The right question

Have you faced difficulty of choosing the right person to consult with in face of difficulty? I actually do have this issue most of the time. Considering the complicated world in which we live and the wide range of issues we face in personal and professional life, and realizing that women have better chances of solving an issues if they discuss it with friends and trusted ones, so I am facing the above question most of the time.

Do I share this with him/her? Will it work? And I really am through with try and error to see who works and who fails; so I thought let me solve this puzzle once and for all that who do I want to talk to if I need to … and then as I was thinking of what is it that I want to talk about that this eureka moment happened. I have a variety of concerns to talk about and being a woman I link them all together. Apparently, we have a more associated brain than men.  So I thought if I can segregate and separate topics that I generally would like to talk about then I might be able to find people to share them with.

It is easier said than done, considering the way I link everything together! And I am not the only one by the way, I understand that Sigmund Freud was the first to see linkages in between human behaviour and totally unrelated far events in different era of his life. I am suffering from the same myopia in human psycho analysis. I first link everything together and then link everything to psychology and then get lost in defining the problem and finding the solution. Lost again in here, what I wanted to say …

Oh yes, let’s engineer the problem as a good friend says, let’s separate them to personal and professional. And let’s break it down further, personal category one: romance, category two: friendship, category three: middle age crisis. Professional category one: aggressive bosses, category two: incompetent colleagues, category three: irresponsible subordinates.

Come on, it is not working, assume you call your friend and tell her, buddy, pleas come over for brainstorming chat over category three, personal issues. It doesn’t work like that, in real life you go out there, get comfortable, talk about a variety of things to warmup and then you open up your heart and reveal the wound inside and expect the listener help you in the healing process, be it direct or indirectly advising you how to heal it. Now, if the friend is a good doctor she will ask the right question and find the root-cause else, the symptoms get treated and the actual cause of injury will continue to live.

All I wanted to say at the beginning was that a right question asked at the right time makes a difference between understanding and not understanding friend. If only we could develop habits of asking rather than presuming and suggesting, then we would have all made perfect listeners and healers.

Expectations

Sometimes strangers are blessing, no expectations, and no obligations. I have difficulty understanding friendship in which there are expectations. I cannot even enjoy a simple coffee with someone cause I will first be thinking of the expectations, what I am supposed to do, what am I suppose to say, how am I supposed to behave, how am I supposed to react?
I guess this is another way in which I am Asian, I have been brought up to value and care for other people; at points I simply overdo it and prioritize others over myself.
Imagine this simple scenario that a friend is sitting in front of me over a coffee table. Let’s assume it is a she. She will smile at me and will convey that she is happy being together but I am not, I mean am feeling alright having a company but I am not thrilled, or excited and simply I don't feel that great, I'm just alright. The fact that I cannot reciprocate her feelings, causes a heavy feeling in my heart, a burden that I am cruel and not sympathetic. She might not even expect a smile in return, I don’t know that, but I anyway feel the burden and it hurts, deep down. Similar to a guilt feeling, I start to feel a void and emptiness.
In reality I know that there is conflict inside my brain, the unconscious Asian character wants to be sympathetic and the conscious Personalized character wants to be sincere and genuine without false pretences, sometimes I simply give in and let auto-pilot take over and smile back but then I just hate myself and my inability to take control, other times, I actively stay on top of my feelings and don’t give in, but afterwards I ask myself, am I psychopath or sociopath or something alike?
Either ways, It takes effort to pull myself together and back to neutral feeling. I have stayed away from people for this reason for such a long long time. If only …

Possessive vs Demanding

What is the difference between possessive and demanding? I never thought they could be such different character traits, until I experienced it first-hand myself. There is this man who specifically highlights at his first meeting that he is controlling type; which is he expects full commitment, dedication and devotion. He utters it clearly and proudly, so I know, he is comfortable with it and does not find it a point of weakens. You either go by his rules or you are out of the game. Rules can be pretty strange at times:

