Page 36 of Red Flags and Rishtas
‘I’ll do it,’ I said, handing a hundred-rupee note to the street vendor in exchange for two criminally small cups of buttered sweetcorn.
Before she could erupt into a fit of excitement, I continued, ‘But I’m not taking money for it. At best, you can give me a Zara gift card.’
V flashed a bright smile at me, clinking her paper cup with mine. We discussed how to kick-start the process as we walked back to the main road, where her chauffeur-driven BMW awaited us. The driver held the door open for us both as we got into the backseat.
‘By the way,’ V said when we were on our way, ‘I have some news abouthim.’
The way she said it left me with little doubt about who the person in question was. V followed he-who-must-not-be-named, aka my ex, on Instagram to give me life updates about him – although only when absolutely necessary. I’d blocked him everywhere, knowing I couldn’t stand the heartache of seeing him live his life, sans me. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t still keep tabs on him.
‘He’s got a girlfriend … some white chick called Juliette.’
Juliette, really?
‘I see,’ I said, trying very hard to block the pang of jealousy I was feeling.
‘Honestly, she’s not even that pretty,’ V said, her kind eyes searching my face for any sign of despair.
‘I don’t care. It’s been forever,’ I said, but we both knew I didn’t mean it.
It’s not that I wasn’toverhim. I knew I didn’t want him back – not in this life, not even in another. But I found it hard to shake off the pain he’d left me with.
‘Do you want to see the post? It might give you some kind of closure,’ V said, placing a hand on mine.
‘Oh God, no. That’s a terrible idea. You’ve seen it and I know about it, that’s enough,’ I said, my mouth falling open in horror.
‘Okay, Annie,’ she said quietly.
The car ride to V’s house felt longer than it should have. She changed the topic soon after she realised I didn’t want to talk abouthim,but I was distant, my mind elsewhere.
‘What’s happening on the dating front? Swiped on a new cutie?’ she asked, infusing her voice with cheerfulness.
This would’ve been a good time to tell her about The Bet. I want to say I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell her, but that would be a lie. I knew exactly why it was hard for me to come clean to V about something like this. She’d tell me it was a stupid idea, one that would almost certainly end in disaster. She wouldn’t understand the kick it had given me, and how I was determined to find a partner, even if it was to experience some fabricated feeling of victory.
And now, I had two people to beat – my original contender and the man who had broken my heart three years ago, who was now playing Romeo to someone else.
After aggressively swiping for three days, I realised I was going about this the wrong way. I was looking for a pool of cute, intelligent and eligible guys when the truth was I’d already interacted with most of them during my online dating career. Not only had I met and turned down hundreds of guys, but I’d also ghosted countless others without giving them a fair chance. It was time, I decided, to dig into the archives.
A Saturday night study of my past chats revealed what I already knew – I wrote nice guys off too soon. For example, I had stopped replying to a perfectly sweet guy because he insisted on having a phone conversation instead of texting. I couldn’t remember why, but I guessed it must’ve seemed like too muchtrouble at the time. Another chat had been abandoned after the guy had responded to my courtesy ‘How’s it going?’ with a 200-word long essay about his current well-being.
It’s not that I dated assholes – I stopped doing that after Mr You-Know-Who. But I didn’t pick the good ones either, believing them to be too vanilla for my taste. In fact, I couldn’t have gone on a date with more than five nice guys in the last three years. Today, I was meeting one of them.
Ajay and I had met about a year ago over a lunch date, and I had decided within the first thirty minutes that I wouldn’t be seeing him again. There was nothing wrong with him, other than the fact that he wastoonice. He was a perfect gentleman who brought me flowers, opened doors for me and insisted on dropping me home later. Even when I continuously bailed on him after our first date, he didn’t show an ounce of disrespect or bitterness towards me. He resorted to silently liking every new post I put up on Instagram and occasionally responding to my stories. If anyone deserved a second chance, it was him.
‘So, first date 2.0, huh?’ I said, greeting him with a light hug.
He had picked a quaint Italian restaurant in Champa Gali, one that V and I had been meaning to visit for a few months.
‘I hope this one leads to a second,’ he said, returning my hug warmly.
The first thing I noticed when I sat down were the customised menu cards, napkins and coasters on the marble-top table. Mine had A.K. meticulously calligraphed in black ink.
I opened my mouth to say something but couldn’t find the right words. My fingers drew circles over my engraved initials on the cloth napkin.
‘Wow,’ I finally said, ‘this is …’
‘I just wanted to do something nice for you,’ he said when I didn’t complete my sentence.
He looked nervous, like he was trying to assess if he’d gone overboard. I forced myself to give him my sweetest smile, and he visibly brightened.
