The odd 'woman' out?

At ACJ, I seem to be taking people by surprise and that too for two main reasons. First, for the fact that I don't look like I passed out of college two and a half years ago but way much younger. (Well, I do wonder whether that is a boon or a curse, because, it is always good to look your age, isn't it?). Nevertheless, the second reason is the more important of the two and what this post is all about.

Three days back I had gone to college dressed in a white and sky blue salwar, a white kameez with little pale blue flowers scattered around and a blue salwar. The dupatta was a pleasant sky blue with light crushes. Promptly came questions along with compliments, "Kya yaar, aaj kal thoo badi achi dheek rahi hai?" ask my colleagues with that "hey don't hide it from me" kinda smile. So, obviously the next question is, "Who is that special guy?". And I only sigh and reply for the 'nth' time that I really don't have anybody 'special' in my life.

They almost jump, but well that is just the latest episode of this million dollar question that has been fired at me from the time I landed in this college,in all its variations - "Do you have a boy friend?" (with all the seriousness!) or "Don't tell me you don't have a boy friend!" (Oh hell! how does it bother you? Be happy with yours!) or "Do you have someone in your life?" (a much better and refined question, Boy friend sounds very crude and unromantic and flirtish, if you ask me..hey, to all readers, no offence meant!!)

My answer is almost immediately out - "Well, actually no!". And I am the odd girl out that I send rude shocks to everybody with my answer, that these days, I have started feeling a great deal surprised at my 'single, non dating' status! Taking off from there, I have often wondered, how people manage to almost stick their mobile phones for hours and hours together to their ears and carrying out those romantic "umms...hmms..and then whats". If it's not the mobile phones then there are those long awaited daily dinners or routine walks. I have infact asked those in love, what they talk everyday for hours together, they just throw me those looks and say, you have to be into it to feel it, and you would infact feel and wishfully think that you had more time. The separating moments are so painful, they would say.

And if till that point of discussion above, I sounded unromantic and lifeless, you have got the wrong impression. People around me wonder why I haven't really gone ahead with somebody, as if it had to happen as a matter of routine. The truth is that I am like that. I don't easily get into relationships and if I do, I would take care of them with all the care in the world. Truly speaking, there have hardly been any occassions for people to see how romantic I could get - and so I really can't blame them for the impressions they carry about me.

I am a true piscean, if not for anything else, for the way I dream. Dreams are a part and parcel of my life, and most of them translate into my writing and it would be a blatant lie if I said that I am in my dreams, what I am in reality. I could be as romantic as I can get, and sooner or later, they would all find their ways into those bits of paper, where I scribble the dreams of my lifetime and dump them into that inconspicuous corner in my cupboard.
(Probably, I would post one of them, for Valentine's day!!)

I wonder sometimes at my courage - and feel that I am so quiet in the real world to actually venture into something, as boldly as I go about in my dreams. I would rather talk and talk and talk in my dreams, than in reality and feel secure about me, "him" and our lives together.

Today, I just hope I meet him sometime (or probably have run into him sometime, already!) and pray that if I did meet him, he wouldn't say, after everything, "I still haven't met my girl ". Fears, probably, of rejection, that is what holds me back, from venturing into anything. All said and done, for now, I can only wait and continue to convince people, I can't easily find the boy friend that they so badly want me to have!