Send me a smile every morning

Love me and miss me

Think of me at all times

Remember I am the best thing ever happened to you

Well, in his case, he has the audacity to voice out his demands, however some men will not comfortably admit it, and yet, at the bottom of their heart they demand it. I am sure we have all met guys who expect you to be happy at all times when you are with them. They just can’t understand how you could have unhappy, uneasy or uncomfortable feelings at their presence. After all they are the magic of your life, and it is enough if they just show up in person, you should be delighted by their mere presence. You should be so thrilled that you will forget all other issues in a blink of an eye and unite with them in a moment of salvation. Ok, I am dramatizing the situation, simply because it has hurt me from time to time, however, the demanding character some men show, is pretty disturbing and I have been the victim of such unreasonable demands quite often. The demands can vary in nature and manifestation, they can target one’s way of behaving, talking, even walking and it can extend to the point that they demand you to think in certain way and be a certain person.  The list can go on, perhaps in another post, here, however, I want to discuss my way of differentiating between demanding and possessive behaviour.

There are this kind of men who would like to be entertained with similar kind of privileges and yet understand that human beings are a mixture of emotional conflicts and have the right to go through hardship.They want to make you happy, cheerful, and relaxed and they also understand value of commitment and devotion and from time to time will highlight them to you. Yet, they don’t enforce it by creating a feeling of guilt, but rather let you feel it and align.

Men would like to make you happy and be the knight of your life, this boosts their self-confidence and places them in the comfort zone that they are the hero and will not easily be replaced. All men, experience a hard time dealing with ambiguities and insecurities that women might inflict. However, some men, when they are dealing with uncertainty of difficult situations, will have the patience, and perseverance to handle it. Some men, on the other hand, at the face of anxiety of not being able to handle the uncertain situation, will just throw up into your face. They will feel relaxed afterwards, they have emptied up their inner poisonous stuff and got rid of it, but you are left there to deal with the stinking inner content of their sick mind, which will not fade away even after few rounds of washing.

Imprisoned

Some time back I watched this scary movie, “The Skeleton key”, imdb 6.5, so no need to check it out, but the idea was extremely scary. The devil spirit could swap bodies. What happened was that when the body, he was living in, grew old, he chose the body of a young, good looking, and presentable person and swapped bodies with that person. So there was no corpse, no blood, no trace of evil or the like, just a young person who found himself in an old body and doomed to die with that body, and the devil spirit who happily sailed away with is new body. The victim was imprisoned in that shrunken, withered, incapable body, hopeless of any freedom ever.
I remembered the ending scene of the movie, when the other day, I saw an old man, who was just walking around and talking to himself in a very same manner. It was as if there was a person imprisoned in a body unable to free up, He seemed distant from his body. He looked far away, in search of something unknown to me. He apparently had some mental impairment of a kind, or so I thought, but it struck me that aging actually does not change our cognitive ability, if anything, it will be sharper and more experienced. How does it feel 30-40-50 years down the road, if one day we wake up and look at ourselves in the mirror and do not recognize ourselves?

It is not that improbable, our mind learns to accept the aging body, so if one day we lose that small thread of mind-body association and we are in an old age, incapable and crippled, what would we do. It should be an immense pain of inability to do anything and yet being doomed to continue to live. It is pretty scary though …

Guilt

When was the last time you felt guilty? As for me it was this morning.
-So you are going?
-I am thinking about it.
-Then I better do not get emotionally attached to you.
-Well, going or not going you were not supposed to get emotionally attached, that was the deal.

