Valentine's Special - Fighting like nobody's business

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Yes. It is a fight club -  two's a duel. A verbal duel that begins with me, peaks with me and ends with him. Didn't I tell you about a little yin and yang the last time? Yes, so I fight and he listens. Yin and yang, there  you have it.

I have been guilty of pulling him to a combat, most of the times because I am too bored of stuff (sorry, it is just that way with me. My thought process sometimes includes - "I am bored this evening, so let me provoke the boyfriend and polish some of my profanity hurling skills").

I have known to be a little on the tom-boyish side of life. I don't groom myself. I don't like to giggle that much. I don't think unkempt hair and nails is the end of the world. I don't want to watch those sappy sentimental movies. I swear more than the average girl does. I have an intense urge to jump off a trapeze or a moving plane. I like to lounge around in my pajamas, outside. I think Brad Pitt, Ashton Kutcher, Bradley Cooper and all those blue eyed men don't deserve any attention. I don't like chocolates, cakes, flowers, stuffed toys..almost anything sweet and cute to look at. I like my gifts to have a lifetime utility value. I could go on forever....

But what has that to do with fights I have with boyfriend? Nothing. I was just in a mood to distract you all. However, I turn into this egoistical bitch, stubborn and dreadfully moody at times - something that the boyfriend has carefully studied for years and has trained himself on how to detonate that type of behavior.

It is weird how a relationship survives amidst silly fights. If that soap opera told you that fights only show how much you love each other, I will say yes to it and also add that it shows your destructive side too. There is an old adage - "Think before you leap" and I am not glad to say I don't go by it.

There is a natural destructive tendency in girls and no matter how much effort I put in to revitalize my tom-boyish side of personality, this is one trait I will never be able to give up - that natural destructive tendency to "fight" - exists in all girls. No exceptions made. This is in our DNA. We like to "work" things up in our mind, lock them up and give the boys a chance to unlock them.

Needless to say boys are so straightforward they can't tell through the manipulation. They can be goddamn CEO's, astronauts, physicists and Formula one racers but they can never, never, never get to what's on a girls mind. Which is the point of the whole fight. "So you can't figure me out? Is this how much you love me?" - This sentence is enough to start a slew of fights. We need no other topic to pimp this fight.

Now ask me what true love is?

True love is the boyfriend blinking blind at the face of manipulative provocations like a puppy dog. Which annoys a girl to no limit since she suddenly feels like her "superpowers" to provoke a fight have vanished. But when the day drains out on her and she knows that she has no one to provoke, she will knock the doors of the boyfriend and ask - "Care for a fight?" (Didn't I say this was a fight club?)

Valentine's Special - Painting the town red (but in stealth mode)

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I am bloody impressed at how that was possible - courting each other secretly. Or was it? For some weird reason, no one asked if we were dating each other. Either it was more than apparent that we were dating or people just didn't give a shit. I believe it is the latter. Let's give some cred to people's intellect here, ok?

I am also bloody impressed at how a shockingly routine life suddenly turns into a dreamy doe eyed fantasy. (Ok I stretched that too far, but you get the point). After all all that notion of thunderstorms, violins, misty clouds etc. must have flourished sometime in an alternate universe, to be depicted so incessantly in movies. Three cheers to Bollywood!

Darting around the town in stealth mode was a piece of cake. We had a strict code of conduct. No sheepish looks. No affectionate glances. No flirtatious glint in the eye. Hell, we could totally come across as two strangers, if we wanted. We just raised our cloaks up and walked around all day like Sherlock Holmes and Watson. And if anyone asked we could always tell - "We are pals, chilling out. As pals do."

We shamelessly dodged every invitation from friends who wanted to hangout with us. (Of course, I can tell you this was so easy-peasy because we didn't really have that many friends to boot in the first place)
Parents can wait. Bosses can wait. Work can wait. Bills can wait. Eating can wait. Sleep can wait.

Only meeting could not wait.

I picked up life lessons along the way...

Lesson 1: I can text at the speed of light. Also I will draft texts when I get a gap of about 1 min (when either of us is on a bathroom visit)

Lesson 2: I am capable of being a multitasker. I can watch TV, text live commentary to boyfriend and fake-hear my dad talking all at one go.

Lesson 3: I can drive my bike fast - Out of a work meeting and in a movie theatre in mere minutes.

