Too Much Honesty

There is such a thing. 

When I was a kid, I used to lie compulsively. I lied about my exams, homework, bodily functions, friends, etc. It came easily to me. And then, one scary day when my lies were discovered for what they were by my ferocious mother, I finally got a life lesson that shaped the rest of my existence. She said, “If you’re lying, it means you’re afraid. And I didn’t raise you to be afraid of anything.” Except her. I was afraid of her. But more than that, I was afraid of seeing that disappointed expression on her face again. 

That’s the day I quit lying. Well, I quit telling blatant lies. I know how to spin a tale as well as the next person, but never do I consciously tell outright lies. In fact, my biggest area of lie-telling is in the realm of punctuality and the time-space continuum. Not so bad, considering there’s a whole world out there telling lies about murder and mayhem.

But there is definitely a down-side to all this honesty. For one, not everyone believes the ’truth’. For example, “I don’t love you” starts to sound like “I’m scared of my feelings and I’m emotionally closed off so please continue with your attentions while I realize that I do in fact love you.” Just as a BTW - this one actually lost me a friend and a lover. 

The other truths I have told in my life have revolved around my work. 

I said: “There’s no point making changes to a screenplay based on feedback from people who will have no say in its making” 

They heard: “I have no intention to work on this further. Screw you.”

I said: "I would love to work with you but if you think our relationship will ever transcend the professional, then maybe it’s not a good idea”

They heard: You can keep trying and who knows? Late nights, wine, movies… anything can happen.

I said: Wow… this (script, film, business plan, food) is really good. You ARE talented!

They heard: Let’s get naked and start sexy time.

No, its not always about sex but then, it mostly is. Then there’s the other stuff that comes up linked to self-esteem (I say no, he hears yes, I say no again, he says terrible things to retaliate for teasing and rejection), and of course, friendship. 

I always thought friendship was the one thing that could handle honesty. That was because you chose your friends, not because of the things you feared but because of the things that made you stronger with each friendship. You liked to spend time with each other not because of dread but of solidarity. And what shows greater solidarity and indeed, respect, if it isn’t the commitment to honesty with each other? Sure, we’ve all told the odd “You look lovely” and “of course he still loves you” white lies. But when it comes to the big things - well, it seems total honestly may not be the best policy. 

I say: If I support you in this, you make me lie to everyone else

They hear : I don’t love you so clearly we can’t be friends anymore.

I say: You’ve told me many things in the past that haven’t worked out. This time, I want to see proof.

They hear: I don’t trust you and hence, we can’t be friends anymore

I say: You’re cheating on your wife/husband? Why aren’t you talking to them about all that’s wrong? Or does security matter so much that you’d rather they live not knowing that they don’t have you?

They hear: You’re wrong and we can’t be friends anymore.

I say: You shouldn’t drink anymore because you can’t hold it and start becoming difficult to handle.

They hear: You’re an alcoholic and we can’t be friends anymore.

And so on and so forth.

I understand that it seems harsh, but the truth is that I could just as easily have said that right thing that wouldn’t ruffle any feathers and keep the boat un-rocked. But what’s the point of that? When we choose friends, we choose them for making us better, not just to fill space around us. And one of the ways of being better is to be less fearful of the world around us. Maybe that’s why one should tell the truth to the ones closest to us… make us stronger. No?

A few days ago however, I watched Interstellar and the best thing I liked about it was the cool robot with a 80% honesty setting, because “emotional creatures like humans can’t handle the whole truth.” That robot probably got it right, and it doesn’t even need friends. Maybe it's high time I got the message.

The F Grade

Have you noticed how, for the most important things in the world, we have years of compulsory preparation before we're allowed to do the real thing? Engineers, doctors, lawyers, designers, quantum physicists, etc - all of them and million others go through decades of education, examinations, late night studying, endless cups of coffee poring over theories and conducting practicals under controlled, laboratory conditions. All this is for jobs of which there are plenty.

Compare that to the very little time and incredibly limited chances we have of meeting the "one" or even the "five people in your world who totally get you and also want to sleep with you over the long term and whom you're attracted to as well" - and I'm stunned at the level of unpreparedness and naivete with which we enter the world of romance and love.

The other day I was hanging with a friend of mine called Kenneth. He's also in the film-making business, has managed to get two films, one marriage, two kids and a divorce under his belt. These days he spends his time working on his next film, his kids' futures and making his way around the party circuit. That evening the conversation was predictably heading towards the nature of relationships and how it's better to continue to play the field - given that the curiosity of marriage and kids has been assuaged - instead of settling in for the long haul. And between laughs and inevitable joshing, he said, "It's not that I'm afraid of a relationship, I'm afraid of getting bored."

