So, yes.  I’ve been on something of a hiatus, and there are many, many, many reasons for that.  They range from the mundane (I’ve been working a lot) to the somewhat exciting (I was travelling for about a month, on business, sadly enough), and ultimately wind up at the somewhat basic (I didn’t really have much or know what to write about).  And quite frankly, there’s always something that’s just pressing enough to defer yet another post, so the short version of all of this is that I kind of just stopped writing because I lost the desire to.

I still don’t have it back–not completely, at any rate–but there’s been enough going on recently that made me wind up turning here at long last.  The larget imperative comes from, I suppose, Curfew Boy, who managed to in the last two or three months, dig himself into a ditch so deep that it may be easier for him to burrow through, emerge at the other end of the world and hop on a flight back before I wind up giving him the time of day.  This is, I realise, something of a far cry from the last few months of constantly wondering how else I could manage to make a long-distance relationship work, and I think (sadly enough) that I’m kind of over the idea of pushing for something that’s just so much effort.  As a wise friend of mine said a few days ago, when I was complaining to him about how miserable Karachi is after returning from abroad (naturally, this segued into Boy talk), he said, very simply:

We go into relationships to feel good generally and to feel good about ourselves. This is not to undermine the giving part of it. If, in the long term, something does not feel good-or more simply-is not fun any longer, then there doesn’t seem much point in persisting with it for the sake of it. I am sure you’ve given it the time and attention it deserves. If it doesn’t come about then maybe it is time to put it to rest and move on.

So, it looks like I’m moving on.  But for once, I’m closing a chapter, or at least book-marking it, with a distinct lack of regret.  I honestly don’t feel that I could have done anything more to make this work: flying to a different city and staying in a hotel at the expense of about half my monthly salary, each month; calling and SMSing at least four or five times per week; going out of my way to make plans for us to spend time together outside of Lahore and/or Karachi…I really did try to make a go of it.

And when you’re away for three weeks, and the person you’re trying to work something out with doesn’t call, text, e-mail or Facebook you even once (except for the single occasion at DJ Station in Bangkok when you texted him), despite the fact that you have a local Pakistani mobile number, so it’s not like you’re inaccessible or anything, and does so after the two or three conversations you’ve already had with him about how he needs to also make an effort to stay in touch with you–to initiate contact, not just respond to it–then really, you’re just bordering on desperation if you suck it all up and say “Ah well, fine, that’s just the way he is, I’ll make do.”

Fuck that.  I will not settle.  I don’t care if I’m fast-approaching the big 3-0 without having been in a “meaningful relationship” of some sort, I deserve better than this.  And that’s not just a random moment of self-empowerment; I neither need, nor warrant blatant disregard for my feelings and my needs, especially after having given way more ground than any reasonable person should.  There is absolutely no reason for me to stay in a relationship for which I have to make excuses to my friends, when they ask me how come I’m not feeling positive about it, or when people ask how Curfew Boy is, and I don’t have an answer because I just don’t know.

Everyone has their own drama, no matter the number of therapists involved.  But you can only help carry someone else’s baggage for so long before you become just another porter.

Which means, I suppose, that I’m back.  For a while at least.

Hey everyone.

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.

Occasionally, one of those weeks comes about. You know, those weeks. The kind in which absolutely nothing seems to go right, and when Friday rolls around, many sighs of relief are heaved on a global scale at the thought that another arbitrary unit of time has gone past.

But you almost never have any idea why things have been so bad. It annoys the fuck out of me.

This has been one of those aforementioned weeks. I can’t put my finger on exactly why it’s been so atrocious, but it just has. Part of it could be the self-fulfilling prophecy that is my general reaction to vernal times; I just hate the fucking spring. People see love in the air, I see pollen. People sigh and get moony-eyed at the thought of the birds and the bees, I sneeze hysterically and dab away at my corneas with tissues. People don shorts and t-shirts to head into the great outdoors, I argue with my tailor about how I don’t like casual clothes, and how he should just shut the fuck up and make sure my shirts come with extra collar-stays.

Allergies aside, weeks filled with multiple disappointments just aren’t any fun. One, two, maybe even three, you can deal with. When it starts piling up, and there’s nothing with which to shovel the damn’ poo, all you want to do is curl up and ignore everything.

Or if you’re me, you find yourself prone to fits of completely untargeted rage. We’re talking fuses so short that even Tom Cruise would scoff at them (make your own jokes here, there’s a lot to choose from). The desire to shove someone’s head through a wall, to hurt someone, anyone really, starts off at a slow boil, all “Wow, s/he’s annoying”, and rapidly escalates to the point where you’re eyeing traffic cameras with a view to figuring out the most efficient way for road-rage to take care of your irritant. And of course one person in particular is hard to target so sometimes you wind up exorcising this disturbing amount of cruelty by spreading it among many people. Yelling at your assistant, honking at the slow driver who’s lost on the roads, making sure that any statement leaving your mouth is so cutting that oxygen molecules are left confused about where their other halves have got to.

At least, that’s what would happen in theory. Unfortunately, I’m chronically incapable of being a complete bastard when there’s no actual concrete blame to be attached to anyone.

But when you’ve made lots of arrangements for a (hopefully) romantic weekend, including flying people in and out of the city, putting in extra hours at the office so you can justifiably switch off your work phone while with this other someone; when you’ve called your restaurateur friends to make sure that no matter what he feels like eating, the two of you (and associated friends who’re being eaten alive with curiousity because they’re just dying to see this person that seems to have wormed his way into your heart, that slightly shrivelled-from-disuse organ) will be able to get a table at any restaurant, any time…well, then it’s a little frustrating to be stood up (if you can call a two-day-advance-notice being stood up).

And you feel like kicking puppies.