Suramya Pokharel - January 27, 2024
On the next meeting, which took place again in the canteen and followed a similar routine to the previous one, she declared that she had finished her task. It was not a task extremely complicated, but yeah, I should say she did exceed my expectations, for I was sure she’d come up with something she could not do. However, it’s too early to decide that. As the processing of our program continued, she broke the silence with some talk about the weather. I deduced she must be feeling awkward with the silence but cared far too less to relieve her of her awkwardness.
“He’s here too!” she said suddenly.
“Who?”
“That guy near the counter. You know he actually told me he liked me.”
It seemed like the conversation would take some long turn so to hopefully close it there, I replied in a bored manner, “Mmm Hmm.”
“Yeah..” she said. It was clear she didn’t know how to continue the conversation forward and my plan had worked. Just then however, the guy approached and began a conversation with her. The conversation went something like:
It’s astounding how I could so clearly see what the guy was trying to do. Funny thing is women see it all, or rather they sense the need for approval that’s being vomited in such high amounts. That’s what the whole ‘vibe’ thing is all about. You can never give her the ‘vibes’ if you are that desperate to impress her. However, I was amused and far too invested to not poke my nose into it.
“Intelligent guy that,” I said in a sarcastic tone.
“Yeah,” she replied, completely oblivious of my sarcasm. “You know he told me that he liked me and I didn’t know what to say.” This was a repeated statement.
“Then, what did you say?” I asked.
“I said thank you,” she continued, as if in a hurry to explain the entire story. “I mean what else could I say? “
“Then?”
“Then, he was like let’s go to the garden of dreams and I said no, I am busy right now, we’ll go some other day and left quickly.”
“Ah! Okay. So, that’s where you two are right now?” I said in a teasing tone.
“Yeah.”
“Do you not like him?” I asked with a comical undertone she didn’t pick up at all.
“No, I mean he is a great guy but, ...” she was finding it hard to articulate her words.
“But you don’t feel the vibe.” I completed it for her.
“Maybe,” she continued. “And I mean, I don’t think our personalities match as well.”
“Mmm Hmm,” I replied. Just then the processing of the program ended and our task for the day was done.
“Okay, that’s it for the day,” I said turning off my laptop.” Do the [-her task] and we’ll meet again Thursday.”
Wednesday, she texted me with a problem she’d encountered. I replied with some possible solutions and said if it wasn’t fixed, we could look at it tomorrow.
Next day, we met at the library. We solved the error she had encountered and the processing of the program began again. I could see a sort of routine being formed here. We meet, we run the program, the program takes forever to process and during that time, some random conversation gets initiated. It’s not that I mind conversations, but I also don’t mind not having them. Anyways, people find silence awkward. I myself have found silence awkward, it’s just that now I’ve gotten used to it, and even long for it to some extent. But, she’s not used to silence, so it’s natural enough for her to try to come up with something. At times though, I find such forced conversations annoying as hell.
“I heard you’re quite a flirt,” she said.
“Yeah?” I replied playfully.
“I did some research into you,” she continued. “And apparently you flirt with everyone, I heard!”
“Mmm Hmm.” It’s much less that I’m a flirt. It’s more that I give little fuck about what the person in front thinks of me, and joke quite extensively when in mood. And that joke at times offends people, but more often than not comes off as flirtatious. At times though, I flirt just for the sake of flirting. Depends on my mood really. But, there’s no point explaining all this to her, so it’s better if she creates an image of me based on what she sees herself, rather than based on what I want her to see. And this method is quite effective as well. I can make a safe analysis about someone based on what they think of me, given the information they have of me.
“So, you must have a lot of girlfriends then,” she said immediately after.
“Mmm Hmm.” I replied slightly grinning.
“Where are they then?”
“I don’t know. Fighting among themselves maybe.”
She chuckled. “Are they not mad that you’re here with me, doing the project?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask them.”
“Okay.” She said snickering.
“I don’t know about my girlfriends, I’m sure the guy from last time will be quite mad that you’re in a project with me and not him.” For some odd reason, I thought it’d be amusing to get that guy back in the headlines.
“Yeah!” she said excitedly. “You know he asked me to go somewhere else again this week. I said that I have to do so much of the project and so I can’t.”
“Oh, yeah?” I replied. ”I’ll tell him that you have nothing left to do this week. Just you wait!”
“No!” she yelled jokingly, slightly slapping my arm.
“I mean I could go. But a lot of guys ask me and I can’t say yes to all of them,” she said, jesting in a sassy tone.
“Yeah right!” I said sarcastically.
The processing ended and the results came in. We continued on our respective tasks and after half an hour or so, our job for today was done.