I don’t know how or what I’m supposed to feel.  I’m not sure what to do “in a relationship”, or if I’m subconsciously pushing for something with Curfew Boy to work out because I’m so petrified of not being single, or if I’m mentally sabotaging myself by admitting to the confusion I have running through my brain.

Or it could just be the large amounts of cough syrup I’ve been downing since I got into Lahore and was promptly struck down by the flu.  I don’t fucking know.
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Here’s the thing. I can’t just get up and go. If I could, life would be much easier.

And it’s not just about the family members I need to take care of. Hell, in a weird way, that’s the easiest problem to get around. It’s the simple logistics.

When you’re Pakistani, between the age of 18 and 40 and male, you tend to be subject to a very special kind of regard in matters relating to travel, relocation or employment outside of your home country. Not that it’s significantly easier for too many other nationalities, but simply put, it’s a bitch to get a job in a foreign state. Getting a company to sponsor you for a work-permit involves their having to justify (in the UK for example) hiring you, and said justification has to basically state that nowhere in the entire EC could they find someone with an equivalent skill-set.

I like to think I’m special, but I know I’m not that unique.

So sometimes, although it’s suggested with the best intentions in the world, packing my steamer trunks and heading out to the Wonderful Liberated Rest of the World isn’t an option. Certainly not the US, if only because I don’t think I have enough in the way of spare body-parts and kidnapped offspring to get through the whole bloody visa application process. It’s just not that easy to get up and go. There are hierarchies of acceptability, with me as a piece of paper coming in very low on the totem pole of immi/emigration. And so, while there’s always the tendency to wax eloquent and nostalgic about the good times to be had outside of Pakistan, in countries where 14-hour power outages aren’t treated as standard occurrences and the sight of a policeman doesn’t immediately send you scrambling for your wallet’s “bribe” compartment, well…there’s not a great deal to be done about it. This reality, in turn, feeds into the sense of malaise and general resignation to living and–if only in one’s imagination–loving in Pakistan, because the alternative genuinely is sometimes too difficult to contemplate.

I hope that made some sort of sense, because it was all really bloody cogent in my head as I typed.

Articulating all of this is what led to my friend Coco sitting me down over coffee and biscotti today after work, and led into the explanation as to what was/is/will be stopping me from calling up Curfew Boy to ask him what his take on the two of us is. The short version? I’d rather not rock the boat before I know it’s actually sailing. The slightly longer version? I’m scared that he’s not into this whole thing as much as I am. Coco’s version? I’m a dumbass who not only needs, but also deserves after the effort/time/energy put into this, to ask him whatever the hell I want, especially if all I’m trying to do is sound him out.

Which is all very, very confusing.

I hate being pushy. I hate being needy. But I think about him, and I think about me, and I think about the last decade or so I’ve been alone, and I think about lying in bed with him, giggling as we watch bad TV together, or making him try a bite of sushi, and even though he’s pretty much a straight man in terms of communication/bonding, etc. what with the no phone calls (Coco on his career prospects: “No sales jobs. Ever.”) or text messages, I still like him. I don’t think I’m in love with him, but I think–quite realistically–that the lightning strike of love is rare and infrequent, and as such, I tend to believe in growing into love versus anything more dramatic, no matter how much it may appeal to my sense of drama.

So I’m a little scared that asking questions will precipitate answers that’ll only serve to confirm my innate cynicism about how life is generally out to get fucked, and I’ll spend the next fortnight sobbing into my pillow because, quite frankly, I don’t feel confident enough in myself to sit back and think “OK yeah, you know what? I’m a catch.” Fuck this self-empowerment shit, the last couple of years and the last two decades (give or take) have demonstrated–quite amply–that when push comes to shove, very few gay men give a toss about personality and wit and charm. It’s about six-packs and long flowing locks, and clear skin, and Ken-doll-like waxed chests. I just don’t want to (once again) lose out to that, to re-confront the idea that I am physically unattractive to someone, and to be sad and lonely again. Because I’m not ashamed of that, and I admit it freely: for many years, I have been sad and lonely. Very sad. Very alone. And I didn’t hate it at the time, but that’s because I didn’t let myself feel much during that time.

