Chez Moi

After years of dodging the issue, I am accepting it. What has prompted this revelation, you ask. Yet another blowout with S, after yet another crowded desi gathering and I’m throwing in the towel. Why am I so? Well, for starters, I do not get along with everybody. Who does, you ask. Good q. Nobody but they mask it better. I don’t. I always thought I will not be a hypocrite and be false to someone when I think they are crap. By that, I do not mean I am generally rude to people or anything silly like that. I just remain a bit aloof - well I do that till I become comfortable around a person, before I let my guard down. And if it turns out that the person cannot be trusted, then I don’t ever let my guard around them. Is that wrong? Well, I thought not but S thinks I intimidate people. How, when I try my best to mask that I am intimidated by most people out there?

To explain my case, let me tell you the story of this Telugu family we know. The child’s dad works with S and we’ve been to their house a couple of times for lunch and they have been to ours once and though I wouldn’t say we became bosom pals, I thought I was still quite nice and pleasant to her. S says I intimidate the female half of the sketch by speaking in English all the time. Give me a break here: I am a Tamilian while they are Telugu. They have lived in Madras for couple of years and though the girl’s picked up some Tamil, it is way different from mine and I speak Tamil very fast anyways. As I don’t speak any Telugu at all, I thought ‘let’s stick to English’. Well, hey, we live in England and all that. But no - apparently not. By speaking in English to desi folks, I intimidate them.

S also claims that I am socially inept. Why? Coz we do not have a major social life and a big group of mates. This sort of links to the point I made above and he says it is all a part of the social fabric. Being a hypocrite, I ask. Being friendly without trying to be a soul mate, he says. But I do not act nice and friendly to someone to their face and then bitch about them behind their backs now, do I? That’s besides the point, apparently.

Some people also go off me mysteriously. Don’t know why. Let me give an example - there’s this fellow mum at P’s school who was also in my dressmaking lesson with me. We used to get along fine then and used to stop now and then at the school gates to exchange pleasantries. Couple of months back, she told me she was thinking of looking for a job and I suggested my place of work. She said she will ring my mobile so I’ll have her number to give her more details. She never did. When I asked her the next time I bumped into her, she made some excuse, said she can’t go back to work just then and hurried off. We have been a strictly ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ duo since then.

I thought I at least belonged in my safe, cyberworld. But no. My social ineptitude followed me there too - when I met up with two of my fellow writers at DC, I thought things went swimmingly. But further emails have been unanswered and plans to meet up at a later date politely ignored. See, I told you it was me.

I always thought I was sort of like Howard Roarke, the rebel who refused to conform to norms and let society dictate terms. I will be a person by my own rights - not a fake smiling and back biting one; just a genuine one, in a WYSIWYG format. But nah, apparently not. I am wierd.