What happens when you meet your last crush from school three years later
1) You notice he's grown fatter and his face has broadened out, and you laugh to yourself because of course, he's lost his hold over you once you've seen that.
2) You wonder why your chest is hurting. Could it be the chhole-bhature you just ate? Your mother always warned you against eating from roadside vendors. You wish you'd listened.
3) He introduces to you the girl next to him with a special emphasis and a meaningful look in his eye. You realize with a shock that She is very pretty. Of course, it doesn't matter to you. Why should it?
4) You suddenly feel this urgent need to get back to college NOW. You're puzzled about why exactly your brain is telling you it's time to leave. You try to remember what caused all this tearing hurry. Maybe you forgot to do something? But you can't think of anything.
5) You're on your way back when you realize that today happened to be the first day in three months that you wore your old baggy T-shirt, decided not to put make-up, and came with oiled hair for fear of Holi revellers. Lovely.
6) Your friends all notice some erratic behaviour on your part. You're falling into abstract silences, then getting hyperactive and racing them around college, then either laughing maniacally at their jokes or totally missing the punchline.
7) An hour and fifteen minutes later, your chest is still having that mysterious pain. You're trying to pinpoint the location. It's somewhere on the left side. On a completely unrelated note, you're wondering why Her image is floating in front of your eyes. Not that you care.
8) You feel this powerful rush of hate towards him. You don't know why, but you want to hit him, shake him...something.
9) Immediately after, you get an overpowering urge to burst into tears and bawl your eyes out. You have no idea why - it's not that you're sad or anything. But your every sense is - for some incomprehensible reason - telling you to indulge in an hysterical crying jag.
10) You glance at your phone every 1 minute. You gave him your number a full three hours before. Why the fuck hasn't he called? Or at least messaged.
11) You remember there's spaghetti waiting for you at home. Strangely, that doesn't get you at all tempted. In fact, you realize the thought of food is making you nauseous. You try to remember when was the last time you refused any kind of food. Think it might have been sometime in 2002.
12) You know it's going to make you miserable but you go ahead and check out his Facebook account for Her profile picture. Yep, still very pretty.
13) You decide to write a blog post about this baffling behaviour on your part. The pain in your chest is bothering you, but you get on with it anyway.
There they are - the 13 steps to insanity and hell. And then they call me a rationalist!