And then there was this rush of emptiness into my heart. Is this my mistake? Did I cause him to feel in this way? Did I miscommunicate my intentions? Am I to be held responsible for his sad feelings? I don't even know if he is feeling sad, I just presume it and feel bad for having inflicted pain on someone else! I really feel like being a torturer and this makes me feel extremely bad about myself, somewhat miserable and unworthy!
I am very upfront and outspoken in my feelings and perceptions of the moment. I think I leave no room for second messages or untold part of the story for the other person to go and dig out.  But people tend to make their stories and worst story is when someone thinks that we mutually enjoy the moment. If I enjoy time spent with someone then I will try doing it more often, if I am not after someone to meet then it has only one meaning: I am better off without. Men think I am a girl and must be asked out, cause I will not do it myself and women think that I am in need of company and attention but not comfortable asking for it. In either case, these are all implications, based on which people actually make decisions and act upon them. One way or the other I find myself in awkward situations that I do not know what to do about. 
Then there are situations where someone starts to show interest and get emotionally attached, which is freaking scary. The moment someone of either sexes shows extra attention, all my receptive sensors start to scream out loud: watch out, danger zone. I have developed a sense of weariness for excessive attention or caring. I think it comes at a price, no one will pour kind attention at you without expectations of some kind. Some want attention in return, some want exclusiveness, some want sex, some want admiration, some want help, and the list can go on, but for sure, kindness without expectation of return, of any kind, is a fairy tale and I do not believe in it. Time will show how and when the other person will cash out what is being invested today.
One might say, so what! Let expectations grow, a mere expectation does not impose responsibility of fulfilling that expectation, but then some people can’t let their investment go down the drain and will use all methods to cash it our back, even at the expense of imposing guilt on you, and this is the category that I am the most confronted with, out of my sheer bad luck.

The guilt imposed and the consequent void in my heart is so painful that makes me stay away from mankind altogether. Even the idea of it can hurt, and so I am always so clear and upfront that no emotional attachment, please if you may! and yet life does not stop to surprise us.

Being Iranian

I never thought it could be so cool to be from Iran. I always considered it to be like being from any other country in the world like Turkey or India or China for that matter. Besides, I always thought that media has portrayed an image of Iran as hostile, and terrorist territory in which there is no law and rebels are ripping each other off and life is miserable and we are cannibals. But it turns out that those images are not really applicable when people are browsing through Tinder accounts.

I was never ashamed of my nationality, so whenever someone asked me where you are from, I would reply loudly and proudly, I am from Iran, but then in the cyber domain, it is difficult to add tone to such a simple phrase, so I used to find playful ways of saying it, not to let people freak out and go silent dead. To my amazement it is the other way round. Men do not actually freak out, instead they show interest! Well, it varies from person to person though, but I have concluded that I am very popular among Japanese J

For the rest of the world, it is quite case by case but the trend is steady and confirmed that I immediately get a date out with Japanese. Now, here is the dilemma, they are excited about cultural exchange, which I understand where it is originated from. In some cases, they hardly know the difference in between Iran and Iraq, after all, the two words sound same and majority recall faint images in the news of both names somewhere close by on the map. Those areas on map seem to be associated with war, misery, pretty girls and exotic places to visit. In other cases, they hardly know the difference between Iran and all those Arab states where girls wear burka and have lovely eyes, I have a yoga instructor that after a year still will utter “alhamdo-lellah” when he is greeting me, and I have given up any effort to make him understand I am Persian not Arab.

There you go, with all these presumptions, men all want to get to know about Iran, burka, socioeconomics, cities to visit, what to do and what not to do before they want to get to know about me, if they at all would want to get to know me. It’s become such a strange world. Men prefer to have more information, or ideas about places to go and take photos, instead of taking a good looking, hot girl to bed. Well, I am not saying I am such a great catch, but I am well above average for that matter and still they don't show interest in me as a woman. I am stunned with these findings, slightly disappointed and greatly shocked. They won’t even volunteer to take care of the coffee bill, to them it was just a friendly chat, why be sentimental about it. However, at the bottom of my heart, I am not very confident of this claim. Being the optimist I am, I would try to find a rosy angle that makes the situation less dramatic. I have this theory that men have a heavy burden of being charming, interesting and interested and keep it going, else they will be labeled boring or not fun to spend time with and the girl will just flee. Men might unknowingly try to maintain a steady flow of conversation and not letting silence to fall in, and for that matter, they might use country of origin as a means of warm up topic. I am not sure though what two hours warm up could lead to ...