Lesson 4: I can tell NO. No to meetings, no to wedding invites, no to boss, no to parents. Life is a lot more productive now.

Lesson 5: I can take pleasure in little things. Boyfriend got me a chocobar today, a pan pizza from a hole-in-the-wall food joint and corn from the guy who was tired of seeing our faces everyday. Life is rocking right now.

Lesson 6: I can watch nonsensical movies and still be in a happy mood.

Lesson 7: I can make incredibly silly faces and still look sexy.

Lesson 8: I can bitch to my heart's content and not wait for someone's approval since I am always right.

Lesson 9: I can be an arrogant, manipulative, cynical bitch and still be "cute" and "influential"

Lesson 10: I can throw caution to the wind and become fully independent. I have gangster backing now. Boyfriend = gangster. He will help me procure books, pirated software, street food, movie tickets, mp3's - all the essential things that I cannot afford to compromise.

However like all good things must come to an end, the facade of reality crumbles as soon as you are through this phase. And that is why they say - Enjoy till it lasts.

Disclaimer: I do not take any responsibility of your well-being if you choose to follow some of the "life lessons" above. Strictly, at your discretion. Because, who knows, your boyfriend might not turn out to be quite the gentleman you thought he would be.

Valentine's Special - A little Yin and a Little Yang

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So the earlier post did not go down. That is a good sign. I got the seal of boyfriend approval today morning. Yay. Happy Valentine's Day everyone :-) I can't exactly say may you have more and more boyfriends/girlfriends. But I said it already...

Also, props to Googlers who made this. Love it!

Anyhoo*

Do you know what the best part of early days of dating is? You do not have to be at your best behavior. That's right. You can follow that advice all your friends and teachers wrote in your "autograph book" when you left school -

"Be Yourself"

(I never, till date, understood what that is supposed to mean. Did they mean to say, stop being fake and grow up? That was the most controversial statement of my school life.)

Be Yourself.

So for instance, I could giggle a lot (I think I cackled more than giggle) and get away with it. If you didn't know how annoying it is for the opposite person while you are giggling unnecessarily, next time please take that table by a group of teenage girls sporting Beiber shirts and polka dotted nail paint)

I could eat a hell lot and it would still be "cute".  I could just come in an old jeans and t-shirt and still appear so "chilled out". Obviously, I unashamedly milked this vantage point.

However, one thing led to another and from our behaviors, I could only conclude that we happened to be dangerously opposite in nature. But I was completely confused. What if either or both of us were not acting "genuine"? Allow me to explain.

Take 1:

I hated shopping. I still do. My idea of shopping is to scan the entire floor of apparel and after careful thought, price comparison and optimization, pick exactly one (ok maybe two on a bright day) piece and go home. Also, this one piece will be a regular looking garment (read jeans, boy t-shirt or a cardigan).

Whereas my boyfriend was totally taken by the idea of shopping. As if his life depended on it. He would scan the entire floor nevertheless, but pick pieces that will blow your mind and you will stand there like an idiot, watching him mix and match like a magician.

Needless to say, it made me uncomfortable and insecure. This thing - shopping- is supposed to be a girl's home turf.

Take 2:

I wasn't any pious. Heck, if you had me get up and take bath on a religious day, you should feel lucky. I imagined guys were like that. Not generally pious and all such good things. So imagine my surprise when I see my guy do elaborate rituals as if his full time job was that of a priest. Not only that, but he often felt generous and explained (very patiently) about these rituals.

What could that mean to me? Embarrassing yes. Cute no. Admiration maybe. But the top of it all was this - is he manipulating me into following these things? Is he or is he not?

Take 3:

A vegetarian and a foodie don't belong. Him - vegetarian, Me - foodie (that means non-vegetarian).

If you want to tell me that a vegetarian can also be a foodie...well then...Y.A.W.N

So when the noble priest and rockstar shopper orders a vegetarian dish, what do you do? You order the exact opposite of course. No compromise. And also go overboard about how much you love animal parts. Bheja Fry. Liver Fry. Paya. You know talk about "hardcore" stuff.

The good thing was I didn't have to share my food. The bad thing was I was eating from his plate.

Did he think I was a glutton? Did he think I could strangle him one day for food? Very confusing again.

