He’s Just Not That Into You
I saw the new Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston movie, “He’s Just Not That Into You”. It seems like I should call it like that, a “Ben and Jen” thing, but really I’ve never been a big fan of Jennifer or Ben. It’s not that I dislike either of them, they’re both okay, but I think they’re just too hyped up. I’ve always liked Drew Barrymore, though, who’s also in the movie. That girl is just right.
A friend and I caught the evening show. I met her in late 2007 online. She was managing a group having to do with cigars. It’s funny how we didn’t end up meeting until fall of last year sometime and that too for a couple of minutes as she and I were both finishing off the night at clubs that happened to be right across from each other. We finally met up on Valentine’s a week ago. She and a few friends were going out and she invited me to come hang out.
The movie deals with reading and misreading signals and signs as young people meet and date. It also has to do with love and not finding Mr. Right or Ms. Right and dating lessons. The movie was really from a girl’s perspective, i.e., what does a girl go through when she’s dating. It was not from the perspective of the thoughts and actions men go through when they meet someone. So I can’t really do comparisons of myself to scenes from the movie. Thank God for that! 
As I watched the movie, I was reminded of why I am single. My problem is twofold. First, I don’t act as directly as maybe I should when it comes to initiating dating. Up to now, all women that I’ve had any kind of relationships with, it’s been them initiating it. The reason for this has to do with the fact that I was just way too focused on ”responsibilities” to even think about dating. I just wasn’t looking to get into a relationship. If it fell in my lap, fine, but I wasn’t doing much active searching.
Second, when I was preoccupied with “life”, I missed opportunities when women showed interest because I wasn’t looking to be in a relationship. I can now see the signals for a couple of the expressed interests I didn’t respond to earlier. Others, I probably am still not aware of them. The ones where something did happen was when women were very direct and I couldn’t miss it.
That was then. Today, I am looking to date. The problem is still that I don’t make a very direct move if I am interested in a woman. It’s funny how one person can be so different in different areas of their life. I’m not shy at work or professional realm but can be very shy in the beginning stages of dating. Actually, I don’t really know all the rules of dating because I just do what I feel is right at the time, I don’t really follow these cookie cutter rule books that some of my friends do. I go very slow and am way too subtle, so subtle that the woman may not even get it that I am testing the waters. I guess I test the waters too gently. This is definitely not good. It’s not a fear of rejection as much as the thought that I am imposing on someone something they may not want. I know they may not necessarily think of it that way, it really depends on the person. I guess I don’t like doing that with people I barely know (in fact, I think I’m not as free with people as I used to be. I think I can now only be free with my significant other.) I know this approach is not going to get me anywhere in dating!
On the other hand, I’ve learned that I respond to flirtation quite well! When women do the touching of your arm or the many other ways they can flirt, that stuff can get me started. Yes, sir, continuous flirting activity does get a response from me! I then will take small steps. At that point, if the woman is really interested, she’ll also respond positively, and something will start. When I’m in a relationship, I’m fine.
Going back to my friend who I went to see the movie with, I wonder if she’s interested in me. I don’t think she is because I’ve asked her quite a few times over the past year that we should hang out and we’ve never done that. Well, until now. Obviously, there must be some reason for that. The most likely reason is that she’s figured out we are just friends and nothing more is even a possibility. I wonder if anything’s changed on that since now she’s interested in hanging out. Since I don’t have any reason to think it has, I don’t want to be presumptious either. I think I wouldn’t mind getting to know her beyond friendship. She’s a cool girl and we gel well whenever we talk. But that’s putting the cart before the horse.
I guess we can let this topic be for now and revisit it later if there’s a reason to. I like hanging out with this girl and am okay with doing just that. If there’s some reason to think a relationship is in the offing, I’ll take it a step at a time.
Kerala Trip – Part 2
I am now back in New Delhi. I have been catching up with work emails and phone calls. Thought I would write a few more observations from my Kerala trip before I forgot them.
Language was a major issue for me. I had a hard time understanding the very heavy South Indian accent. I had to ask people to repeat themselves multiple times. This was in English. There are very few people who speak Hindi. In fact, there are over 50 languages in the state, according to our car rental driver, Nassar. Curiously, why haven’t they learned Hindi yet? There was also an effort to speak very softly, almost as if not wanting to be heard. The problem is for folks like me and my friend – we were getting irritated, my friend more than me, and frustrated that we couldn’t understand each other.
