Prose before hos

On 10/10, I tell him he's today's date. He's stoked, I'm amused. 

Always low-ball your first offer. He's a 20, don't let him think otherwise and have his head in the air. 

. 

Where do you draw a line with friends who will be nothing but honest with you, at all fucking times?

I'm struggling to pick up the chalk and redefine the Radcliffe line here. The same stuff is what went down during Ethics in Philosophy III; the ad-hoc was really nice to me and I was grade A bitch. I was consistently eye-rolling at her and side-eyeing half the class or some such. I can confirm this as whole truth. A testimonial, if you may, from a bunch of people, who I call friends.

It's nothing short of a miracle that I have friends from college who stuck around, or for that matter, took my bullshit for 3+ years. Credit where credit is due. 



If at all, truth is to be told, then, we would be blessed to have people in our lives who would be nothing but brutally honest to us. Apparently, all my friends are brutally honest. Do I have a type? Yes. Are they emotionally unavailable? Only if I'm trying to bed them.

I digress. Coming back, a few weeks ago, I was telling a friend (let's call her K) about a minor fuck-up I did in terms of coming clean to someone about a certain situation.

What was this situation? Let's see. I was confronted with a question, and within seconds I point blank refuted everything. Instead of giving a detailed answer with facts, I chose the easy way out. I denied everything and took the shortcut.

Hazy facts equal complete denial of anything ever equal evading difficult questions.

I'd give you more details but you'll have to be nice to me and meet me over whiskey (which has thankfully given me no hangover so I'm back on my alcohol drinking ways, baby) and buy me alcohol until I am laughing like a hyena and can't type straight on my phone.

For someone who's a homebody, I digress a lot.

This entire episode was recited over lunch to K. As I narrated the hazy facts, my vehement denial and all the bullshit, I could sense her disturbance. Not as eloquently as I put 'bullshit', but you know, food spilling out of my mouth with some disturbing details.

"Do you realize, you've fucked this for yourself?"

"This was fucked up, to begin with. My coming clean about the facts and the variables would have added to more problems. I don't think I hav..."

"Save this. This is bullshit. You know you're saying all this to cover up and you should not have been dishonest."

For someone who's known me for just under a month (did I tell you that about K? I know her for barely a month), that was hard, and much needed.

Most of my friends have known of this certain situation and the facts which have been withheld for a reason. Not one pointed out the obvious flaw in the plan. Maybe, the situation today is so fucked cause I withheld the fucking facts and made the whole narrative dense instead of simplifying it.

I admit this hasn't been the easiest piece to write considering you don't know anything and are probably bored out of your wits. Heck, I've re-written this piece 3 times and it still reads like shit. I've time to kill and so I'll wrap this quick.

Truth bombs. That's what. What to do when your friends would be nothing but absolutely honest with you and push you to confront difficult situations and decisions as opposed to the shit they show on web series.

Do I know what to do? No. Am I attempting to figure this out? Also no.

On this subject, confronting truth and being completely clean, my old pal Mia K and I have gotten into hours of conversation leading to arguments. She and I have both said nasty things to one another, only to feel awful about it and being awkward the next couple of times around one another in times of distress. I'd like to believe she would have been more involved in my life if certain hard-hitting conversations had not gone down.

I don't mean this as disrespect or even with an iota of a grudge but being on the receiving end of brutally honest facts about yourself is disorienting. It really shakes your ground, especially when confronted by someone you actually care.

This was the case with Mia K, when she gave me her ultimatum, regarding a certain someone who she believed, is good for nothing wastrel. She had been opposing the alliance for a long time now and despite her subtle signals on the fact that she did not want to spend hours talking about him with me, and instead discuss meaningful things like work, life, hobbies (that exclude the hobbies she doesn't approve of aka Ludo or Tinder). All those points were fair and not demanding of me. I pushed her limit when my moping continued until the fifth month of the calendar year.

"I don't think I'll ever be able to get over it," 

I think that was the trigger. She blew up and rightfully, told me to shove it along with a long monologue, that I suspect she had been rehearsing in her head for at least a year.

I got yelled at and was asked to fucking straighten my act, not mope (lol) and move on with the remaining life aka focus on my fucking work, PhD, Ludo and whatever it is was adding positively. Okay, maybe not Ludo but the other fucking things.

In my defence, I did not want a solution. I just wanted support to lean on and cry to. Nothing more.

I was actively doing things with people at work, my friends, my family, heck, even strangers on the internet, and occasionally with the man in possession of good set of abs, who shall forever remain nameless (this city is far too small for names).

I was in a bad space personally, professionally and doing what I did with the situation, which is I worked so hard till I annoyed my co-workers, applied for all possible journals, did freelance, worked some more, and watched garbage on the internet. I did not want a reminder of what was the call of action. I just wanted a shoulder to cry on and apparently, not one shoulder around me was available. This would only happen in the hour or two post-work and before bed, considering I was spending most of my time working

For that yelling and consistent reminder, I'm grateful.

Over the Summer, we had multiple conversations on her keeping it calm and not getting overwhelmed with trying to help me, on both sides. I know what is to be done, I know how to do it. But do I want to do it? Maybe not. Maybe, I just want to fuck my happiness some more and see you be there for me and witness me fall down. Maybe that's all I want.

When I call someone to talk to, it's usually to unburden, and not to seek help. Call to action for help comes easy and I do directly ask. It's never beating around the bush for me. I understand the call to action is missing and I'm probably really dumb about this, but it'll come with time.

Now's not the time.

I'm essentially trying to say that this shit sucks donkey balls and if your friends are halfway as caring as mine, you'll know the entire narrative of being called out on bullshit even when the shit is worthwhile.

Meanwhile, on the subject of bullshit, did you know gobar sells like hot cake.

Mia K started selling gobar cakes and, apparently, those have sold more than her debut book, ha!

You can buy her gobar cakes on Amazon. She's better than your average home baker at cakes.

This post is not sponsored by the money she's made from gobar, which is a lot more than the royalty she receives annually.

Not sure if I should be glad that the universe spelt it out for me that research isn't going anywhere or unhappy that I'm still gonna pay my dues?

"Why can't this building burn to ground? Why do we have to come to this office everyday? Why can't we be like Sri Lanka and get into a Civil War? Did you know they declared Emergency, they have more vision than us. Wish they declared Emergency here. We wouldn't have to come to work. Wish I could add to this to my Amazon wishlist."


-
Unnameable colleague