Chapter 2: Girl no. 1

Kids, love is a strange commodity. In a way it's like money. If you earn it easily, it'll fade easily.

Girl no. 1 and I met online. I know in a way, that's lame. It was like a bliss. We thought alike, I made her laugh her guts out, she got all my jokes, in a way, she can be held responsible for my pathetic sense of humour. She encouraged even the most cheesiest of my jokes that I was slowly moulded into a PJ master. I am still recovering for that.

Jokes apart, I enjoyed all our telephonic late night conversations. She brought the best out of me. She gave my inner voice a ... well, voice. Somehow I realised the value of telling someone what you think. It helps you flesh out your own ideas and sometimes, midway in the narration, you realise how insipid your ideas are.

We got along well, I thought this was it. I fell for her. Turns out, all good things come with a "conditions apply" tag. Here, the case was that... uh... she liked someone else and she had so many more options. I wrapped my feelings with guilt and shoved them to some corner of my heart. A girl who is genuinely, not at all interested in you... is a huge turn off. Girls should take note, never let a guy know that you are interested in him or not. If you are, the guy will just keep you as a stand by option and if no, the guy will automatically, as a rule, move on... unless it's too late and he has already turned into a psychotic stalker.

So... she kind of loved me. Every night, before hanging up, I used to say "I love you" and she used to say "I love you too... as a friend". Well, my scuffle with this "Friend" tag continued later in my life too as you'll come to know in subsequent chapters.

It could have turned into love but, the sheer openness of our relationship ruined it. I moved to a place closer to her and suddenly, we stopped chatting... almost as if terrified that what we dreamed of, might become a reality. Maybe we liked each other as invisible telephone persons but, the thought of meeting and dating that person was too scary.

When we finally did meet, we were both friends... hopelessly in friendship with each other.

Friendship here can be defined as the relationship between a guy and a girl where both know each other too well to be interesting in knowing more and yet, wouldn't let go of each other.

More later.