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Once in a while, I decide to try out a new avatar. Nothing dramatic – far from that actually – merely exploring the many universes I could inhabit with a few trivial decisions. Let me give you two examples.

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Job:

I got sick of seeing the same old faces and decided to attend a few interviews. And, I got a decent job offer. For some reason, I rejected the offer. I think I gave the excuse that I expected an indecent offer.

It could not have been the numbers that mattered. I started my professional career with a paycheck of USD 60 (I repeat, monthly paycheck) but, I joined that institution based on an irrational good feeling which turned out to be right.

I did not get a good feeling at this new place.
• Maybe, it was because I heard the Big Boss use the four-letter word with a very junior employee. (Trust me, I am not puritanical but I believe in a fair fight.)
• Or maybe, I did not like the restrooms. (I do not know why they decided to have thin walls in the restroom and the Big Boss’ office.)
• Or possibly, the HR person resembled my real-estate broker. (I am being unfair to my real-estate broker but for some strange reason, all the HR people I have known resemble my real-estate broker – all except one, but she left HR to become a real-estate broker.)

Moral of the story :

Good feelings? (Use the four-letter word.) To accept good offers, forget good feelings.

Matrimony:

I joined one of the many online matrimonial sites. To those virgins who have never frequented these online adult websites, let me say that the good ones cater to a wide variety of fetishism in men and women: single, in the process of being single, divorced, without issue, with issue but without liability, normal, disabled, etc.

I curbed my inclination to be verbose and along with the mandatory inputs such as age, sex, misleading vital statistics (athletic, average, slim, etc.), entered my succinct proposal: “Looking for a trustworthy companion.”

It started off well. I was informed, “Congrats! So-and-so has expressed interest in you.”

The interested person turned out to be:

“Caring, stable, upper middle class, well-employed, preference for partners working in European countries, innocent divorce following marriage three years back which lasted few weeks, with loving six-year old child not living together.”

Since I consider an “innocent” divorce to be fictitious, I declined interest.

Then, the virus/bug/glitch occurred when I started expressing interest in suitable characters. Strangely, in all cases, my interest was being declined before I expressed it.

I contacted the administrator of the site. I received a quick (discomforting though succinct) reply: “Time-zone problem.”

I have not figured out the “time-zone” problem. One of my nasty friends offered the explanation, “Probably, you have been blocked – trustworthy people do not look for trustworthy companions.”

Moral of the story :

For company, do not look for fictitious characters. (Use the four-letter word again.)

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That could have been the new avatar. With a few trivial decisions, one of my many lives disappeared in a space-time worm-hole. Picture me with a companion, working somewhere in Europe, earning plenty and whispering sweet loving four-letter words to my boss.

(n.b. Any resemblance to fiction is purely coincidental.)