The Happening or It Has Happened, Frendo

It's finally happened. I had heard of it happening to others but always found it absurd and attributed it to a flaw in those people, their conduct or their ways of existence. I abhorred the cribbing and complaining of these people and they invoked images of sissy pop song videos in me. I was sarcastic, satirical, unrelentingly caustic and singularly captious about them.

And now I am on the proverbial other side, a subject of the affliction, stressed, compressed, distressed and helpless at that. A soft corner for this state of being has suddenly sprouted within me and from looking down from above, I have plummeted to looking at myself while being down below.

I am finally Friendless! Yes, that I am, as opposed to Friendful - which I was until not very long ago. At 27, I should have seen it coming, because I have been a bystander to seeing others see it coming since long.

So this is what happens as you near the age of 26 and a fraction. Half of your friends have had more than two halves the luck in finding suitable prospective spouses and off they go spinning in marital bliss. A few more finally give in to the persistent telephone calls originating from home and fill those endless forms about their 'hobbies' and 'expectations' to be harangued into the other kind of spun bliss - the arranged marriage - not before long. All promises of singleton behaviour on their part post the event fall flat on the floor. About to be married people have a tendency to tell you, "Don't worry yaar, how can you even dream of me being a tied-down guy? You won't even notice the difference." Rubbish. Immediately ridicule it as empty bravado. Do not set yourself up for emotional disappointment by believing in their lies. The fact is - those whose after-work lives dwell on grocery purchase cannot be good activity puh'dners.

The rest? You finally realise you've grown out of friendships, you fight and call it quits. Yes, it happens at 27 too, as I have Eureka!-ed upon recently. You fight and you say tata to (or are said tata to by) friends at 27 too!

So that leaves you, 27, lonely, derelict and deprived of social stimulation. I still have memories of the time when I didn't need to call beyond two phone numbers to be already munching popcorn in a theater with good company or to already be out on a spin on the highway. But today, I am contemplating watching a movie alone. ALONE! Asking for only one ticket at the Box Office; buying half a popcorn and half a Coke and having strangers on both sides of the seat. I'm not used to all that, ya know. Being chronically commitment-phobic adds to the woes, so dating can often become the Frankenstein that I must avoid, avoid at all costs (excuse for not putting effort).

To those about to second-guess me: this is not mid-twenty crisis. This is all a fault of the silly institution of marriage which plunders people of their beer partners and one which I cannot escape myself for too long (you did not read the last phrase).

Having reached this point, I have a Heart-of-Darkness type insight into the human psyche. It is this state in - or because - of which most people give into the spinning bliss of marriage.

I however, have still given myself more time to enjoy singledom. And now when I spent my last couple of years in singledom, I find that I have to do it alone. Duh. Do be do be duh.

Never mind. This is the moment I can deservingly pat myself. They taught us about saving for a rainy day. This is my rainy day. Doubly the rainy day (telling you that it's Monsoon and raining would be admitting to have cracked a PJ). And my saviours - instead of putting them in the 'hobbies and interests' column of the matrimony form, I will execute them.

An arsenal of things to do will get me by, or I will try hard to get the by past me. I am soon starting a guitar class in my office where I will teach the instrument to the four disciples already signed up. My camera lenses need to be rid of the fungus and then out I must go clicking in, around and outside the city. I will now confess the potentially embarrassing fact that of the approximately 35 books I bought in the last year, I have read only four. This domination of the retail addict over the bookworm must be ended with haste.

Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker. Every minute it rains in the hills, they get beautifuller. Each time I look around, the walls moving nearer. Must climb those hills, must leave town on weekends and explore the jungles, watch more birds and capture more nature in my D80.

Any more ideas for a single guy trying to fight loneliness in Bombay?