A Bowl of Elusive

I am not the man of your dreams. I am not the man of any girl's dream for that matter. I was just browsing my FB wall and I came across the picture of a cousin with her husband, where she is singing and her hubby is playing the guitar and I thought to myself, "These guys are such a well-suited match." And that reminded me of the several times my girlfriend wanted to do something that I wasn't really into. Like visit a local monument or go furniture shopping. Hence, the realization. I am a rather boring person who isn't interested in a lot of things. I spend a crazy amount of time being stressed out about my job. Very few things actually make me happy and lately, I have been becoming more anti-social than ever. My pessimism has helped me cultivate a somewhat practical approach that's required for my job but other than that, it has affected all other aspects of my life negatively. I have traced the source of all my cynicism back to my college days. T...

I was born at the Air Force base in Chandigarh. My father left the force a couple of years after my birth and we moved around the country while he worked various jobs. Then after he died, I came to live with my grandparents in my hometown. I was ten years old. By this time, I had formed a somewhat confused identity due to all the places I’d lived in, and putting down roots seemed a little difficult. I would constantly feel like an outsider. I spoke my native tongue like I spoke my second and third languages, clearly but maybe “too clearly for a local guy”. And this affected the way I was perceived in school. People found me weird, I guess, however much I tried to seem normal. It was tough to make friends. I went to a lot of trouble initially to make people happy in the hope of securing their friendship in return. But I soon realized that they just thought I was being too needy. So, I stopped trying so hard. I stopped trying like 15 years ago. And that shaped my personality f...