Along with language, it must be noted that Kerala is the most literate of states in India. Nassar said over 99% could read and write. For a country with the diversity spectrum on education that India has, that is quite a feat. Nassar has two boys and he proudly stated that they are both in school. In fact, he said, they were looking for white collar jobs (as he curiously pointed to his own driver uniform colored white). They no longer want to work on farms. This fit in with the information provided by the plantation guide. Many contract labor from Tamil Nadu come in to work on plantations during the peak season.
We went to an elephant camp near Thekkady (or maybe it was in the town). We ran into a young couple that was recently married. As my friend and I were speaking in English, the girl looked up and asked me where we were from. She could tell from my accent we were not local. Turns out, she was from Long Island in New York. She had just gotten married to a young doctor from near the town of Surat. As I found out later, he was studying medicine in Russia. They intended to move to the US after that.
While I found it somewhat interesting that a US-born person would marry someone who barely spoke English, my friend found it even more curious. She didn’t say anything, but you could tell from the smirk look on her face and her demeanor. When we introduced each other, I learned from their names that they were Muslim. I was glad to have met them. That night we were going on a night walk in the jungle and I wanted to tell them about it. My friend said they were on their honeymoon and wouldn’t want that. I think it was more so that she didn’t want that. When I ran into them the next morning, I asked them what they did the night before and the girl said they had done nothing (Ananya Nivas closes at 6pm and you cannot enter or leave the place after that, except for the night walks apparently). The girl said I should have told her and was clearly disappointed I didn’t from the look on her face. I knew they weren’t doing much and I think it would have enhanced their trip a bit. But oh well.
I had to leave Periyar to be back in New Delhi and so couldn’t do the backwaters. I was a bit disappointed in that because I had to pay more to change my flight than what it cost initially. I was perturbed by that. But on the bright side, it is something I can go back to if and when I get married.
Because I had to leave hurriedly, I took the bus from Alleppey to Kochi. It was about 80 km and 3 hour ride. There were no AC buses on the route (they had to be booked in advance) so I took the local. I sat in the back of the bus on the left side near the window. This is when I noticed something interesting and saddening about the Keralan culture. No women were seated in the front rows. They had seats in the right hand side and back of the bus! Even when seats were empty in the front, two women sat together in a row on the back. What’s even worse is when a husband and a wife came on the bus, the man went to the front while the woman sat in the back! There was a clear hierarchy.
It reminded me of Rosa Parks in the US and the black movement. I don’t know how much of this is in the “upper” classes in Kerala. The folks on this government bus were of the lower class and perhaps tribal folks. I do know that South Indians tend to be more conservative in many ways and this was an example of that. I got a few stares from people, especially men, as they entered and left the bus. What was I doing sitting in the back? As happens often with things I witness in India, I am both surprised at seeing it and yet not surprised either.
Paying the Price for My Father’s Mistakes
It’s a truism of life, and certainly that of Indian society, that a son pays for the sins of his father. It’s something I’ve come across, subtly and directly, in day-to-day life many times. It’s also something that makes me angry.
I bring this up because now I’m paying for the sins of my culture – more specifically, of the men in my father’s generation and generations before him. I was talking with this Parsi woman last night. We talked about the veg and non-veg issue. When she brought it up, I was very reluctant to get into it. I know where these things end up. I just didn’t want an argumentative conversation nor did I want this relationship with potential to go down the tubes. Of course, I knew we had to have the conversation so we did get into it.
My friend’s ex-boyfriend was a vegeterian. She decided to convert because of him. Apparently, he never asked her to do that, but she thought he wanted it. I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt to think she’s right. I wasn’t there, I don’t know. I also have no reason to doubt her judgment skills. The other part of this is that she thought it was expected of her. And this is where our conversation got interesting. She said she doesn’t want to repeat the problems that her parents had and have. They continue to fight even today. She didn’t like it then and still doesn’t like it.
This raised a question in my mind – is this woman a feminist or a closet feminist? I am not particularly interested in getting romantically involved with either one, especially the closet feminist. I told her I wasn’t sure if she was or not, I didn’t have enough information, but this is the question that gets raised in my mind. And it’s a concern, so I’m sharing it with you. I asked her if she thought she could fix the wrongs of her/our parents generation? She said she was not going to repeat the problems that her parents had. She did not want to give up everything for her man. It wasn’t right.