How does it end?

I don't know. Who knows how will it end?
The problem is I have realized I might be kind of Asian in this aspect! A friend once told me, I am very Asian. I was shocked and a little disappointed at the beginning. Me, being an open minded and very expressive woman, how could I be simply categorized as Asian. However, I didn't object and gave it a second though.
I have been looking for symptoms and their manifestations in my life and just had that eureka moment! It is the very way of looking at the world around me that makes me Asian.
To begin with, I tend to be passive, submissive, accepting, tolerant and timid, in my personal life. I neither believe in god, obviously, nor in the judgement day, and I am not a fatalist. The later, I am sure of, but then I live a life that has traces of accepting fate in certain domains. I haven’t actively looked for a country to migrate to, in a long long time, I believe it should happen, same as the Singapore relocation scenario that just happened and I was not actively involved in making it happen. I got the offer without asking for it and I came over. This is this sickening belief that I was raised with that if it is meant to happen, it will happen. Unfortunately, my close circle back home still live with the same belief and it makes the job of getting rid of it even more difficult. When I communicate with them, I use analogies of fatalism to describe situation and reasons. It gets very tricky to try to release oneself form such an unhealthy belief and yet be forced to get back to it again and again when talking to my dearest and closes family members.
Another scenario is getting into a relation, for which I have hardly put serious effort until recently. Again, I must have thought that it will happen if it is meant to. I understand that I might as well have stayed away from it for the fear and pain of rejection. I know this could contribute to my reluctance of an active search but let’s be honest, its contribution is minimal.
I realized the seriousness of the situation after I read the book “flashforward” by Robert J.Sawyer (lucky I didn’t know it is TV series, otherwise I would have never read it). Anyway, in this book the two characters have distinctively two different mind-sets about how their future is formed and interestingly as you expect from such a well written book, both characters’ future is as per their belief. The fatalist’s future is exactly what it was doomed to be and the determinist’s future is changed by his direct engagement in the course of activities and changing them to his favour to avoid getting killed.
I understand that this is just a story but it hit me hard, cause if it was me, I would have died! I wouldn’t have taken all those steps to prevent my death. Well, as a matter of fact, he didn’t know that he could prevent his own death but he tried to get to know more about the sequence of events as far as he could. As for me, I would have just lived with it, and I can’t explain why! It is somehow strange, cause in my career and some aspects of life I have taken control and have changed the circumstances of my life. I did fight over my choice of school, my English tuition, my field of study, and almost all scenarios in my career. The trend is clear, if it is about career and professional life, I take an active stand, but in my personal life, I submit.
I have only had one incident in which I took charge and did something out of norm: divorce. Apparently, I got some assistance from unforeseen forces of nature there, cause my ex lost hope and it all ended! It is sickening that I can be such a determinist in my profession and such a fatalist in my personal life.
When I first read Oedipus, I was 20 and I still had strong fatalist beliefs. I was fascinated by the book, I couldn't get it out of head for a very long time and I never managed to talk it over to anyone, the first time my faith in it was questioned was by Milan Kundera in “Jack and his Master”. The book is an amazing series of discussion between the two actors in the screenplay and the creator, and how the actors wonder if their destiny is in their own hands or the creators' hands. Gradually with that book and readings of the like, the seed started to grow in my head by I never gave it enough attention to grow, until there came a guru who overthrow it all together. I lost all my religious beliefs and polished my brain of all those insanity shoved into it since childhood, but then I didn't realize that manifestations of those beliefs will continue to live unless I consciously identify and address them. 
Sadly, I don’t know what it is, that I don’t know! If I get lucky, I will come across these dilemmas in my life more often, and hopefully polish them before it is late to really live this life!

