In the Mood for Love

“I do.”

But he was certain that most people didn’t stop to look at themselves in the mirror. He did it fairly often.

It had bothered him forever. He felt anger, expressed joy, shed tears, laughed out loud, remembered fondly and cursed silently. But who was this person that looked back at him?

The longer they stared at each other the more unfamiliar they grew.

He knew that if he did this long enough he’d lose his mind. So he’d break the spell by speaking to himself or by twisting his face into some awkward shape.

She had no way of knowing this little detail of his life. In fact D. kept her away from infinite such details.

“You cannot be in love with someone once you know everything there is to know about them,” he had said when she objected to all the secrecy.

***

He had been standing there waiting for her for about half an hour. Thankfully she looked particularly gorgeous that afternoon.

***

They had first met years ago in college. And there’s was a case of what is usually not known as love at first sight. Anyway, as time went by, they fell in love.

Falling in love was highly overrated, he thought. Sometimes people fell in love over coffee, a single interesting conversation and/or a long kiss. Of course others took longer, but even then, everyone made too big a deal out of, what was essentially, nothing more than a matter of chance.

It had rained heavily the previous night and by the morning the weather had only worsened. Most students stayed away, and the college promptly declared a non-working day. Therefore it wasn’t odd that D. found himself alone in the library with nothing much to do than to talk to her. She had taken the bus to campus, and had no way of returning home before the afternoon.

So their undying love was merely the outcome of bad weather, lazy students, lazier authorities, and his random decision to walk into the library instead of the canteen.

“You mean more to me than anything in the world.”

Every time she’d say this he would hug her. Of course he found it foolishly sentimental. Thankfully she wasn’t the kind that said such things on a regular basis.

D. found relationships insufferable, much like the unbearable feeling of looking into a mirror.

“Why must there be this affiliation between two people who are in love? I think relationships end love!!”

It was this slight abhorrence that always gave him the upper hand in a relationship. She was always the one holding on to him. As time went by, he started to enjoy the feeling, then to expect it of her.

“What does it mean to love someone?” D. had often wondered standing before his mirror.

But he was certain of the times he hadn’t loved her. After the first few months he couldn’t bear to be with her, he couldn’t bear to give up all the time she needed, he couldn’t bear her incessant messaging and occasional tears. But then as time went by, things settled down a bit, either because she had had her fill of the necessary ceremonies or she just gave up. And yet D. didn’t know if he loved her. All he could say with some certainty was that the relationship didn’t bother him as much. Then a few years into it, he found things were getting too insipid.

“Being with one woman is boring man!” he had drunkenly declared to the other guys.

He fell out of love with her again. He met, flirted and even pursued other women, at work, in college, randomly and at parties. She had no way of knowing any of this. D. lied to her all the time.

“Why do you need the reassurance? What would I be doing here if I didn’t?”

Sometimes he’d play with her imagination, “I think anyone can be in love with two people at the same time!”

“No…” she’d say nervously.

D. was surprised at the little luck he had with other women. They were mostly stupid, or unattractive, or without grace, or completely rude. And if they were even vaguely acceptable, they required far too much effort. Also by and by he became aware of an unsettling thing; he would more or less look for her in other women. So he returned, and since then he had been honest and loyal to her, even privately. And yet, D. didn’t know whether it was love or simply convenience.

Time moved on and he maintained his upper hand by being generally aloof, all this while, love continued to be fairly random and perplexing, like when it displayed its incredible ability of bringing a man to his knees.

Just hearing her rave about some guy from work, D. realised that the other man could make her happier, or at least as happy. If he had gone to the canteen that rainy morning when classes were bizarrely called off and she had met this man later in the bus, things could have been very different.

That evening he was especially nice to her.

***

The relationship outlasted all of his digressions. You could say that it kept them in love, somehow.

What of her digressions? D. never really went there.

***

Years passed like this. And as he watched her walk down the aisle that afternoon, D. thought of everything that had happened, then he smiled; the clouds had spent the previous night washing everything grey just like the first time they met.

It was only a matter of chance.

He still had his doubts. But when you have been with someone for fairly long they begin to define you. You look into the mirror, and you still can’t recognise the person looking back. It still drives you crazy, except now, instead of making an awkward face, you just look at her and she says, “You mean more to me than anything else in the world.”

Maybe that’s love?

“I do.”