And I got to thinking - is that my phobia as well? Over the last couple of years, I've been in an on-again-off-again bizarre little mating dance with someone who was going to be my third-time-lucky nominee. Again, a film-maker, again the prototype of tall, cute and awkward and again someone whom I'd have to take care of. (Sigh - it's not that my patterns shock me, it's just what they say about me - in this case, they say that I'd rather choose weak than risk losing control. Ugh.) The good news is that despite being the nominee, he only barely entered into my emotional space.

And then I thought about Alex. He and I have been through the crapper and back, but we've always been able to communicate with each other, laugh with each other. He's enough of a guy to remind me that l'm feminine, and non-threatening enough to remind me of my strength. And yet, I can't for the life of me imagine anything long-term with him. Too much stinky murky water under the bridge.

And apart from this lot, I'm sure there have been many who were right for me, who were what I needed, and who potentially wouldn't have bored me either. So why didn't I take that leap? I blame the fact that I wasn't suitably prepared.

The thing is - this one thing - the romantic-sexual relationship is one of the most important ones we share with another being. It has a way of getting into our heads, of leaving a fairly indelible mark and deciding for us - based on the level of fucked-up-ness of it - if we're going to be well-adjusted productive people or just hurting beings who slash and cut through the rest of the world around us - friends, families alike - in a blind way of curing the pain.

And given that it's going to affect so much of our and other peoples' lives, that it's going to be a significant factor in our happiness quotient, we still step into it, without so much as cracking open a book or even learning the alphabet of romance. And then we wonder why there are so many divorces, apathetic hook-ups, why fewer people want to have kids, why fewer people are choosing to be married, and even in that fraction, how many of them are delaying their marriage and kids choice. Hell, I'm willing to wager that's why more people prefer text messaging and online chatter to the real thing!

Because we give the responsibility of raising a tribe to unprepared 12 year olds with their first relationships that can mark them for life... Let the scarring begin! If we have dysfunctional relationships, we will have a dysfunctional society. And a dysfunctional society will only support messed up relationships.

This chicken and egg routine has gone on long enough. Everywhere we turn, we are assaulted by post-apocalyptic imagery because somewhere we as a society have come to accept that the only way ahead for us is down. We train in the martial arts, we read about zombies, we go to boot camps and learn to create fire, we go to schools and learn about the arts - but no one goes anywhere to learn about love, compassion, kindness and mutual respect. The general argument is that society is supposed to teach that, but the fact that while everywhere else, we look to the experts, it's only in this crucial realm that we look to the flawed, non-expert, muddling along amateurs with a terrible track record to teach us these most critical lessons in survival.

Is it any real wonder then that as a society we achieve greatness in the sciences and the arts, but also devolve into such barbaric hatred for each other that it barely touches our consciousness when a judge says that non-consensual sex with a menopausal woman can't be considered rape, and the way you love another person could put you in jail?

It's no surprise really then that we keep hoping for a reset button through zombies, interplanetary travel or anything supernatural - because we know that maybe we as humans failed at our most elementary subject.

The Disappearing People

I've always been afraid of ending up alone. Not just in the romantic sense of the word, but also in basic friendships. I'm aware of my challenges in forming connections, I'm aware of the fact that I don't open up easily and I'm aware of the constant hum that goes on in the back of my head when I meet someone new - "Are you to be trusted?" I'm also aware that given enough time, people screw up hugely and that sometimes, I can't find a way to cross that bridge without burning it. And because of all this hyper-awareness, and my fear of being alone, any shuddering change in my social circle gets my full attention.

Lately I've been looking around myself and seeing that the people I used to know have changed. I don't mean change in the personality kind of way, not even in the "s/he has become a different person" metaphorical sense. I mean, literally, the people I used to know have dropped out of my world, replaced by another bunch of people.

Some of the disappearing acts have happened dramatically :
"You and I are done!"
And some have been hurtful:
"I wonder if I was ever your friend, or did you just use me to feel good about yourself?"
And some have just gone into the fugue of "Let's catch up soon" knowing we won't.

All this has happened in a very short space of time - say a couple of months. And I've been pretty cut up about it. I've bawled myself to sleep once, I've sat quietly and collected my shattered calm a few times and sometimes I've just stared askance at a computer screen reading the words that go like, "You're going to be nutty about a Facebook friend request? Forget I asked."

