The Will of Instinct

01:58, 13 June 2003

It amazes me that, despite it all, I still care. I can't lie and say I don't because the truth is that my day still brightens a little bit more when Piyush is involved, even in the smallest of ways. It's as if my rational mind has issued a memo that the irrational side has left languishing in its overstuffed, disorderly inbox, unread.

Every time he IMs me, it's like a little gift. A surprise gift, no less, since I took him off my Messenger list and no longer know when he is online. I'm skittish when we chat, though: I stay silent sometimes, paralysed by the pressure of being witty, nonchalant and cheery in a limiting medium. I'm consantly ready to bolt out of the conversation so that I can be the one that says "Gotta go" first and gets to make the little slamming-door noise in his face.

Wait, it gets worse. Because if an IM conversation is a little gift, today is my birthday. Later this morning (after I sleep four hours), he wants me to give him my once-customary wake-up call. Today he will be at the library. Today I get to see him, to smell him, to kiss his cheek and share cigarettes with him and wish, like Tantalus, for just a drop of his time to slake my neverending thirst for his attention.

I've been telling myself for a while that I'm over him. I am over him, on the rational side at least. But several recent examples, i.e. when he said he was coming to the library and then when he actually came to the library and then when he wore the sexy polo shirt, seem irreconcilable with my constant insistances that I am "over it."

My IM Gender Studies with Schoonie have suggested that perhaps guys won't understand this, but no matter how "over it" I am (and it is not looking impressive right now) I need to look just right today when I see him. That does not mean dressed up. That means applying the art of gorgeous nonchalance, the sexiness of "oh, this old thing?", the casual beauty in barely-there makeup, hair pulled back a little messily, clothes fitting just right yet relaxed enough to not be trying too hard. That look is the stealth bomber of women's seduction tactics, strafing him with "wait, am I making a mistake here?" thoughts. It's a fine line to walk, but if you walk it right it is often quite successful. But now, what will I wear? Oh, dear.