How long …

Imagine you are in front of a camera and you take a pose, how long can you maintain this pose? My guess is something in between 10 to 30 seconds and then you want to get out and get back to your normal pose. I hardly know anyone who will not feel uncomfortable under the watch of a camera that is ready to shoot, and will not feel released once the camera lens is looking away. Except for celebrities! I guess they are always watchful of their postures in public so cameras are quite alright, they are posing constantly anyway. Though my actual question is, why is it that we pose in front of camera eyes, why is it that we like to look in a certain way when a spectator is viewing or going to view us? Why do we find it difficult to simply be us in from of camera, without a smile, a way we usually are?
Another interesting scenario is when we meet a stranger! Usually, we start to portray ourselves the way we think we are or wish to be, how long can we keep it? My guess is few hours max and then we are longing to get out and get back to our normal self. This is very true in many social interactions where we portray something that is not exactly us, either intellectually or physically. The brain capacity to maintain this false image is limited and we would seek an opportunity to avoid it, to get rid of it. Isn't this why we skip certain kind of social interactions?
Jean Paul Sartre’s “No Exit” has demonstrated this point to the best I have seen. He just puts three people together in one room and allows the situation to unfold, in which everyone wants an exit from the watchful eyes of “the other”. They start getting to know each other, then they get comfortable with each other and then they get to reveal each other and that is the moment of truth, cause after that no one is willing to stay within the boundaries of the room. Once the false masks are removed then they cannot play anymore and yet they have difficulty being themselves while there are eye of “the other’ looking at them.
I was thinking today, of this dilemma from a different angle. When you meet someone for first time, should you be you or the image of you? It is amazing to be you, comfortable and cosy, but what if you are an introvert, who is usually quiet, into his thinking and difficult to open up, which is actually who we mostly are after years of leaving solitude lives! Then you will lose this window of opportunity to grab the other person’s attention, and I am not talking in here about the context of dating but rather in general terms of getting to know someone and making friends with.
On the other hand, if you are the image of you, soon it will be tiring and you would like to get out of it, so either you have to walk out or change the dynamics of relation into a different direction in which you are more you! And this is the point that I like to call getting comfortable. That’s where the game ends and the reality begins.
Half way to my life, having shared many moments with friend, family and lovers, I still prefer my solitude where I am me, all me, and unfortunately, even though the solitude is an amazing place away from the eyes of “the other” I still look for a companion in life, and I don’t really know why!

What does it mean to be in love?

-Hey, sweetheart.

-Hey, how are you doing?

-Good, we are here together after all.

-I have to tell you something upfront.

-Yes?

-I’m in love with someone …

-What do you mean you are love?

-I mean I want to possess him like a ghost, his body, his mind, his life. I want it to all be mine.

-I have the same feelings about you.

-You are in trouble!

-I know.

I guess he is right in putting this into question, what does it really mean to love someone. I have a handful of good friends from both sexes, we go out, spend time together, watch movies, hold hands, walk leisurely, sped special moments, and yet these are all friends, intimate or close or casual. Then there is the one person whom we love, and in the surface we do all the same things together plus sex, or better say we make love, but then the difference is huge, it is not only sex.

I really am not concerned with the question of why we love who we love, which is under the context of “The Social Animal”, all I want to share in here is the experience of being in love and how it is different from other experiences both in external and internal manifestation.

First and foremost I believe, being in love is about becoming selfless and carless about oneself, in a sense that the other takes priority in everything. For instance watching a movie that, in principle, can be a joyful experience if it is to our taste, becomes a chore that we will happily go through if the other enjoys it and we will painfully tolerate if the other does not enjoy it. To me, this is applicable to whatever we do, be it walking, eating, making love or dancing under rain. The concept of being in love is about losing oneself, being aimless, or floating on the surface and letting the other take you wherever he goes.

