An Emotional Affair
“If that cousin of mine exemplified the falsity of perception, the one who used to ingratiate himself with her spouse was the personification of falsity itself,” he began the remarkable recap of his life. “But as the world reckons, he was an eligible bachelor as far as eligibility could take a middleclass guy; well he was an I.I.Tan with a MNC career and a four-wheeler to convey his corporate eminence-in-the-making. As my position, rather lack of it, failed to impress him, he was won’t not to reciprocate my greetings, and soon to avoid being slighted by him I was not taking cognizance of his presence, in other words I used to ignore the would-be ignorer. Surely, it is stupid to expect hosannas from any, leave alone all, and so I would’ve still respected him had he remained indifferent to me as ever for all have their own likes and dislikes. But when he sensed that his own mentor, husband of my indifferent cousin, held me dear, he tried to warm up to me, but by then I had learned how to judge people and so I wasn’t moved by his attempts to befriend me. Another relative though, impressed by his status and all made up her mind to marry her daughter to him and that put paid to our voicing the objections we all have had about him. It’s another matter that I had a crush on the girl.”
“Well I too see the big picture of man’s character in his small gestures; but you and your crushes, don’t they seem unceasing?”
“Didn’t Stendhal opine that for a woman to love a man at first sight, he should have at the same time something to respect and something to pity in his face,” he continued. “Maybe in my youth, my visage had that dual character, which, as I told you, endeared me to many a woman, and that was why without the fear of rejection, I could make a pass at every woman I had ever fancied; well, my weakness had always been the lightly darkish women with a tinge of sadness on their faces, and I was all too brotherly to those who failed to connect with my roving eye. Once, such a one told me that she was enamored of me for my romanticism and as her persona didn’t trigger my passion, I realized that its woman’s sex appeal that brings man’s innate romanticism into play to provide the cutting edge for lovemaking, and unless combined by male passion and female amorousness, coition is mere sexual motion.”