The thing is, I like all these people. I've liked them for a while. Almost all of them are super bright, talented, funny - exactly the kind of mix I thrive on. But making those deep exclusive friendships somehow hasn't happened for me. I'm too open to new people, I'm too easily bored, I'm too excited by the possibility of what could be new and different about many experiences to really believe that the five people I cobbled together as friends when I was 20 would be the same five friends I'd need when I was 36.

And then I took a closer look at all the people who have disappeared - dramatically or otherwise. And I start to see a pattern emerge. Each one of them has grievously wronged me in the past. And each one of them, today, made it seem as if the rift was my fault. And each one of them found it mighty easy to let me go. If I was writing a film, none of them would be the hero - not because they are flawed but because they show a remarkable lack of substance (which they hide behind oodles of charm) and very poor taste. And while I forgive easily, I never forget.

Trust is a tricky thing. In my life, I hand over my trust to people unguardedly when it comes to friendship. Like blown-glass, it takes the shape of a unique glass jar that is truly representative of the two people involved. But, like a glass jar, when trust truly shatters, then no amount of glue can remove those cracks from the relationship. The best that can be hoped for is that the jar doesn't shatter again, and over the years you get used to the cracks to the extent that you stop noticing them. Sometimes, I think that those relationships are the ones that are truly unique and worth saving because, if you look at any of the masterpieces of the world, they're nothing without the cracks in the paint / ceramic.

But the thing about relationships is that it can't be done solo. That's why, with every goodbye, I feel a part of me tear out and crumble.

And then I discovered something very interesting. It seems, in the study of Alchemy, there's a belief that says that if you change a few chemical bonds in mercury, you'll get gold. I think the same is true among people - if you change the nature of a few bonds in your life, it's likely that you'll become everything you can be. And then, those are the kind of people you'll attract in your life as well - the people who aspire to be better.

Because if the Universe gives you everything you want, then friends are the last thing you'll ever lack.

Why I Want a Surprise Birthday Party

I’ve always wanted a surprise party on my birthday. It’s such a great feeling to walk into a house, maybe after a rotten day, and come into a room full of people who love you. And – the most important part – you didn’t have to work out the logistics. 

Till date, I haven’t ever had one thrown for me. And the sad part is – as a friend of mine just pointed out – it’s a little daunting to organize one. I have a vast social circle filled with people whom I would love to meet, but just about maybe 5 people who are people I consider myself close to. These 5 people mostly don’t get along with each other so there’s no small committee of people who can get together and make a guest-list of everyone I know, and people they’re certain I would like to meet.

The unfortunate truth is – a surprise party needs a bestie and I don’t think I have one. There are a few people who come close, but the bestie who knows all your friends, all your family members, knows history and the emotional minefields, the one who has the contact numbers of atleast 17 of the significants in my life… that essential ingredient to a surprise party is missing from my life.

And I’ve had a lot to do with that. By nature, I’m a person who compartmentalizes my life. There are writing friends, the creative bunch, media buddies, drinking buddies, semi-strangers-with-a-connect, business-partners-who-are-friends, ex-FWBs-lovers-boyfriends, school buddies, college buddies, dead-bestie’s-social-circle, etc . And this lot is just a broad-stroke categorization. Within each group, there are several distinctions. (Looking at this list, I can see why I need to compartmentalize – I’ll just go cuckoo otherwise!) Each circle of friends caters to a different facet of my personality but every time any two of these circles have collided, I’m always surprised to realize that one group doesn’t usually get along with the other. It’s like my internal war brought out into the open with equally pitted players fighting for space.  It’s a metaphorical massacre.

That’s why a surprise party is so important. It’s not just that by some miracle, I’ll have all my favorite people in the room together, but that there would be someone who would get all my different people, and thus, in a way, finally get me.

Someone to Love

That’s my Achilles’ Heel. I’m a sucker for someone whom I can hold, cuddle and love. I have given up at different times my discernment, my standards and almost every shred of self-respect simply because I’m overcome by the need to shower all my love on someone. That has and always will be the basis of my relationships.

The downside to that is, I don’t really pay attention to how much love I get. It’s not that I’m not loved, or that it doesn’t matter to me. Indeed, every person I’ve been with at different stages of my emotional maturity has loved me – and in some part of their hearts – continue to do so. And vice-versa. But in every case, the relationship has ended when I’ve woken up to the fact that I’m not loved as much as I felt I deserved to be.

