and would continue to ‘sort’ things out till, well till she doesn’t feel compatible anymore, I think.

That made me wonder; what’s this non-sense about compatibility?

Some times that’s all what it takes to make us do crazy things; the lack or absence of it is what plans our exit. We all want that someone to be with who can ease then pain, make us feel better and what have you. The hyper stimulating jungle out there, called the world makes more sense if there is that one person and such assurance resides only in compatibility. It’s compatibility that makes love all the more interesting but don’t go popping the champagne yet, for experts (death to them!) believe that we are all looking at love in the wrong manner. I think compatibility isn’t what we always have; it’s something two people make as they go along. It's a process; it’s something that demands constant appraisal again and again. It’s the willingness to work. So is this friend’s friend right in sticking on?

Maybe she is for she can still feel the ‘chemistry’.

And while you just learnt a new definition of compatibility, time to get some clarity on ‘chemistry’, the corner stone of any good relationship. Chemistry is an appealing thought but it’s much too frequently used by people to free themselves of the need to consciously examine their approach to their partner. When you need to go ahead with something it’s chemistry that makes you want to do it but when it comes to talking things out, we’ll say no chemistry no talk.

Am so sad, let me listen to Roy Orbison. Wait, hold the thought on ole Roy...so what’s the deal with compatibility?

Yup, you know me by now and you know that it’s overrated. The similarities or personality traits that attract people to each other may not hold up over time. You might be attracted to someone because you both love coffee, but then one of you is told by your doctor to give up coffee, then you got to see it in a whole new light! People assume that compatibility is everything but more importantly it’s that baseline which makes you want to keep up with your partner. People are sometimes attracted to like personalities and sometimes to different ones. Relationship skills can always be improved, and they'll help any two people—with any two personalities—to get along better. I further augment my point by citing the example of The Beauty and the Beast. Oh wait the Beast is actually a prince. Hmm ok the Princess and the Frog. Oh wait the Frog is actually a Prince too…oh darn!

I read somewhere that there is no such thing as a compatible couple. All couples disagree about the same things but it’s really about how you manage your differences. If there is chemistry, then the whole courtship is about convincing yourself and others that you are compatible. But, really, you create compatibility.

Oh great!

Click to enlarge.

That’s another fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into! Now being compatible ain’t enough we’ve got to make it as well…

Image Courtesy: www.xkcd.com