Secondly, it is a bout possession. Being in love is not about being selfish and wanting to have most of the other, it is about a desire that cannot be controlled to the point of insanity. In love, we do not only want the ownership, or dominance, we want it all, flesh, bone, and soul. I am not sure if that can even be possible, but who says that love is rational. I think that is another angle of looking at it: in love we do not urge ourselves to be rational, to the contrary, we allow ourselves to drift to the margins of wisdom and insanity. It is the love after all that is in charge.

Lastly, being in love is being in pain with the intense feeling of uncertainty and ambiguity that overshadows all other feelings and takes the joy out of life like the vampire that sucks the livelihood out of body. Without the feeling of pain, we can’t really claim that we are experiencing love.

Am I really in love? Now, I am not sure! I really am not ...

Caption & Click

Do we caption an image first, or do we click the shutter first?
When we are framing a shot, are we thinking of the message behind the frame or we just capture a moment and later think of a message to associate to it?
Somehow it is a bit unnatural to me that we go photo hunting and then associate some tags to the photos to give them meaning, or make them more memorable. I guess we fake it, and apparently everyone is faking it. We go by the rules, whoever makes a better fake, gets more "like"s and "comment"s. To me, it is like make up, we all know it is a fake but still we put it on; meanwhile, whoever makes a better job in concealing it and making it look more natural gets more attention.
Most of what we do, story telling or blogging, or posting in social network, all is fake, isn't it? All is made to get attention and attraction. And why am so bothered about it? After all even natural selection favors deceitful behavior. (See Selfish Gene)

The social animal

Shantaram 
“No discovery pleased me more, on that first excursion from the city, than the full translation of the famous Indian head-wiggle.  The weeks I’d spent in Bombay with Prabaker had taught me that the shaking or wiggling of the head from side to side– that most characteristic of Indian expressive gestures– was the equivalent of a forward nod of the head, meaning Yes. I’d also discerned the subtler senses of I agree with you, and Yes, I would like that. What I learned, on the train, was that a universal message attached to the gesture, when it was a used as a greeting, which made it uniquely useful.
Most of those who entered the open carriage greeted the other seated or standing men with a little wiggle of the head. The gesture always drew a reciprocal wag of the head from at least one, and sometimes several of the passengers. I watched it happen at station after station, knowing that the newcomers couldn't be indicating Yes, or I agree with you with the head-wiggle because nothing had been said, and there was no exchange other than the gesture itself. Gradually, I realized that the wiggle of the head was a signal to others that carried an amiable and disarming message: I’m a peaceful man, I don’t mean any harm.
Moved by admiration and no small envy for the marvelous gesture, I resolved to try it myself. The train stopped at a small rural station. A stranger joined our group in the carriage. When our eyes met for the first time, I gave the little wiggle of my head, and a smile. The result was astounding. The man beamed a smile at me so huge that it was half the brilliance of Prabaker’s own, and set to such energetic head waggling in return that I was, at first, a little alarmed. By journey’s end, however, I’d had enough practice to perform the movement as casually as others in the carriage did, and to convey the gentle message of the gesture. It was the first truly Indian expression my body learned, and it was the beginning of a transformation that has ruled my life, in all the long years since that journey of crowded hearts.”

Boss-Employee syndrome

Do I know what my boss thinks?

Of course I do! That is what I am being paid for, to understand what my boss thinks, to know what he wants of me and to have it done as per his expectations.

Do I know what my peers think?

I assume I do! That is how I survive and get promoted, by knowing what they think and what they are planning to accomplish, so that I can, at least, be in sync, or probably outperform them and definitely neutralize their plots to outperform me! (I am being honest in here)

Do I know my subordinates?

No, it is not my job to get to know them! It is their responsibility to fulfill their tasks as per my expectation!