You know that saying – “Give someone enough rope, and sooner or later they’ll hang themselves”? I’ve been in the maybe not-so-unique position of being the rope holder as well as the person hung at the end of it all. You see, I have a threshold of giving and expecting nothing in return. I use it as my barometer. At what point will he understand how awesome I am and suddenly start giving me my due? And ofcourse, if he telepathically can understand that – then I’ll be his slave for life. But by the time that happens , if at all, I’ve already spent all my rope and died in the relationship. 

The fact however is – much as I bemoan the ridiculous presence of games in relationships – this has been the single most consistent game I have played with myself for all these years. My lovers, at some subliminal strata, have been experiments – and levels I’ve crossed – while I’ve honed lying to myself into an art form.

Until one day, an unplanned-for furball comes into my life. One look into her doe-eyed expression and I’m a goner. Like I’ll-kidnap-her-and-run-away-together-to-the-Andaman’s-and-nobody-will-find-us-forever kind of goner. I made no bones about saying so clearly to her then-owners.  There must be some truth to the concept of the Universe giving you everything you want because within a few weeks, she was in my arms, in my house, hiding under my couch as she became used to her new home and owner.

And, suddenly, without any expectations, I had someone to love. There was no game playing. I loved her, she tolerated me, and soon we adopted each other as ours. And as we sit together and watch TV shows late into the night (well, mostly she sleeps on my belly as I watch) or I write while she chases her shadow across the room, a startling thought comes into my head - I haven’t made a single booty call in months!

Now that can either mean I’ve gotten over men entirely, or maybe I’ve just gotten over regularly dropping my standards in exchange for a warm body. Either way, it’s a brave new world.

Committed, Strait - Jacketed

I’ve been accused of being commitment phobic by almost everyone I know. And the thing is – i don’t understand the basis of that statement. Looking back, I can’t imagine someone who is as committed as I am to so many things.

Let's look at the facts : I was the first among my peers to buy my apartment, thus setting down some serious roots in my adopted city. I work in the media – and God knows that needs a deep level of commitment because in the absence of immediate or substantial returns, there’s nothing to make you keep going on other than a commitment to your own vision. I'm taking care of a pet - and that's a 10-year plan atleast - in a time when people can't figure out what they're doing the next day. And finally, these days I’m working towards giving my family a financial future that few people have imagined. 14 months down the line, in the absence of familial or friend support, there’s nothing else but my commitment to my goals that keeps me going on, bit by bit, day after day, climbing that steep insane mountain that I can only imagine the view from.

But the truth is - I AM commitment phobic. I'm terrified of being irretrievably committed to my definition of myself.

(Cue song: "I'm a bitch, I'm a lover.." - Meredith Brooks)

This lack of rigid boundaries of the self has resulted in a series of different kinds of loosely defined and deeply analyticised romantic relationships that I've shared with some very interesting men. Well, boys. And the fact that several of them have not lasted beyond an average fruit-fly's lifespan has earned me the "commitment phobic" moniker.

That definition - and the basis of it - would be correct had there not been such a deluge of people proving it wrong.

Recently I met a friend who’s going through a divorce after 10 years of a rocky marriage. By no stretch of imagination can she be considered ‘flighty” or commitment phobic. And yet, a day after the papers are signed, her mother gives her the shpeel of ‘not having committed to the husband’ enough. 10 years and it’s still not enough. If you think about it, nothing will ever be enough because, in the narrative of our lives, until we get to the happily ever after with a significant other, our efforts have been incomplete.

The problem? There is no such thing as a happily ever after OR a single significant other. And yet, we spend so much of our time focused on achieving that mirage. And the sad part is - it's not even a unique mirage that we seek – just about anything that helps us feel not so alone.

These days I meet a lot of people. For someone who’s as anti-people as I, that in itself is a feat of discipline and commitment. But what is even more interesting is what i learn from all these people. Ask anyone to identify themselves in a single sentence and they will talk pretty much the same way:

 "I'm a (good / bad / interesting, etc)  (person / professional descriptor - artist, manager, etc)
who has a (house / family / job / other possessions)
that I (love, hate, enjoy, bitch and moan about, am working on, etc..)
and someday, hopefully in the next (time period)
I'll be (achieving a goal - holiday / charity / winning the burger eating competition.. etc)
that will make me (emotional payoff - happy / popular / loved / etc)

Before any of you jump to the comment form and write your unusual 'intros in a sentence' designed to prove me wrong - and I'll be interested to read them - I just want to say that if ever anyone has ever thought this phrase - "That is so not me" - it shows our deep and undying commitment to who we are, usually and often to the detriment of who we could be.

