Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Spilling the milk and loudly bawling

"Wake up! I need to talk!"

I had just answered the two-shrill-beeps of my cell. I plug in the damn hands-free and fall back on my pillow.

Here we go.

In the past week, I have come to tell, that all Private Number(s), all +50888 calls, and all such "I'm dying! Hear me out!" opening lines are impulsive reach-out pleas from my friend who has just ended her three-year long relationship with – merging tenses -- a gem of an ex.

"Get up ya! There's no one else I can talk to!"

I'm still a groggy "Haan, what?"

For three years, they were as perfect as an outsider's understanding of perfect went. Perfectly happy, they even loved each other's families. Shaadi was in 2010, and babies were to pop out soon after. That was the plan. Then it became a habit. She got bored. Passion dried up. They would meet after three-three months and cuddle. And soon/ sure enough, there was "this other guy…"

Now, she and I have been friends for eleven years, back when I wore braces and she had no dress sense. And over the years, we've stuck it out. We share a love for vague talk and hypotheticals. And she might have been the first person I felt free with. Turns out that and our mutually abusive love-hate relationship, has kept us relatively close. So obviously, we know each other’s boy histories, and what our as 13-year-old stands on sex appeal were.

In school, she would make lists for everything. And not just immediate task, she would pen down long-term goals, and number them in order of priority. During our tenth-standard boards, she would stick post-its on her mirror because some fuck-all chapter in Economic theory still had to be revised.

At the surface of it, never will you know a more stressful person. Bottom line, I know how much she needs structure. She lives to plan. Timetables are her life. No Capricorn you know will like organisation as much.

Which is why when she calls, like she has been, at 18-hour-cycles from New York to tell me that she doesn’t know what to do and this is not how it’s supposed to be and that The Problem is she feels like they have been married twenty years, my first impulse is a comic “who’d’vethunk!”

Now, I do feel like a vulture, pecking as I am at the fleshier parts of my friend's (love) life. But you are no less of a voyeur. And there this other guy, setting her loins ablaze. So the fab ex is a bore, new fling boy is a dish and she feels like a slut. Not the least of her worries is Guilt. "I can't do this to him, you know…" He is such a wonderful person… you know?"

The woman’s been studying in the States for half a year, and she's already successfully incorporated in her diction that comma way of speaking. You know what I mean? Like full stops, are so passé? And like, who needs them? ("Rising intonation," as my esoteric boyfriend corrects me when I mimic her.)

As pointless as it is to tell her to shut up and go ahead with the fling, I feel bad for the fool because she thinks all her well-laid plans are mounting to squat. Rubbish like this is throwing her off gear and I don’t suppose the job situation helps. Typically enough, she’s blaming herself.

Happens to the best of us, such is life, predictability is for the birds, this is a GOOD thing, the fling will probably be good for you, meaningless sex has its benefits… all such advice and more is falling flat. And the poor deluded baby is insistent and myopic in her belief that she and her about-to-be-wrecked-with-irreparable-hurt-and-jealousy gem of an ex will remain friends for life.

7 comments:

Perakath said...

"Full stops are so passe"-- haha!

S Vardhan said...

I love how you diss the whole "we will be friends" charade; lingering guilt and habit don't have a more frequent fig leaf.

Be good friend I suppose, hear the milkspiller out, but I wonder if your advice is what you really feel, or plin reassurance for a friend who is clearly lonely, even in her take on the situation.

Heartbreak sucks, then again, why cage it in description?

manu said...

eh I like this S Vardhan's comment more than the post :-D phbbt

manu said...

ok ok, I didnt really mean that! very nice friend you are.. meaningless sex has its benefits eh? must find out someday

Anonymous said...

Hmmm.. is the ex an 'ex-except he doesn't know it yet'? Else why all the guilt? We needs sex after all, and we needs it to be good.

Man, if we don't get to experiment in our 20s we will be a bunch of emo idiots in our 30s.

Nimpipi said...

Manu: yea yea yea. I like his comment too. Had full 300 lines of gchatting with him about this.

Hypatia: you're new, hey! and really, THANK you! if we don't experiment in oour 20s when will we?! phew! (manu: seeee!!)

manu said...

waat!? agreeing with you only na! experiment aaway my dear.. but whats with the 20-30 boundary of abstinence man.. why should we be becoming less adventurous at 30? .. or expect less from sex?.. *sniff.. 4 years only left for me.. I will not agree .. no no