Skip to main content

The Dog Years

D and I met for lunch yesterday after a long time. Hearing about my most recent dating misadventure she commented "You seem to have the knack for meeting the psychoest guys out there. I don't know how you do it".

This is not the first time that someone has observed and commented on my weird magnetism. Unfortunately, no one seems to know the fix for it. My friends tell me that its not me - its them. While they theorize the density of weirdoes is abnormally high online so sooner or later meeting one or more of them is inevitable, everyone acknowledges that my encounters have been one too many for comfort and causes concern .

D has accosted harmless looking desi guys minding their own business and asked if they were "logically and logistically" single and interested in a getting to know yours faithfully. The first time this happened, her husband had watched the drama unfold with growing concern, now he just looks the other way as D goes about trying to set me up on a date with a "normal" desi. She has given up on my ability to find anyone without serious mental health issues.

N, who has generously offered to be my relationship coach a la Hitch and Dr Phil only with the desi touch had suggested the following regimen.

"In medical terms, this is condition is refered to as wackomolitis or creepotitis. I am going to have to suggest that you behenji-fy your wardrobe and start talking with a strong ghati accent to guys you fish on the net. No smart-ass repartees while conversating. And finally and most importantly absolutely no flirting for one week. Practice total abstinence. Report back in a couple of weeks"

He thinks that I cause weirdness to gravitate towards me. The topic of my discussion with D, strictly speaking is not weird, creepy or wacky. He is just a little bit strange, maybe confused. He is on the market, presumably interested in finding someone but has a little impediment in the form of a German Shepherd. He is not able to get on a plane unless the trip is planned a month or two in advance so he has had opportunity to interview a few dog sitters for the job.

Wherever he goes, the dog goes with him. I almost started to hum "Mary had a little lamb" when I heard this. For seven years he has had this dog and that's how long he has been single and looking as well - strange when you read the two facts in the same sentence. He has accepted his situation with a certain dogged determination. At one point , I was close to asking "So what have you decided, will it be the dog or a woman in your life ?" but thought the better of it given how that could be interpreted.

Besides the dog there is another minor issue - college football. He simply has to watch every college football game with no exceptions because he "has this thing for football". I wondered if this overzealous desi who is still working on localizing his accent had not taken cultural assimilation and emulating the American way of life a tad too seriously.

Comments

Anonymous said…
So why does it have to be a dog or a woman? Or watching college football? if he were weaned away from taking his dog everywhere and toned down his football addiction he would be as "normal" as any local. Give the poor dude another chance. If he's got yet another obsession then you can apply the three strikes rule...
Heartcrossings said…
SFG - Turns out that he makes a mean ground turkey and spinach burrito and what's more eats it every day for dinner. I think the three strikes rule is now in effect :)

Popular posts from this blog

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

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha

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