Now, I can’t argue with her there. I told her there were many things in our parents generation that were just unconceivable today. We do not do many things the same way. There are still, of course, many things that we do. I told her I was not interested in fighting the wrongs of yesteryear. I want a relatively painless and simple life – there is enough that’s going to go wrong in our relationship, enough problems we’re going to face, that I don’t want this to be another issue. I also said we couldn’t fix generations of problems in one. This stuff will take 3-4 generations to undo. She agreed but said she’s going to do her part.
Then I asked her if her issue of veg/non-veg was really about the food or was it about her being forced to follow “her man”. Was this a rebellion against Indian custom or was it really about the food? To me, they were very separate issues with very different implications for us – if it’s about the rebellion, then I’ve got a whole host of other things I’m going to be facing as she tries to fix the wrongs of our parents generation. But if it was about that, then the veg/non-veg thing was not really about the food. She didn’t like me bringing this up and saying it didn’t need to go that deep of a level. I couldn’t have disagreed more. This is an issue that needed addressing and you weren’t going to get to the bottom of it if you were not even recognizing the right root cause. She and I have had conversations about my past issues and we went to deep levels to and I did it voluntarily. She wanted to know, asked me about it, and I told her everything without hesitation. So why was it different now?
Partly, I have to admit that I do get into this analysis of situations to identify root causes. I do that with myself too, so no discrimination. 
I’m an equal opportunity shrink. I should have been a psychologist. Anyway, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten into this thing with her. Maybe I should have just left it at the superficial level that she gave me. But I didn’t. I am not sure one night/day later if I wouldn’t do it again. To me, it really does matter to get down to the root cause. But, the thing is I like this girl. I see potential there. And I can tell she likes me. She’s got things already planned in her head, I can tell that. She’s already accepting “us” as a “definite thing” in some ways. So I’m not quite sure what to make of it all.
To smooth this rather rough discussion, I wanted to talk about more peaceful things, more romantic things. Of course, she resisted on that front too. This is something she does a lot, it’s her yoga and meditation thing, and it bugs me. She essentially says we should not prescribe anything, just go with it. On more than a few ocassions, I bring something up, she cuts it down and says let’s not talk about that. I’ve been annoyed by that. On one level, she says don’t prescribe anything and essentially just go with it. When that’s exactly what I’m doing, she is the one not doing it. I found it odd. I told her that and she was taken aback at it for a minute, as if she didn’t get it herself, but then kept going with it. I didn’t want to argue, or make it into an argument, so I just let her.
Anyway, to smooth this discussion out, I asked her to describe how she saw her and me. I was feeling rather shitty and feeling like I had no reason to continue with this. I needed to get some idea of how she thought things would work so I could find a reason to stay connected. I asked her to describe how she saw our relationship, with the give and take, the fixing of our parents generations problems, etc. She said she wasn’t willing to do that. She didn’t want to go into the future. I wasn’t really going into the future in the sense of leaving the present, I was more of thinking what could be possible while still squarely staying in the present. A few minutes later I realized maybe she is not able to do that while I can. I told her I am asking this because I feel really shitty and need something to keep connected on. She said she hadn’t understood that but then she did and went with it.
And we had a great 30 minute conversation after that or however long it was. She described a few things she’s imagined. One was 10 days from now, she’d be leaving for the UK, and she’d be wondering when she’d see me next and how we’d talk, who would call, etc. Then it was 10 weeks from now and similar kinds of things. The third was 10 years from now. She said she’d hope her husband had given her a nice house. With a great kitchen! And she described it in detail (clearly telling me the kitchen and cooking thing is a big deal to her even if the cause is a fixing of our parents’ generations problems or about the food. I am leaning towards a bit of both and go back and forth on which is the bigger deal). She said she’d hope to have at least one 5 year old by then. And, she added, she wanted her firstborn to be a girl. I asked her why and she wouldn’t tell me. This perturbed me too. It was such a simple question, why couldn’t she answer it. If you don’t go with the flow on these things and get to know each other, how do you expect to form any kind of bond or convince each other you’re the right ones for each other. You’re just cutting the whole getting to know each other process.