And inspite of all the forces against us, evil eyes and wagging tongues of people whom we didn't care or seem to notice, we sticked together. Why? Because it was epic! Little yin and a little yang.

And also because his "About me" on Orkut profile read "I keep the drama at the door". He got me there.

*No, that wasn't a typo. Anyhoo is the "cooler" way of saying Anyhow.  Refer Tobias Funke from Arrested Development.

Valentine's Special - The day we met and sparks didn't fly

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Happy Valentine's Week friends :-)

If you are surprised at why I am so jolly good about Valentine's week (yes I am celebrating the whole damn week, because I wish so..its a free country ok?), don't ask. I am surprised as well.

Let's just say I am in mood and move on now. Lately, I have been at war with my boyfriend and I think it is the perfect time to make up to all the shit I throw at him. So being the generous girlfriend I am, I will gift him something from my heart. (Also, because he wants nothing short of a BMW and I cannot afford one right now I will be the eternal frugal girl that I am and hence all the pre-hype about "something from my heart").

So I thought I would just write one post a day, the entire week, about our burgeoning romance from the yesteryears (yes it has been THAT long) and dedicate them to him. Also I cannot guarantee you if this will happen - I might take down the posts if my boyfriend happens to object to this sudden feeling of blog-charity. So consider yourself lucky if you read it in time. Ahem.

I cannot tell you how our love just keeps growing and multiplying over the years. (I am not getting the right cliche to throw in here. Sigh.)

But I can tell you this - It wasn't the proverbial love at first sight. Which thoroughly disappointed me later, when I confessed love, because all my fantasy about love at first sight hadn't come true. It shattered my whole belief system in "love-at-first-sight" fantasies I had as a young girl. Also, I don't believe in fairy tales anymore as a result.

The day we met was rather a dull day. No thunderstorms. No rains. No voilins. Not even bloody good food. DULL. DULL. DULL.

I was working as usual (What did you think? This is what people do in real life. Work. Not dance around trees and think about love fantasies). A common friend of ours had mentioned that he was in the same premises as my work. Which did not the least bit interest me in any way. I mean he was merely an existence till then. I knew him, he knew me. Vaguely. Yawn.

So I just had to be nice and all, like I always am. Also I was bored but obviously I was not going to tell him that. I shot an email into the cloud (I had to throw in the word "cloud". It is the most hip word to use in Silicon Valley right now). And then I sat nibbling and day dreaming (those are clear indication of work boredom). I checked Orkut and re-checked Orkut and kept doing so in intrevals of 5 minutes. (Ya Facebook didn't exist then. Orkut was all the hope we got back then).

And then the email reply happened. Of course, who could resist a charming email from me. Right?

Wrong.

Little did I expect an email reply that read something like this - "I am not sure if I have time to meet...blah blah blah..". Yes I did not care to read the rest of it because I was Jesus freaking mad at him.

What the what? No time? No time for me? A BITS Pilani graduate? (I will forgive your ignorance now, think of BITS as the Ivy League of India).

I am BITS fucking Pilani graduate! And this guy, of all the nerve, rejects me over email?

On second thoughts, I always think that was a classic move on his part. Playing "hard to get" is a classic classic move my boyfriend. Very classic.

But back to the moment. He rejected me!

Oh ya, sparks of a different kind were definitely flying. So I risked signs of desperation and sent him another email. Very subtle about how it can be "a quick chat over the rooftop - nothing of importance - would be nice to catchup"

On second thoughts, #FAIL. Very non-classy of me. I regret till this day.

So what followed was not a quick chat. Instead we had more than an hour long chat. Didn't I tell you I was charming? No make it lethal. I used to be lethal.

What did I tell you? No sparks. No love at first sight. But the longest, soul-stirring (ok not really but insert some profound word here), chat-sy chat of epic proportions ensued...till the cloud (the real cloud, like, up in the sky cloud) disappeared and gave in to the moon and stars and it was time to drive back home.

I mean, how romantic, longest chat ever on the first day ever of a brewing romance. It was nonsense, gossip, silly and profound, intellectual and highly enlightening at the same time. And yet I vaguely remember what the chat was about.

In other news, boyfriend thinks he might want an Ipad. I will ask him to wait till "Ipad 3 comes out". Which obviously wont happen by Feb 14. Classic move Manju.