Might hurt a few people mentioning this - but if they could look outside the "I", what a perfect study in human interaction some of my recent conversations with male friends would make!!

Here I am, married, settled - and immediately off the market. Well, of course I am - I am off the marriage market, just didn't think that was inclusive of "long interesting conversations with male friends". Now don't get me wrong, I love my sweetheart of a husband to death... but wait, does that mean I AM dead??

Let me back-track a bit. If you've ever read my blog before, you'll see my slow progression from singlehood to wedded life. It wasn't an easy road. But down that path, in my exploits, I met some amazing people, interacted with an interesting lot. Most of whom I connected with via my self-expression, my "vedicverses". There was one such interaction that started just before I met and married my soulmate. It started off well, through a couple of long emails, seemed to be going into the interesting realm of philosophy and debate... and then one day, I posted on my blog my happy tale of sudden and mind-blowing wedlock. The next day onwards, the emails trickled down to one, maybe two lines. I remember smiling wryly in my mind, and putting it away into that one little compartment in my head where I stuff all the ruddy memories of my life. But sometimes, things come back to you, and you wonder... "nothing really changes ever, does it?"

Growing up in a school where I never fit in, I tried making friends with some who just saw me as an eccentric gal with crazy ideas or a target for adolescent passions. Either ways, it meant ostracization for me - adolescence can be cruel, do you remember? I still can't bring myself to interact with that "yahoo group"... can never help being afraid of those unspoken judgements, being paranoid that someone is snickering, waiting for me to stumble and make a fool of myself. I grew up to meet some of that lot, who felt equally ostracized or alone in their school years, and yet when the time came to be different, turns out they were just the same born in the same flesh mirroring all they despised.

That's what makes us alone, doesn't it? The neediness, the dire craving to fit in?

For all my eccentricity, I am but an Indian married woman at the end of the day. Someone you can't debate with, discuss philosophies with... someone who just stepped over that threshold to a place where women can't have a life. Oh well, like I always say - C'est La Vie :)