Unfortunately my subconscious fools me by telling me that I understand my team members and I mean those who directly report to me. I have this false belief that I know what they think, what they want, what they will do in a certain situation and how they play games on me and the company. In fact, this is a dangerous though, cause I actually have no idea how a junior or even a senior engineer may be thinking today, I was down there ten years ago and I have a faint memory of how I thought, but it is not vivid. Thought patterns do not create vivid memories. Besides, I am not a fool to trust memories that cannot be verified with an external reference. Memory is the biggest magician of all times, it is creative and unlimited.

Anyhow, my daily struggle is to overcome this false belief I have that I understand team members. I can’t claim that I have done a good job in this perspective. Time and again I find myself surprised by the action and reactions of my engineers. I am surprised because I didn't imagine they could think and act in that manner.

In this foggy, unclear situation, I am amazed by the naive, insincere and awkward reactions of my team quite frequently and yet it is disturbing. It is disturbing when I conclude that someone is pretending to be busy working, it is disturbing when someone is safeguarding oneself only without caring for the company, it is disturbing when deep down they think I am an idiot but they smile into my face, it is disturbing that they hate me and are sacred but have to abide happily.

This is Asia after all, with the major issues we all have faced. Firstly, people are not very expressive, they hardly talk about their concerns and personal issues at work, and if they tend to talk, it is indirect and in a context. One has to spend extra time and effort to decipher the messages they are implying. Secondly, people are submissive. Passive aggression is epidemic and yet no one talks about it as a serious issue. Usually people follow orders timidly and quietly. Hardly any questions are raised about the objectives and the reasons behind a specific task. But then if something goes wrong and you question them about their reasons behind their conduct, the passive aggression shows its ugly face. They get agitated, nervous, angry, sensitive, irritated, and impulsive and they tend to justify. Clarification, explanation, description, and reasoning do not happen. It is simple, I did what I was asked to do.

In this dynamics of deceit, tricks, implications, contexts, survival tactics, and a degree of competitiveness, I get lost to a point of frustration. No matter how much I try to penetrate through the barriers, no matter how much I try to explain, no matter how much I try to come to mutual agreements, no matter how much I give room and space for differences; the outcome is usually the same: I can’t change people!

The first confrontation

If a colleague who prays five times a day, who has a solemn belief in god, who goes to Friday special prayers, who believes pork in forbidden and should not be taken and who believes there is a heaven and hell somewhere out there in universe, asks you out on a date, what would you do?

Few days ago, I was making coffee and having a casual talk with him, about the weekend, weather, and life in general in Singapore, and all that is none-personal of course, when he looked into my eyes and said, “are you going to have a lunch or dinner with me sometime?” and I had no idea what to make our of his request!

Was he serious?

Was he really asking me out?

Couldn't he see that even in office I am always wearing short skirt and sleeveless clothes?

Couldn't he see that I eat anything as long as I fancy it?

Couldn't he see that I am a free soul?

I truly believe, he is smart and well behaved. So I am having a difficult time understanding him. He was one of the easy colleagues in office to interact with, I thought to myself, he is religious, I am a free thinker and so there will be no personal clashes and we will be good friends.

Now, it is all upside down, and unfortunately, my easy going manners have created another trouble. However, this is not the deal in here. I will tackle this in due time without much casualties, hopefully. Yet, I can’t stop thinking about what could his thought patterns be to lead to such a request. Just wondering what was going on in his mind? This guy is not after casual relation for the sake of sex and fun of it, I know it for fact. I interviewed him for two and half hours. He is definitely honest and sincere in his heart. So it makes the question even more puzzling that what is he thinking?

Is he thinking that all will be well at the end?

Is he thinking we should give it a try?

Is he thinking after all I was born into a conservative religious family, so I might change in future, or accept the situation in future?

Is he thinking, he might compromise on his side?

Or is he totally blinded and is taking the most irrational step of his life?

I don’t really know, human beings are puzzles that can’t be solved.