It’s been two weeks since last I saw Curfew Boy; or is it three now? I suppose it’s three, since the weekend has officially begun, and therefore I saw him two weekends ago….or whatever it is, it’s almost two in the morning and I can’t do the math.

But I’ve been insanely busy at work all week, preparing for my trip to Europe next Tuesday, and so I haven’t had the chance to call him. After spending over six hours each day on teleconferences, the very thought of calling someone is repellent, and so I’ve been coming home late and just going to bed, intending to call or text but never getting around to it. So in a way, I’ve not taken advantage of my own agency to call him, and I get that I could have picked up the phone at any point to speak to him.

But why does my heart sink so heavily at the realisation that he hasn’t once called or texted me either?

“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.

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.