Excuses and explanations

Na, he wasn’t hitting on you. He was merely talking. He might have found you pretty but he had no intention of taking it any farther than admiration. On the other hand, you—blessed with a hi-tech mind—deciphered signals which weren’t even transmitted in the first place. You turned into an expert on anthropology to come up with corollaries of your own. Guess what? There were no pickup lines at play. No attempt to charm you. He knows himself way too closely to push himself into an intimate spot like that. His inadequacies won't let him anyway. He was just being his usual self spouting mere jokes whose sole intention were to create an atmosphere of laughter. You know, people chuckle out loud and for those few fleeting moments, forget their shortcomings? Exactly. He doesn’t need booze to do so. He’s like this almost all the time. Yes, he may have liked your company so he might have wanted to stay by longer. He’s a lonely creature at times, blabbering away to glory. But he doesn't desire anything in return for his verbal investment. What if he wasn’t seeking a date or a night with you? Think about it. What if he believes in the present more than the past or the future? Furthermore, there were no set patterns in his approach or behaviour, were there? He wasn’t flirting with you, sweetheart. There's no explanation. Just the way he is and the way things are. He talks with others—irrespective of their gender or age—in the very manner he spoke to you. It’s either this or there’s no conversation whatsoever. You should catch him on his dull days. He quite literally disappears into his chair. He might have touched your arm while tilting his head back to laugh at his poor jokes. Believe me, he does that with much older men in his office with whom he’s never going to sleep. Just like he won’t with you. He doesn’t understand the world or the generation that he’s supposed to belong to although he pretends to. He finds it excruciatingly fake at times. The blind adoption of Western (read: American) civilization and the constant conflict with its Indian counterpart is too stark for him to ignore. And these are the signals that bother him deeply, not yours.

Making a move on

She was once in love with a guy who was very much into bikes. She remembers pillion riding with him and dreaming of a future together while wrapping her arms around his torso. Turned out they fell apart even before he could change the gear. Today, so many years later, she believes she has moved on to a slower but a more fulfilling place. But has she? After all, whenever she comes across a speeding biker or a wrecked bike—neither of which isn't a matter of dearth in this city—she thinks of him and his love for machine. Well, she doesn't stop there. She silently prays he's safe somewhere and reaching—if not reached—wherever he was meant to.