The truth is – as Baz Luhrman said so eloquently in his sunscreen ditty – the real things that will end up mattering in our lives are the things that will happen at 4 pm on a Tuesday afternoon. Your daughter will have her head bashed in and you’ll suddenly be facing the death sentence, an unwitnessed moment in a darkened room will have you splashed across the front pages of the daily rags, fighting for your honor; one casual traffic violation by a stranger will leave your family mired in hospital bills for the rest of your invalid life. And no amount of “being a good photographer with a loving (but now paralysed) husband…” will change those things.

So the big question isn’t if one is commitment phobic or not – a quick look at the long hours we spend at someone else’s beck and call is enough to answer that - but what is it worthwhile being committed to? That romantic spark that may flare up intermittently in a boy-meets-girl scenario? Or the immense possibilities of who we can be if we can give up our self-definitions?

A long time ago, a friend told me that he categorized people as those with imagination and those without. That was a good distinction but what is truer is not the imagination, but the gumption to follow through. And that shockingly is in very low supply. Why? Because while facing new challenges revs up the adrenaline and clears out the cobwebs, maintaining a status quo strangles every last piece of gumption out of us. The reason is simple – the instinct of change comes from hope and the drag of the status quo comes from fear.
But all that is okay. What is really interesting is that if you ask anyone to imagine a future with a Tuesday 4 pm scenario, you will see the walls come crashing down, revealing briefly the terrified children who we all were and continue to be.

And this is what I have come to believe. We are all children who didn’t realise when we became grown ups and had to take the responsibility of adult decisions. We clung to what we have been told of the birth – job – marriage – death well-trodden path, and took it to be gospel truth. We believed it when the adults told us that we had to give up on our dreams to make it in the ‘real’ world. And we believed them when they said that if we knew our place in the world and followed the 'rules', everything will be all right and we shall indeed get our happily ever after.

The lie wasn’t the one they told us. The lie was what they hid. And that is one simple fact – all that we ever know, we ever believed and we value has come from people no smarter or wiser than us. If we make mistakes, so did they. Their lessons come from their existence, and the beliefs and knowledge that was handed down to them from another set of flawed, average people. So looking back through the infinity mirrors of our lives, it becomes clear that we’re doing nothing different from what our great grandfathers did. One would think with so many volumes of history books crowding every empty library these days, we would see the patterns and understand the futility of that choice.

But no. We cling to our carefully constructed lives and choose not to believe that our personal tsunami could be around the corner and our shackles will only pull us down.

Now if that’s what we’re going to be committed to, it is indeed scary as hell.

Girl, Instagrammed

You have a photograph of me. In that photograph, I’m laughing at a joke cracked by an unseen person, my face is lit up, I look pretty. You have another photograph of me. In that one, I’m smiling bravely through a hint of tears. I had got my heart beaten that day and you had been kind to me. You don’t know this but I was smiling because I saw you. You have a picture of me looking seriously at another person as I go through work. There’s one where I’m sleeping on your shoulder on a long bus journey. Even when you see me for hours in a day, you just have snapshots of me, frozen in time, out of context, yet forever true. You say you love me. And I wonder which snapshot of mine you’re thinking of when you say those words.

I’m terrified of the girl in those pictures. That girl is so happy, unfazed by the world, beyond reach and yet, she looks like at any moment she will turn and smile at you. You do love that girl. Who wouldn’t? She is the happiest, brightest, shiniest star in the Universe you occupy. Yet, you don’t see that – just like the star – by the time the light has reached you, the moment is already in the past.

I think that’s the beauty of snapshots. They last. They give you an illusion of eternity. Who wouldn’t want to love someone for eternity, if that’s what it looks like? A series of happy moments, that you will share. There’ll be no hint of worry in her, no insecurity, no incompetence, no qualities that you would consider deal-breakers. She will always be the way she is in any of your favourite snapshots, and you’ll always love her.

And then there’s me. I’m the girl who wonders if you’re telling the truth about love, or if I’ll again lose to my mistress, the snapshot. Will you wake up one morning and look at the real person next to you – the one who’s scared of everything somedays, who is clingy and sometimes needs validation, the mostly inadequate, awkward person (not in the cute gawky way) who lives and breathes mundane like it was going out of style – and wonder what happened to the buoyant, uncomplicated, positive person whose picture you took? Will you reject the person, or the photoshop tool that promised you much more than was there?

In the end, if our house was burning down and you could take just one thing with you, will you come for me or will you try to save the photographs?