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.