I’m starting to now. I kind of like it.

Being in London for the last fortnight has been a wonderful, heady mixture of joy, trepidation, and about three times, unmitigated panic. The whole experience has been surreal–in the last few years, the city has both changed so much and so little, that my time has felt like a series of overexposed photographs, images old and new blurring and overlapping to create something that’s eerily familiar and completely unheimlich all at once.

I’ve spent the last week with family. A lot. In a strange way, that has probably been the highlight of my trip, if only because the older and more single I get, the more I realise that I’ve not really got a lot else in my life that will provide unconditional love. Lord knows I still don’t want kids, because it’s hard enough taking care of myself without having other people in the mix, but being an uncle has some super high-lights. There are two moments from that in particular that stand out, mainly because the outpouring of love I’ve felt during them is possibly unparalleled.

The first, when my elder nephew (who is truly brilliant but I think a little poorly socialised) told me that no one in school plays with him; I suggested that perhaps, instead of talking about trains to everyone (his constant fixation), he should try just…well, playing. He came back from school, and when I asked him how his day was, looked at me with these huge almond eyes and said “I didn’t talk about trains at all, all day, and still no one played with me.”

I wanted to cry.

The second was when I put on, at the younger nephew’s request, “Hey Delilah” as we were driving home from Harrods this morning, and in his three-year-old lilt, he sang along. It was possibly the single cutest thing, including kittens and puppies, that I have ever seen.

I need to be around them more. I don’t want to be the uncle who shows up every once in a while. I want to be the uncle they call and come to all the time, and I think that to be in that space, I need to spend even more time with them. Between work and their early bed-times, we haven’t logged as many hours as I’d have liked, but in conjunction with the fact that my brother is–at heart, I believe–fundamentally lonely without his family around, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to him and some of my co-workers about transferring to the London or Middle East offices in another year or two if possible. I need to feel like there’s more to my life than…well, than just me.

Much of my wanting to look for–at the risk of sounding all New-Agey–more depth to my life is also, I think, the fact that Curfew Boy hasn’t texted or e-mailed me since I left Karachi almost two weeks ago. We spoke online for a bit once; I’ve messaged him a few times and all I’ve got so far is radio silence. I don’t really know what to make of it any more, but I think that I’m going to rest assured in my belief that since he has both finals and a job hunt coming up (or already underway), there’s a lot on his mind. And I’ll just breathe, for now. Deal with it when I go home, if in fact there’s anything to be dealt with, which is not necessarily a state of being. I don’t believe in giving extra chances, but I do remember what it was like for me when I was trying to juggle both finals and my own search for employment, and I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. For now.

The other highlights of my trip (and it’s not over yet, but I feel like with only another day or so to go, and much shopping to be accomplished, I may as well pretend that it is) were two gorgeous afternoons spent in Soho Square with people who despite having not seen in a while or with much regularity, I find myself considering friends. This poor handsome devil was forced to follow me around the huge Waterstones on Piccadilly as I raged through their fiction selections, and then to lunch at Busaba in Soho, followed by conversations in Soho Square (we scoped out deliciously sweet little gay boys who were all BFF4EVA with each other) and drinks at the Yard before we went our separate ways.

The other afternoon was with this man, also in Soho Square, during which we purchased a bottle of wine and chatted for about half an hour before I sent him off to grab another bottle (well, more accurately, he volunteered to fetch it if I’d hold our space, because let me tell you, one ray of sunshine and every bitch in this city is out there trying to get a tan). To be quite honest, I was enjoying the company so much that I don’t even know what we talked about (there was some mention of brain cells, but as mine were rapidly reeling from some rather good white wine, it’s a bit of a lost cause), but as we were joined by old classmates and a former flat-mate, I found myself lying on my side at a side of the square, eyeing some cute young things and just relishing the feel of being able to go outdoors and have a pleasant evening that didn’t involve dressing up, informing family of where I was or with whom, and reeling home later at four in the morning, since I also wound up (a) drinking another bottle of wine, (b) eating dim sum with friends until REALLY late, and (c) forgetting who or where I was for about two hours because I was loving just staggering around Soho and Piccadilly Circus and that whole tragically touristy neighbourhood.