She then said she wanted to explain something that didn’t necessarily have to be at any moment in time, it could happen at any time. She had this thought in her head that she would be married and her and her husband would be at a party. They’d know half of the people and half would be unknown. Her husband would be talking to someone and would want to introduce his wife (i.e., her) to this person. They would catch each other’s glance from a long distance (so movie like, but not something I haven’t heard from women before, something about catching the glance in a crowded room at a party seems to be a very common thing among women). In one situation of the event, he would nod to her and acknowledge by saying something like ”that’s her” to the person he was talking to. In another situation, she’d come up to him and put her arm around him and he’d put his arm around her and then he’d introduce her. She said, it wasn’t just an introduction, she wanted pride to be there when he said this was his wife. As she was looking to describe it, that was the very word that went through my mind, she wanted him to be “proud”. I told her this later and we smiled. I also told her that in both situations, that’s exactly how I would have imagined it. She was smiling and clearly feeling better and so was I. It was a very nice way to end the rough conversation, which apparently I felt worse about it than her!
When I got up this morning, was not feeling good. I wasn’t feeling really awful either but it wasn’t ecstatic. I got an SMS from her a few minutes later and I didn’t reply. I just lay in bed. She then sent me another message about 20 minutes later. I felt bad and replied. I told her I was in the shower and just getting out and putting clothes on, which is why I couldn’t reply to her. But I didn’t reply because I was a bit paralyzed. I didn’t know what to reply with. I was a little uncomfortable and frozen. But I didn’t want to convey that to her because she takes these things to mean more than I want her to because I probably would have forgotten about it and she’d have remembered and it would have diverted the direction of our relationship (for the worst, I presumed).
So this is where we are now. I’m still going to meet her next week. Oh, I didn’t mention – she told me after our veg/non-veg conversation that I needed to think it over and let her know how I felt. Not about the veg/non-veg thing but about the whole bigger issue of feminism fighter thing. While I didn’t call her that, and clearly said I didn’t have enough information, she found me labeling her and didn’t like it. I found that interesting – she seemed to know what I had concluded even before I had concluded it. Was she indeed a feminist or a closet feminist? We almost finished our conversation then. If I had let it die, which I did not, I don’t know if I would be still in conversation with her. I probably would have pulled the plug on it this morning if we had finished our talk at that point in the night.
Let’s see what’s next. Let’s see where we go tonight. We’ve exchanged SMS’s again today, things seem good, but this is not out of my mind, it’s very much there. I need to come to terms with the conversation and the veg/non-veg thing. Oh, I guess I should also mention that I did think – maybe I shouldn’t care about this diet thing. Let me just forget about it. This girl and I seem to have the same things in common in terms of what I want and what she wants (again, up to what we know now). I went back and forth on it for a bit and didn’t conclude on anything. This is something I do on these kinds of things, I let them sit for a bit. Let them just sit. For good or for bad, I just let them be. And if it comes up again it does. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. In this case, it of course will come back up again. I’ll deal with it then. Until then, I’m happy not thinking about it. I know, I know, not such a great thing to handle things.
These are the majority of things that came up. They’re not all exhaustive. I want to mention that.
Dating in Delhi Update Part 3
Just for good measure, I think I should add this “incident” to my post on our event.
I was happy with the turnout of the event in terms of quality. The people were cool. The conversation was flowing. It was fun. I was, though, disappointed by the numbers. Even when people tell me this is good, it’s only the first event, I still find myself disappointed. Anywho, to the point I was going to make:
As we finished dinner and dessert, I requested the check. I was going to pay for two people (the dude gave me his 1000). I gave the server my credit card and asked him to bring the check. When he came back, he has this weird look on his face. I didn’t have to wait long to know why. He proceeds to tell me that they are going to charge me for additional people to come to the minimum guarantee.
I calmly yet firmly told the server that I had not discussed a minimum guarantee with the manager, at least not in terms where I would have to pay to make up the balance. The manager had informed me of his minimum. I had informed him this is our first event, it could be 10 people, it could be 40. We had 
agreed that was okay! Further “proof” of that is that we agreed on two different packages, depending on the number of people who attended. However, no where was there a condition that I would pay for the balance. It hadn’t come up at all.
This is something you have to get used to getting from people in India. If you have agreed to something, it should be maintained in that manner. Instead, people will not necessarily abide by the agreement. A lack of integrity exists and it surfaces so often you don’t even think of it as something out of the ordinary.
To me, it was quite simple. If he was not able to offer me a package that worked with our situation as I had explained it in full transparency and detail, I would have simply gone somewhere else. Even if you don’t consider that it was a mutually beneficial situation (i.e., I had brought them business on their slow day), the negotiation process was clear. I told the manager our status on the group (i.e., it is our first event and we don’t know what to expect). We struck a deal as a result with the manager understanding the range of people that could show up. Asking me to pay for more people was out of line.
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