Office Romance

Friends get married all the time. And no, there is nothing wrong with that. You get to attend a wedding and it might be almost fun. Almost being the operative word. Negotiating traffic, finding suitable parking at the wedding venue and having sufficient bling to help you survive an entire wedding season is tough.

Married friends also mean that there is the better/bitter half to befriend. Which is not too bad either, once you overcome the initial – could he/she have done better pangs?

Married friends might also have children of their own, which is okay too. You may or may not like the spouse; but it is very likely that you might like the children. Just like grandparents enjoy their grand-children; it is fun to be with young and tiny people, without having to worry about setting aside funds for their college.

Being single doesn’t mean that I nurse a grudge against married friends. We all co-exist peacefully. And if necessary, one can lose people anyway.

However, what really worries me about my just married friends is their desire to get me to cross over to the other side. I understand that it is well-meaning and the way that they push you towards the dual-world-notion, is in many ways different from, that of an annoying aunt telling you at a family get together, why ma, even ABC (who is young enough to be my child apparently) is getting married!

Friends are sensitive folks and won’t dole out that kind of thing.

However, this sudden desire to see you with someone else is tedious.

And when yet another girlfriend of mine told me yesterday, marriage is not at all bad and I don’t see what your problem is, it got me thinking.

The inherent assumption here is that, I am the one who is resisting all the men. That allegedly there are men who are queuing up outside my door and falling all over themselves to marry me. That it is me, who is suffering from serious commitment phobia. That I am oblivious to the fact that there are people out there who think that, I am the next best thing after Maggi Noodles.

This has always bothered me. While I am happy enough being single, I didn’t set out to be single woman with a lot of money and a cat. It has happened mostly because, money and cat are easier to acquire than it is to find one man. Actually, I don’t have money and cats either, but minor detail that?

I decided to cut the chase and ask M, where do you think are my opportunities to meet a man? In fact, it has been over three years now and I don’t think that I have had any significant new friendship/ relationship.

Like most people, presented with a sharply focused question, M dillied, dallied, poohed and finally dismissed my question.

Waving her hands artistically through the air, she told me that, they are EVERYWHERE and you just need to be SMART.

I am smart, I pointed out.

Sure. But you need to be SMART, she insisted.

Eh?

I roped in my good friend, colleague and partner-in-crime N to help me out with this dilemma. We decided to create a complex algorithm to arrive at the most efficient way to find men. Wait, we meant a man. One man. One single man. One single and half interesting man. One single, half interesting and straight man.

Where are the places that one can meet men? That is, beside places where you only needed a username made up of three to sixteen characters, to find things.

After going through the usual suspects and list of places and realizing the futility of going to those places, we zeroed in on the work-place.

Partly inspired by this survey done by a research firm (yay! for the fraternity) that was telecast on IBN Live and mostly because of running out of options.

The survey among many other things suggests that, due to the long work hours and desire to climb up the corporate ladder, office romances and flings are the next big thing. And, men and women are “equal partners” in this romance bit. More yay for heterosexuality. And who would have thought that both men and women are equally likely to romance colleagues??

N and I decided that, we needed:
a) Romance
b) Higher salary
c) Romance and higher salary
And we both spent enough time in office to justify using the office for such nefarious purposes. Of course, intent on its own does not help. Space and opportunity need to conspire after all.

I checked with colleague and reportee – R, if he would contemplate an office fling for better increments. He pointed out most correctly that, with the high attrition rates in our industry, it was unlikely that he would not need to sleep his way through corporate Nirvana.

How depressing?

Clearly I need to move to another industry.

While this talk of being single and what not, is this post by Anantha, who attributed his Blog as one of the reasons behind his singleton status. I am glad then that, colleagues with whom I might have potential to romance opportunities can’t really Google me.

Of course, staying with his post, it is one of those Blog memes that I normally never get tagged to do. However, in the rare instance that it has happened and given the completely self indulgent nature of the tag, I decided to give it a shot.

The rules of the tag are: Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

Easy Peasy. And one might wonder WHY would anyone want to read posts that I wrote in the past? But self-indulgence does not ponder such existential questions.

Family: The only person that my Blog loves more than me is my family. Their quirks and loveliness make for excellent material. This one on my grandmother, a week before she passed away comes to my mind immediately.

Friend: My friends get featured on my posts often enough. However, here is a post on friends that I wrote in my early and enthusiastic blogging days (when I was delusional enough to give fiction a shot)

Yourself: There are too many contenders for that. But this one should do, the one in which I confirmed to the world that I was a rockstar.

Your love: They have featured in the passing. The lost variety of course. But it is enough that they get featured once. This one about someone who shall always be loved. The father. Nothing more to say.

Anything you like: Ummm, food? Okay? Okay.

Others to tag?

Ditty? Wanderstruck? Rohini? Anyesha? Artful Badger?