And finally of course, there was dinner with one of my favourite non-couply couples. This cute young thing made all sorts of convoluted arrangements for us to meet up, and we may yet see each other again tomorrow. All of these men want me to go roller-blading in Hyde Park, but I don’t think that they appreciate my perspective just yet…given that I’ve never bladed before in my life, about all I’m planning to do is squeak and fall over onto attractive men within arms’ reach.

Maybe, if one of them catches me, I’ll think about moving back. Maybe.

“Stop over-thinking it.”

But I can’t.

It’s been a week since I last saw him. And in that week, I’ve driven myself up (down, and all around) several walls, trying to figure out what next steps, if any, there should be. What does one do with a nascent relationship, other than try to avoid calling it a relationship for fear of putting too much pressure on the other person involved?

I’m a relationship virgin, I admit it. But I’m also intensely focused on being able to have mile-stones or some sort of markers by which I can measure my progress (blame it on the influence of the corporate world), so I find myself wondering what the demarcation is between “seeing someone”, “going out”, “dating” and “being in a relationship”. Ironically, that sort of pat categorisation would normally hack me off like you wouldn’t believe, but now that I’m gingerly treading the bounds of non-Platonic interaction, I find myself fixated on figuring out where I stand. And where he stands. And where we can both stand without stepping on each other’s toes.

It doesn’t help that he’s not much of a talker. A wise man said to me, upon meeting him, that I was (a) lucky to be around someone who’s a listener instead of a talker [true--Karachi is chock-full of whingers who consider themselves the ultimate topic of conversation, he says writing a blog all about himself], and (b) that there’s much more to him than meets the eye; that he listens and observes. But all my friends and family are…I was going to say garrulous or verbose, but loquacious is probably a better word, and when I’m confronted with someone who isn’t really big on joining into a conversation of any sort, it worries me a little. Because I don’t know what he’s thinking or feeling, and then I overcompensate by trying to initiate as many rounds of conversation/communication as possible without actually veering into the realm of being a stalker.

Then I freak out because I’m afraid that my behaviour’s just adding way too much stress to the whole situation.

And it’s complicated because we live in different cities, we’re at very different stages in our lives; there’s a disparity in terms of income, family dynamics, social structures (not in an elitist way, just in a simple “we’re different” way); and I know that no one will ever find a perfect match in every possible way, but there are so many inherent complications that I sometimes lie in bed at night wondering (and tossing, turning, tangling myself up in the sheets) whether it’s actually worth all the effort. I know that if nothing else, I should see it through just for the experience of letting someone into my life–and conversely, being a part of someone else’s–but sometimes it’s difficult, especially when you’re as pragmatic as I am, to justify the investment(s); literal and metaphorical. So I want to make sure I’m doing everything right, if only for the sake of looking back at this in a year or two from now (assuming it doesn’t go well, but hoping otherwise) and feeling somewhat reassured as I plow through a carton of butter pecan ice-cream that I didn’t fall down on the job somewhere. That I did whatever I possibly could have done to make it all work.

It’s a first for both of us. But I’m ready for it to be my last–and terrible though it may sound, that’s not all due to him specifically, but to the fact that I’ve been single and lonely long enough–so when I contemplate the notion that this could be experimental, it makes me tense. Finding someone to be with in Pakistan, no matter how you describe that state of being, is an odyssey both temporal and emotional; the market (such as it is) tends to be both highly limited and remarkably stagnant, so it’s not as though jumping right back into the pool is a real option.

I don’t want to spend another decade waiting for someone to make me feel happy.

Sometimes you just run out of things to write about. Not because they don’t exist, but because you have to keep a certain level of honesty or consideration of context in mind. There’s a wonderfully vague corporate term, “stakeholder management” that really comes into play in this sort of situation. If you want to preserve any degree of anonymity, vagueness has to play a crucial role in the process.

When you write though, that’s all completely counter-productive. After all, how in the world are you supposed to come up with something worth reading if all you can do is compose nebulous statements?

“The weather in a city other than my home-town is pleasant.”

