Imaginary Relationships

It was only a matter of time before someone thought of imaginary relationships to fill in for an absent real one or perhaps even escape from reality without the feelings of guilt. This defies categorization - it is not even a virtual relationship where both parties are mentally engaged to each other. Technically this could not even be called infidelity. Amy Sedaris and her twelve year relationship in imagination may have well catalyzed the business for imaginary girlfriends.

The fine line between real and unreal could get very blurred with there being real women behind scenes who will be in pretend-love with their real clients. This deal can get more complicated than owning a virtual pet that was the rage some years ago.

Out of Availability is described as " Girlfriends in this category are booked to capacity and cannot accept new orders at this time." Overbooked as in how many pretend-personas she can divide herself into until she is saturated ? I wonder how capacity is determined.

That the service plan should include "When your time is up you can break up with her for whatever reason you decide, and she'll write you a final letter begging you to take her back" speaks volumes for why they are in business to begin with.

Apparently there is not quite the equivalent market for imaginary boyfriends. With popular stereotypes about women fundamentally wanting a home and family with a Mr. Nice that is not so surprising. This may be a niche opportunity that could end up tapping hidden demand obscured by myth and stereotype.

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...

Carefree Wandering

There are these lines in Paul Cohelo's Alchemist that I love about the shepherd turning a year later to sell wool and being unsure if he would meet the girl there But in his heart he knew that it did matter. And he knew that shepherds, like seamen and like traveling salesmen, always found a town where there was someone who could make them forget the joys of carefree wandering. What is true of the the power of love and making a person want to settle is also true of finding purpose in life. If and when a person is able to connect their work to purpose they care about, the desire for change disappears. They are able to instead channel that energy into enhancing the quality of the work they are already doing. As I write this, I remember S a brand manager I used to know a couple of decades ago. He worked for a company that made products for senior citizens, I was a consultant there. S was responsible for creating awareness of their new products and building awareness of what already ex...

Heartcrossings

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