“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.

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.

When I was younger, I didn’t ever anticipate a future of looking back at my life and grimacing in horror at the amount of emotional emasculation I seem to have (sometimes voluntarily) undergone. Unfortunately, with my mother rapping on my door like some maternal avenger and a cowering gay man in my bathroom doing his desperate best to cover himself in a pile of discarded laundry, I was forced to confront some unpleasantly harsh truths about myself in less-than-ideal circumstances.

“What is it?” I asked somewhat testily.

“Don’t take that tone with me, you’re my son,” she started, displaying a remarkable grasp of the obvious, “and I’m your mother, and you shouldn’t talk to your mother like that.”

I sighed heavily and apologised, doing my desperate best to head off the litany of her difficult pregnancy caused by me, the years of trial she endured in relation to my upbringing and of course the latest drama in the saga that was her life insofar as it involved ungrateful servants who had the audacity to demand eight weeks of vacation just as visitors were scheduled to arrive.

“I wanted to ask if you wanted breakfast,” she said, artfully positioning herself to maximise the view of my room afforded from the half-inch of space between my torso and the bedroom door.

“I don’t, thanks,” I said hastily, before the conversation degenerated into a lengthy debate over omelettes and brioche versus more traditional halwa puri and cholay, because this, you must understand is what keeps my mother alive, the constant second, third and fourth-guessing of any decision made by any blood relative. “I’m going to just go out for a late brunch instead.”

“I don’t see why,” began another one of her salvos, “it’s not as though the food at home is bad for you or anything. Why should you waste money on going out?”

“Absolutely,” I agreed, preparing to deploy my most potent conversation-killer. “I don’t have to, but I want to. Not quite as badly as I want to go to the bathroom right now, but quite close.”

The very mention of bodily functions causes my mother’s eyes and lips to narrow and her nostrils to become thin and pinched. It’s a wonder none of us grew up with severe colonic diseases or kidney malfunctions. And to date, it’s always been a great way to bring one of her diatribes to a close.

I was thinking about that tonight, as I drove back from a farewell party for a friend who’s moving to Vietnam in a week. Much as I enjoy being able to instantly cut off conversation with the woman who somehow raised me, the last decade or so has been spent in figuring out ways to cut the apron chains, to break away and establish my own life independent of the Pakistani family unit. And watching my friend throw everything she has to the winds so she can get out of Karachi, away from riots and bloodshed and uncertainty…it’s impressive. And while I’m (mostly) happy for her, there’s a hefty component of envy involved as well.

I want to leave here. I want to drop my responsibilities, my duty to take care of my mother, to my household, to my home, leave them all by the way-side and just go far far away from all the people here. From the houses, the gardens and the servants.

I want to cook my own food. Make my own bed. Iron my own clothes.

When it comes to being domestic, I’m something of a Viking.

Four cups of coffee into my flight, I’m groggy and ready to pass out, but no matter how much my eyes sting and my bones ache, I can’t bring myself to sleep. For once, I can’t even blame the plane or the crew—I’ve got two seats to myself at an emergency exit, so there’s plenty of room for me to kick off my shoes and the steward responsible for the side of the plane where I’m sitting has been nothing but generous with his disbursement of wine. Kind of like a latter-day Dionysus, only airborne and in a tight little burgundy jacket. If I weren’t so incredibly tired, and somewhat horrified to see what I think is competitive tap-dance on the video feed, I’d probably make some sort of half-hearted pass at him.

But there’ll be time enough for that.

I hope.

Because I got onto this flight with every intention of dying, and now, years after the idea first popped into my head, the notion is terrifying.

I’m not a suicide bomber or something stupid like that. Actually, I’m about as far away from being religious as you can probably get without actually stepping into full-on atheism, despite being raised by two individuals who were both immensely rooted in their faith and did their best to instil that in me. For some reason though, I find myself much more comfortable on my knees with a cock in my mouth than in a mosque, chanting “God is great”, no matter how much peace of mind it’s supposed to bring me.

Not always. There are occasionally days, even for gay men, when a blowjob just doesn’t cut it. Rare, admittedly, but they do exist.

I didn’t want to come back. I toyed with the idea of just…walking away from everything, into the sunset, preferably with a very strong vodka & tonic in one hand and a cigarette in the other. So you know, dying in that sense, not in the “deep in the ground, mouldering away” sense, because honestly, what would that really accomplish? I got over that phase back when I was 12 years old and trying to figure out a way to jerk off to Baywatch episodes without my parents catching me (the trick, if you’re interested, is to stare at the screen as intently as possible when someone attractive is on, then re-imagine him in your head later on. Simple, but effective).

But when the plane touched down and I got into the cab, watching all the foliage rush past in a blur of green, I started reconsidering. And by the time I got to my apartment, I’d already managed to consolidate all of my bank accounts.

I hate December.

Sometimes, when you live in Karachi, life seems to take a particular malicious sort of pleasure in aggravating you. Never more so than in December. And January.

Definitely January.

Pakistani weddings tend to be pretty lavish affairs, no matter who you are, or how much you earn. Most weddings are spread over about three to four “main” events, with numerous pre-event parties and dinners, all of which adds up to an extended two-period effort to avoid a psychotic break of some sort.

All of those efforts are completely useless though, when you run into someone at a wedding, realise you’ve seen him online, fall madly in love, and then further realise that you work with his sister on a daily basis. And that he’s leaving the city in a few weeks whereas you’re getting on a flight out of Karachi in about eight days.

Waking up to a hangover is never any fun. It’s even less so when the reason for that hangover is lying in your bed, your mother is pounding on the bedroom door to wake you up, and you reek of cheap bootlegged local vodka.

And in Karachi, at that.

“Get into the bathroom,” I hissed at the warm body I’d found so appetising the previous night.

And as he disappeared into (what I realised for the first time was) a haven of white tile and steel-coil tubing, I found myself realising, once again, how much easier life would be if I weren’t so incredibly desperate to find love. It’s all very well and good to talk about how “love comes when you stop looking for it” or “you’ll find love when you least expect it”, but I suspect that saying shit like that is akin to treating an ice age as a good opportunity to improve your slalom technique–theoretically viable, but practically, a raging bitch and a half.

But when you’ve been stood up by the love of your life, what’re you going to do? And really, who’s to say that despite having only met once, he couldn’t/wouldn’t/shouldn’t have been the love of your life? And if you’re spending hours trying to find the one market in town where you can buy condoms and lube without the entire city knowing you’re hoping to get lucky, the least you can hope for is the arrival of that same sacred love(r).

Because if you don’t, the bitterness engendered by watching your best friend cuddle with his boyfriend on a couch is really quite fucking traumatic. Perhaps not quite as traumatic as your mother banging on a door that’s the only barrier between you and instant stoning-to-death-for-sodomy, but pretty high in the overall rankings. Seven or so drinks in the company of repressed homosexuals with negative social tact doesn’t help matters much either.

Then again, I’ve always been a little on the sensitive side.

I came here to start a new chapter in my life. Hence the title of this particular post. Things were getting a little awkward around where I used to be, and I just didn’t feel like myself any more.

So yeah. Here I am.

Hi.