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March 29, 2006

The what-if situation.

k tells me that I often get into what-if situations so much that I forget that it's a what-if situation and it's not actually real. Let me explain that better. The conversation starts innocuously:

Me - "What if your mom comes to stay with us and I get up really late on a Saturday, will she be ok with that?"

k - "Sure, why not? We can make her also sleep in late!"

Me (not liking the playful tone to his voice) - "Are you sure?"

k - "Yeah! It's not like we live with my parents in India! Relax"

(Aside - Argg! I hate the words "relax", "cool it", "take it easy" in the middle of an argument err...conversation. It indicates am getting all worked-up and hotheaded about the issue whereas the real issue that's making me hotheaded is the word "relaaaax" followed by a casual shrug!)

Me - "What if we have to go back to India, where will we live?"

k - "Bombay" (The answer comes to him unconsciously, especially since he is busy staring at his NCAA bracket willing his next-to-last position to inch up magically.)

Me - "Bombay?! Will we have to catch the local train to go to work then? Where will we live? Don't tell me we will live next to annoying Mrs.h~ that we met this time!"

(Aside - Mrs.h~ is the one who always talks to me through k, as if I didn't actually exist there. "Does she cook? Can she speak Hindi? She does? You must speak to her in Gujarathi so she will learn soon." - all questions addressed to dear hubby. For a wild moment then, I had an urge to answer similarly, I imagined tossing my hair, turning to k and saying, "Can Mrs.h~ give us the recipe for these yummy gulab jamuns?" and oh yeah, "Can she speak Hindi?")

k - "Ok, Bangalore then." (His bracket is beyond help, he realizes, so he has gone back to browsing his normal stock sites.)

Me - (Am relieved momentarily that we have decided on Bangalore but then I suddenly think of all the articles I have been reading about traffic congestion and infrastructure problems in Bangalore) "Gosh, what if we have to travel an hour to get to work? What if we can't adjust to work-timings there after getting used to the schedule here? What if..."

k - (interrupts me rudely, after all it was a reasonable hypothetical situation, one would think!) "Why should we always discuss these hypothetical situations of yours? What if? What if? And it's not that you answer a what-if and it goes away, it leads to more what-ifs all the more confusing than the first! Women and their what-ifs, bah!"

And so the story goes. My what-ifs remain what-ifs. Maybe I should ask him my what-if questions when his bracket gets better.

10 comments:

BZ said...

Hey After aseeing your pictures, I can actually imagine you getting into these 'talks' ;-)
I guess most girls are like that, and most guys are like that. :)

kamal said...

I thought you were on a non-wordy vacation, honey, this is vacation for real, you can take one, seriously! :))

Were you just waiting for me to step out of the house to play volleyball to marofy me on the www?? :))

Just for the record, I am in the 6th place in the bracket out of 13.

dinesh said...

Nice funny conversation ! Yeah, us guys don't like to cross bridges unless we see it. And we feel that "some women" want to talk about crossing all bridges before they see it. Nice attitude, right ? No..because they don't use what we talk about anyway....when the bridges come in sight, they go again to the men "so, what should we do now ?" . So why talk about it now ? :)

You're right about "relax" and "cool it" etc. I feel that with some words. When somebody says "purinjdha" at the end of every sentence, although they just say it out of empty habit, it sounds very condescending. I feel like getting back at them with a "It's not like you're proposing a theory to improve the fluid flow through a cylindrical pipe" for me not to get it. You just said "take the book from the table"..what's there to understand in this ? And there are other words too...nice blog :)

IBH said...

good conversation....

ana enaku enna sollurahdu nu thantheiryala :)

RS said...

saranya - :)

kamal - vacation over dude!

dinesh - wow! Thats quite a rant! Dinesh, did "some woman" take advice from you for a what-if situation and later ignore it? ;)

ibh - :)

RTD2 said...

Hey, "What if" is better than "If only" talks...though I am good at both..must be a female thing :) And yes, I hate it when people (guys!) say "Relax yaar" or "Chill" or "Don't worry"..it's so condescending and it doesn't solve anything!!

Hellboy said...

"vacation over dude!"

Thank God :)

dinesh said...

No "some woman" ever took advice from me. This is just from watching some of my friends' and their "some women" :)

RS said...

rtd2 - makes me feel much better :)

hellboy - :)

dinesh - ah...I see!

Shiva said...

K man !! - ur last line was absolutely right !!!!!!!!

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