“When I am not sitting at home, which may or may not be due to travelling, either domestically or internationally, I may or may not have liaisons that could be presumed to be of a sexual nature with some individuals.”

I mean, really. It’s like your life takes on enormous legal overtones, with disclaimers peppering every situation. And part of that is because you have to be extra-careful about accidentally exposing people to other people, but really it’s because sometimes you don’t really know what it is you want to write about–or more accurately, you know what you can’t or shouldn’t write about, but the kosher stuff is too hard to figure out. Which means you’re up at 2:00 a.m. on a week-night, blithely ignoring the fact that empirical evidence indicates that without at least five hours of sleep, you’re a fucking zombie for more than half the day, and no amount of caffeine can really bring that issue to a happy resolution.

The first steps in trying to establish common ground are tricky, but not as tricky as the second, third, fourth (and so on). The first three go well, but then there’s this odd hurdle, a little wooden stile of emotion that blocks rational thought. You want to try and understand what your next step should or could be (more should than could, because this is as far as you’ve ever got in your life, and the very thought of restarting sends chills up and down your spine, it gives you that queasy feeling in the gut of your stomach like when you’re trying to hold back tears, it makes you shiver with anticipation and fear all at once); and more than that, it paralyses you in a bizarre holding pattern of expectation and dread.

What do I do next?

So if you’re me, you try not to send too many text messages, or at the very least, you keep them as light-hearted and non-pressure-creating as possible. You don’t call much or very often, and you try to stop your mind from whirling away on a maelstrom of worry, of why hasn’t he called? and is it too much if I tell him that I really enjoyed his company, and he’s in a totally different place in his life, what if he decided that it wasn’t going to work? or worst of all, as a special someone might panic, oh no what if he thinks I’m fat?

I mean, the fact that I am as a matter of objectivity about 20 pounds overweight only adds to this angst.

So for now, after multiple cups of decaf and hand-holding, deep breathing definitely seems to be the way forward. Over-thinking things comes naturally to me, which is why at this point in time I’m lying in bed playing online Risk and trying to maintain the oxygen content of my blood at an optimum level. And hoping, with only a slight whiff of desperation, that he likes me as much as I think I’m finding that I like him.

Of course, one of the other issues of not having ever dated anyone or been in a relationship (leaving aside the worrisome fact that I find myself using that particular sequence of words with a disturbing degree of readiness these days), is that when something in the realm of romance does crop up, I have absolutely no clue as to how it should be handled.

I mean, honestly. I’ve now reached a point at which I treat the possibility of a relationship and my part in it with the same sort of consideration you’d give to seeing someone juggling flaming torches in the middle of a petrol station. Of the last 48 hours, I can honestly say that at least a good dozen have probably involved some form of anxious thought around Curfew Boy. Which is ridiculous.

There are some wonderful complications inherent in being a gay man in Pakistan. With a few notable exceptions to the rule, most single gay men (and women) live at home, with their families. (In all fairness, so do most single straight men and women, thereby uniting both heterosexuals and homosexuals in their inability to find some way to hook up with each other.) What this means then, is that it becomes remarkably difficult for you to go out to a party and invite someone back home with you, even if you would like to so do. It becomes even more difficult for you to necessarily maintain some sort of relationship predicated on more than just having meals together or furtive day-time gropings, because many families will (un)necessarily flip out at the idea of their beloved progeny having been out all night long at someone else’s house. Not all, mind you, but many.

So you can’t really hook up with anyone on the spur of the moment, and you can’t really go out and spend the night at someone’s house for fear of your family calling the police because they think you’ve been kidnapped/had an accident/been caught in some sort of rioting/abducted by aliens. And it is, believe it or not, hard to explain to family members why you feel like spending the night at someone’s house (drinking is officially illegal, so it’s not so easy to go with the “I was drunk and didn’t want to drive”), because “good people” don’t sleep anywhere but their own beds, and besides, what if there was a family emergency and you had to be home?

Admittedly, most of the people I know are exceptions to this rule, but if you don’t live on your own, there’s a lot of drama associated with socialising.

