Its very windy at my balcony

“Dinner tonight?”

“Hmmm… not really. Thanks though for asking”

A few weeks later…

“Movie?”

“Hmmm…. Not really. Thanks for asking”

He never gives up.

“Why are you so anti social?”

Before I can launch on an analysis as to why I am the way I am, he hastily added, “I mean, can’t you be more social?”

“It’s a choice”

“It’s not a good choice anyway”

Days later.

“Snow bowling”

“I wouldn’t even be able to lift the ball. And I have a terrible aim”

Another time.

“Go karting?”

“Hmmm… why don’t you just go ahead with it and without me?”

I was at a loss. It wasn’t that I was always like this. Beaches, ice cream parlors, parks, friends’ homes, restaurants, movies did exist in my life at some point of time.

Maybe anti social attitude was a catching disease. I think I caught a very potent strain of the virus from someone.

“Dinner?”

I had to do it. He was standing outside my house when he asked me this!!! With him were a few of his friends as well. A clean shirt and a quick introduction later, we found ourselves outside the restaurant.

I found myself sitting beside someone who was 5 minutes old in my life. The person I’d come with had deserted me to get food!!! As if food was important! &*^%$#@

I was getting tired of smiling the same strained smile at the same person, when I decided that talking was less painful to those forced muscles.

“So, where do you work?”

“I don’t have a job as of now. I am jobless. Unemployed like a lot of Indians.”

I wish the earth had opened up and swallowed me. But I sat on firmly on the chair which was firm on the unmoving ground.

I took another look at him and decided that he looked very familiar.

“You look very familiar, but I can’t place it…”

He smiled. We went back to forced smiling. I’d done my bit.

It was when he was biting onto his burger and the lettuce popped out of that I got it!

I told him, “You look exactly like my cousin Anitha Chechi!”

I’ve stopped going out.
I’ve stopped trying to be social.
I hang out in the balcony with the clothes in the clothes line.