Anti-Socialite?Me? Err...

This is a great season for anyone who’s remotely interested in Sports. The French Open has just given way to the Wimbledon, the Champions League to the World Cup and the ODI’s to a Test Series. The Heat have just wrapped up their maiden NBA title and Alonso looks on track for a second successive Championship. All in all unless you are a hardcore pole vault fan you should get ‘some’ slice of sporting action that you might like. Now, all this means that I find myself quite clueless when I sit to write about something else. I could possibly write about my favorite team itself but they just got knocked out last evening.

I could also dwell on HT but you would hardly take me seriously especially because as of now I’ve little to crib about HT. I could also go on ridiculing ToI but that, coming from an HT employee, wouldn’t be to your mind an objective assessment. Nonetheless for the record, if you are on Orkut, do check out a community called ToI-LET Sucks. (Ahem… Sorry, but how could I let you go off my blog without bringing your notice to this…:-D)

A friend who joined with me a month back was telling me how he would miss his friends every morning when he’d wake up. It would be a tad depressing for him to begin his day like that. After all, this was a new place filled with new people.
That got me thinking about my first thoughts every day and I ended up saying:
“When I wake up, I’m blank…just blank”

Both of us laughed over it but it was quite true. These days, I’m just blank. Hardly anything seems to bother me. Being with friends is good, so is being in the office, so is being in the bus, so is walking and so is eating. Nothing is extraordinary. It’s just a simple life and I don’t hate it and I don’t love it. I’m neither depressed nor ecstatic. I’m not inert but I can’t seem to even attempt to describe what my state of mind is these days.

I hardly call anyone, hardly message friends, hardly scrap anyone, don’t like going to crowded places and ever since the Messengers have come in, I’ve hardly availed of their services. Not because I’ve just let go off my friends but because I’m sure that when I meet them again I’ll still be the same and not staying in touch through SMS’s, mails or calls would really not matter then. Some people don’t get this logic of mine, so here’s an example.

Let’s say a close friend gets married and she couldn’t tell me. (Because I never gave her my number or e-mail ID or she never tried finding out or for whatever reason) . Would it be fair on her part to tell me when I meet her that:
“ Where the hell were you? I tried calling you so many times ”.

Or would it be fair for her to start with something like:
“Hey, I’m married. What’s new with you?”

In all probability the conversations that follow would be the same but isn’t it easier to deal with the second one. All of us attach so much importance to this ‘staying in touch’ phenomenon but my take on this is if you’re really good friends you need’nt speak or mail each other every week. With the kind of lives Management Trainees lead, things hardly change over a year. The important thing in my opinion is that when such friends’ meet, they should be able to exhibit the same level of warmth to one another in spite of the time that’s lapsed between them. Now, I don’t have a problem with people who stay in touch but I definitely can't digest statements directed me at times like the ubiquitous “Where did you disappear?” (Meet me, I’m Harry Houdini!) .

The accusatory “How come you never called me?” (I was scuba diving and cells don’t work deep down there. Would you believe it? ).

And the worst “ Are you alive?” (Yep, I was dead but have risen now. Heard of Christ?).

Even worse “ You seem to have forgotten me…” (How I wish!)

The other evening I went out with a friend for dinner that had been long overdue. When I was telling her all this, she said could hardly believe it. In her words it was “an anti-thesis of the Issac, we knew in college ”.

While I used to be known as quite an extrovert in college, I never was. I could always be in a crowd and enjoy it or seem to enjoy it. But given a choice I would’ve always preferred being in my own room reading a book or watching a movie. Doing anything but spending time outside with a group of people and trying to be politically correct.I also mentioned to her that as my college life progressed both during graduation and post graduation, I’d always get a huge group of friends to begin with. I can say for a fact that each of these friends would actually consider me fairly close. While I’d be their best friend, philosopher and guide that I could, I could never fathom why they would approach me in the first place. Invariably by the end of the year I’d end up in a really small group or sometimes all by myself. Most of the times, I preferred that ‘all-by-myself-time’ to anything else. Yet, I played along. I was always seen in a group, different groups at different times. I also got a very good set of friends. Sheer gems, all of them. And yet I find asking myself if my friends actually know me that well.

Was there a mask to my being? Is there still a mask to my being? Does it matter?
How do I know? Whom to ask?

As I’d written in one of my previous posts… uncomfortable questions…