Strangely enough, it’s generally OK for you to be out until five in the morning at parties though (albeit not in my case), but if you’re going to apply that to a significant other (and party of a sort it will be, admittedly), it can become a bit much. This is definitely a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too, but given how much I am not a morning person, it’s pretty much a guarantee that having to stagger out of a lover’s bed at four in the morning to drive home on a regular basis will inevitably wind up in massive amounts of drama and more effort than one should really have to expend on anything short of world domination.

Further complicating all of this are the dual facts that (a) Pakistani parents wield powers of guilt and obligation that would make even the Catholic Church weep with envy, and (b) local employers, be they multi-national corporations or local institutions, have predicated their salary structures on the notion that since anyone under the age of 30 and/or unmarried will undoubtedly be living at home for most of their lives, or in an abode that is paid for either fully or in part by contributions from the Bank of Mommy & Daddy, they don’t really have to disburse particularly lucrative amounts of cash. To wit, the average salary of a fairly high-powered executive type in Karachi is probably under USD 30,000/- per year. Taken in rupees, that looks pretty substantial (it’s all the zeros), but given that the monthly cost of renting an apartment in a safe neighbourhood can be about USD 12,000/- per year (and that doesn’t necessarily include utilities or TV/telephone/cable), and that an average car like a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic (OK, average world-over, but considered somewhat high-end in Pakistan) can set you back somewhere in the realm of USD 20,000/-, you’re looking at sacrificing a hell of a lot of what dragged you back to Pakistan in the first place.

You know, servants, no rent, family cars to use, laundry done for you, houses cleaned, beds made, etc. etc. And all these numbers are making my head hurt.

So what do you do? Weekend trips away to the homes of friends who are kind enough to put you up? Hiding in hotels and lying to families about sudden mysterious “work” trips? It’s also tough enough to get sorted independently since the idea of independent living hasn’t really taken root in Pakistan yet, so not only are places few and far-between, they’re fucking expensive. And despite all the rioting and violence etc. etc., real estate continues to appreciate in value to the extent where buying land and building a house of your own (or even owning an apartment of your own) is well-nigh impossible in the short-term. Mortgages are rare, and absurdly over-priced. The kind of credit market that could set the tone for any sort of stab at independence doesn’t exist (for example, I have one of the lowest-rate credit cards on the market, and my APR is still about 30%), and quite frankly, living in Karachi for example, is pretty fucking expensive.

So you suck it up. Mostly. And you remind yourself that you’ve done the right thing by coming home and taking care of your family, even if it’s not the best thing in the world for you. Occasionally, you mount a moral high-horse and sneer at those foolish Westerners, those callous people who abandon their aged parents to nursing homes and retirement communities, in an effort to mitigate the stifling life you’re somehow trapped in. Mostly though, you try not to think about it, and you keep telling yourself that things are just fine the way they are, and it makes sense to not go it alone, and what do you have left if not family and you owe your parents something.

Mostly.

It takes way more courage to break away from this quicksand of tradition and obligation in which we live than it does to play the martyr, I’ll tell you that.

The idea of dating someone terrifies me. Partly because I want that whole experience so much that it borders on obsession, and partly I suspect because even if I were to date someone, I’d live in perpetual fear of losing him to someone else who’s better-looking or smarter or funnier, or you know…not me. It’s paralytic.

Not that I genuinely expect anyone I date–and we’ll be theoretical here, since speculation’s all I really have to work with–to spend the rest of his life with me right off the bat. I know that romance and love and partnership and all that jazz is a bit of a trial-and-error process with no real guarantees, but I can’t help feeling that on some level, the decade of solitude since I became legal (so to speak, given the theocracy in which I live) has set me up for some serious karmic reward. You know: find boyfriend who’s absolutely perfect, and never have to go through the process of hoping someone likes you and the courting and the panic attacks centred around fears of rejection and the potential heart palpitations ever again. Ever. Because you’ve sort of served out your sentence of being alone, and really, what the hell?

Then comes the paralytic fear of ever letting said person out into public, and I go all Misery, because if after all of this shit I wind up meeting someone, only to lose him to someone else at a club or bar or even a friend, I’d be forced to have some sort of psychotic break. I’d probably make Britney look like the poster-child for stability by comparison.