Engage.

#1 Engaging with strangers

What happens when you talk a lot? In most cases, you end up talking a lot, because it's in the genes and not a day goes by without talking! But what happens when you don't a lot, or don't talk at all? You end up not talking at all and there is no much difference to the day if you haven't talked to somebody.

"You don't talk much, do you?", said a guy who spent a couple of days with me and in his retrospect, he made me his friend, the first day itself. That was an interesting conversation.

"Hi, I am Jackson"

"Hey, I am AK, nice to meet you"

*After exchanging niceties and work stuff*

"Has anybody talked to you like I did? No, right?"

*confused, I replied* "I guess No".

"See, you are feeling comfortable talking with me. And we have become friends already! Don't you agree?"

*wait, what just happened?* "Oh yes! We are friends."

Being said that he never invited me to anything when he went out on weekends. I did drop in a few ideas, since we both we new to the city, he chose his "friends" (aka colleagues) over me. Well, he was a good friend, is he not? Because he was the one very concerned about me as I talked so less that it scared him. But in three weeks, not even once he did invite, but always placed his piece of mind what I should do on the table.

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What happens when two introverts meet?

There is complete awkward silence.

Or

You become that push that breaks their threshold barrier.

Apparently, I was that push to this new found friend. In the previous bloggers meet, I came across this guy who like me was waiting and we were standing just beside each other. Well, he started the conversation with an introduction. I was busy charging my phone till that moment. But then after a couple of exchanges, you get to know what kind of a person they are. He spoke so openly and about everything he had in mind, about everything he wanted to talk about. No barriers that we,introverts have, that I have. 

#2 Engaging with crush

None of the million crushes I had wanted to talk let alone get a cup of coffee. I mean its' their loss., right? *sobs silently*

#3 Engaging with people I know from Twitter

Drowning in the company of myself while everybody else were socializing, I was swarmed by a couple of Twitteratis, people who have come to know me from the Twitter engagement. I was kind of mind blown when they were searching for me, and someone wanted to meet me, ME, ME, MEEE ( wait, are they serious? )

"Are you like shy?", Purba Ray asked.

*not being prepared for this question I immediately replied without much thought* "Kind of yes".

"Oh god, you speak so soft!", was her reply.

Besides, everyone who has interacted with me on twitter and then in real have had a hard time adjusting to the silent treatment that I had been pulling. No, it is not by choice. It is how I am wired. It takes certain time to be as open as others and then I pull their legs. No, no actual talk, whatsoever.

#4 Engaging with friends

I have forgotten how this used to go. I used to have friends. But then times changes and people went apart leaving me at the epicenter. Apparently, everyone I meet now already has a circle of friends and I think they love it keep it that way. Well, no complaints there. Have fun, acquaintances. 

The reality takes a hard blow to settle in. But it is a constant reminder of what we have and what we do not. If you have observed ( which you haven't. Whom am I kidding, right? ) I have been tweeting and ranting a lot of Facebook posts, revolving around #ForeverAlone. This is a reality, not something I just say for the sake of saying. Well, I make fun of it, all the time. People make fun of it, in return. All is fair as long as no one gets hurt. 

So why are you alone?

You find ppl around u... Immature and not up to your mark?

This revelation from a friend shocked me when he asked me over the Facebook chat. "It's not about the meeting the expectation or not upto mark, its about talking, its about understanding, its about being there!", I replied politely.

Besides this, I guess the engagement is pretty much low with friends ( that I once had ).

Rules of Engagement

1. The first rule of engagement is talk.

2. The second rule of engagement is talk.

... that's pretty much it. Everything else just falls in place if those two rules are followed.

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If you have survived till here, you are great. Thanks for engaging. 

Here is something that people had to tell about me about a couple of years ago :

The Other's Perspective.

Taking a dive.

It all began two years ago. I wasn't sure about what the rush was all about back then, nor do I have about now. 'Who would have thought?' was the most obvious question of this time, but nothing superficial either even if it was quite out of the blue.

It was an unusual day for me. Being an insomniac, I have developed this new, well, you could call it an odd pattern. I start sleeping just at the brim of the sun starts showering the morning bliss of sunshine. It is quite odd, isn't it? "What about the office and work?", you ask. Well, I got that under control, most of it. Or may be not. So, that usual day something unusual had to happen and it turns out, I was late for the morning bus. I still had a couple of minutes, I mean literally just a couple and I couldn't cope with brushing, rinsing myself, pressing the clothes, searching for socks within that couple minutes. What I did was I decided to wait for another bus which comes nearly two hours apart from the usual time. It was a company transport, so I decided to go in late.

I reach office an hour late, well thanks to my weird sleeping habits only to be greeted by a young hyper-active lady who seemed more happy and jumping around than the concerned party. "Hey, wish him 'Congratulations' ". As he was standing just beside us, I did congratulate him even without knowing what I was doing that for. "He is getting engaged", she shouted. "Oh, congratulations for getting engaged". Well, as for me, I didn't quite believe it the first time, nor the second time. Another person who was rocking the same boat as I was said that he wasn't going to believe and I couldn't agree more to him. It was all of a sudden and we were never even hinted on this matter. Sure, we had discussions about what kind of girl or marriage the past couple of days or weeks, but anyone particularly getting married or engaged was never on the platter. 

Eventually, the whole of the office knows about it. Well thanks to the hyper lady around here, who in fact has a guy and when asked about marriage, she isn't quite sure when that might happen. Well, no shocker there. But it was a done deal which was quite evident from all the other people poking fun at him for going to get engaged, the kind of stuff that everyone does to the person going to "settle" down. Well, I had anticipated this sooner since the search for his better half began nearly two years prior to now. So, it wasn't a shocker altogether. He had been hinting about his mother searching for a girl since I know this guy. And also he wanted to get married as soon as possible and one of the most obvious the reason being receding hair line(well, he says this for fun, but not quite this). *Looks at my hair*, oh crap! *Adjusts the wig*. But nevertheless, it was happening and his engagement happened last weekend. I wish him all the best for his future and his better half.

The chatter is still consistent with his theories of what he will do/might do / or even plan to do. Anyone in his friends' circle have a pretty good picture of what's the weight of all those "future plans" of his. Believe me, you are going to hear everything he could do and his voice gives the impression that he most definitely will, but the very next minute the plan changes and sounds as convincing as the first one did. And later he would quite simply strike everything out saying that "People tell a lot of things that we would do, but do we do everything". Well, that's everyday story and perhaps that is going to change in a couple of months. 

"So AJ, when are you planning to get married?". Whoa, easy there buddy as I let out a funny laugh. I and marriage don't travel the same road as of now and the day we cross paths are ages away and I mean it. And I don't understand what's the rush about all this marriage drama nor do I understand the people's curiosity about others marriage. Cool dude, I believe everyone has their own crazy sh*t to take care of. So, lets' get back to it. Peace out.