The Importance of Being Cool

You buy tees from Pantaloons and dresses from Ritu Kumars,
You read the paper every morning to not miss out on the lunch hour discussions
You listen to HipHop so that you can mouth the songs while grooving in the club
You don't answer personal calls at work coz you pretend to be busy at work
You wear halter bras to show a little bit
You put up pretty pics on FB and untag yourself from the unprettier ones
You want a knowledge-filled and social boyfriend
You use a Mac
You have your eyebrows in shape and ensure that no underarm curls sprout out
You talk about evolution with the authority of Darwin's first cousin
You talk about Futures and Options without knowing the underlying
You put up psychedelic posters on the walls of your room
You follow FIFA and the stock market and entrepreneurship blog with undetectable fake passion

You tread the path of coolness... you try to ooze as much of it as you can imagine

Can you afford to be uncool, is the question?
More like, do you have the courage to be uncool?

Squeezy

Read the paper during breakfast,
Check the stock prices while going to work,
Listen to music while working,
Browse the net while talking on the phone,

Dream while sleeping,
Calculate calories while working out,
Think of other conversations while conversing,
Rush around fervidly in this beautiful weather... all one has to do is pause, and stop the f*@#ing multitasking

Love's in the air

Falling in love has it's advantages, and catches.
However, re-falling in love has a different set of upsides and downsides.
And re-falling after several re-falls is a totally different ball-game. It is certainly not meant for the faint hearted.

For starters, even if the initial gush of love is strong, stronger is the caution that grips you from the fear of falling off the love-fence.  Romancing the idea of a long-lasting, 'happily ever after' liaison is given up, and its place is taken by pragmatic thoughts of potential issues that could crop up eventually. At odd times, when one is immersed in throes of passion, skepticism peeks out its annoying face to disrupt the bliss. And one of the biggest and unforeseen challenge is to not let the new participant's actions trigger those of the past ones. A joke, a song, the word selected... hell, even a sneeze can transport one to those 'good-old days' with good-ol participants of love. The more 'colorful' a past one has, the more compounded this problem gets.
Then there is the perennial thought-race of who is 'better'. An impossible answer to come up with. And just as impossible to get rid of these comparisons. I guess it's inherent. Humans compare people. That's not the problem. The problem is that this is socially considered to be insensitive. And so along with a seemingly-genuine confusion of 'whos better', there is an added baggage of guilt associated with asking such unkind questions.

So, what's the key to cracking the puzzle? Is it a wiser strategy to give up on love? How much can a human heart endure? What is the healthy option - to risk another damage, or to go ahead in hope?
A good friend had once given an interesting theory - every time one falls in love, one gives a piece of one's heart to the person. And when there is a break-up, the piece is lost. After several such endeavors, one has lost several pieces (big and small) and the size of the heart has considerably shrunk. Eventually not much of the heart is left to give, and since love primarily involves in giving a piece of heart to someone, one cannot fall in love after some critical number of attempts.
Although hilarious, this theory seems to make sense at different levels of abstraction, and is gradually rising the ranks to becoming my personal favorite.

There are other statistical theories that claim that you should just discard the first 30% of people you date, find the next best and stick on. But statistics get my mind muddled up, given their tricky nature...so, that theory is discarded.

All said and 'done', there is some truth to the adage- "the heart is forever inexperienced"
The butterflies in the stomach during the initial dates, the long dates that get over too quickly, the "good-night" calls stretching to a 3-hour late-night mushy talks, the storing of every sms on the cell only to re-read and re-live the moment... it feels good to be in this state.

Also, the re-falls have helped in aligning priorities, and discovering the must-haves in potential partners. Love is respected. It is taken seriously, it is given time and resources. It is not a 'by-the-way' activity, it is THE activity. There is an increased awareness of the emotional investment made.

More than anything else, one feels free and on top-of-the-world... fearless, flawless and filmy :-)