Superman on Sunday

This is not the first time you have felt so cripplingly lonely.

It does not help that the weather outside is pleasant, breezy, romantic. It’s full of possibilities. So you do the best thing you can.

You decide to avoid people and cancel all your meetings. You are a super person, so yes, you have meetings on Sundays. But not today. You cancel every meeting. Even the one with that sweet man who will discuss literature with you. And that other friend who calls you an ‘Energy Field’ and has been begging you for a recharge. You refuse flatly to go meet a young couple and their five month old baby even though you love babies. That’s how lonely you feel and you know it will get worse around people.

Except perversely you feel that you also need people so you log on to Facebook. And read a post by Osho that talks about how one who is happy being alone is alone capable of loving well when in a relationship. Right. Thanks, Osho, you say, and reopen your OKCupid account. But that’s boring. Everything in the universe is boring. You can’t think of a single thing you want to do right now that is not boring.

So you laugh at yourself and you pray to God. You say ‘Deliver me…’ But you feel silly and overly dramatic. Also, there is this minor plot point where you are sceptical about the existence of any meaning in the universe.

But God delivers. He plays reruns of a detective show that you have forgotten about on the TV. Now you kick yourself for not having prayed sincerely and sensibly when the universe seemed to be listening.

You wish this man you no longer like but whom you are reasonably obsessed with would call you, surprise you, and argue semantics with you in the forceful way he has. You wish he would also kiss you. But the universe is no longer listening. So you follow your online stalker routine and try to glean about his Sunday through all his social media profiles. You find that he is away on work, and that he also hates the Ice Bucket Challenge, but wants the meaningless violence in and around Israel to end.

You mentally berate him for not seeing how compatible the two of you are.

1. You are both workaholics which means you will never be that partner who nags when the other is busy with work.
2. You have same views on things that happen in the world which means that while you may differ on how to solve a problem, you both will want to solve an issue together always.

You decide that he doesn’t deserve you anyway.

You imagine him realising his folly. You know that would only happen if he were to be reminded of you. You debate messaging him so he would be reminded of you, but you tell yourself that you no longer like him. You wonder if he even knows you exist. You are pretty sure he no longer does. You fill your head with motivational quotes. ‘Don’t be a something something for someone for whom you are just an option.’ ‘Don’t something something anyone who something something.’ It doesn’t help. You are immeasurably hurt by his indifference to your wonderful being. Now you no longer believe in your own appeal as a person. You have never felt less like a Superman in all your life. So you indulge happily in your pity party for a few minutes.

That’s when you see that your ex has liked a particularly offensive post and you wonder how you ever loved him. Immediately you are contrite when you think of the tough times you put him through and you wish you had never broken up with him. You want him to be happy; only you don’t want him to be too happy, because that would be insulting to you. His recent posts show that he is having a good time. It pisses you off. You idly toy with the idea of calling him and picking a fight for old times sake. You take the higher ground. Let him be you declare. You are stunned by how good a person you are. Now it pains you even more to be alone on a Sunday feeling as lonely as you are. The world is unjust you decide. Why can’t you find someone interesting. You are now convinced you will never meet anyone ever again and even if you do, you know that they will hate your guts.

So you try to focus on who the murderer is. It’s the wife and the partner like you knew all along. You feel good about being smart. Your phone rings and it’s an old friend who wants to talk about her life. You are not interested. So you text a lie. You feel like the worst person on the planet. You convince yourself you are the worst person on this planet. And the universe punishes you by ending the rerun.

A movie comes on. It’s a romantic one so you watch it and try to cry. You tell yourself it’s cathartic. But you can’t cry. So that becomes a game then. You think of all the awful things you have endured. It only makes you sad. You crave a cigarette. In another life, you would want a whiskey to be had neat too. But not anymore. The thought of alcohol is nauseating. Unless it’s in the idea of a date and talking and kissing. You realise no one is even interested in sex anymore. They are all too hassled by traffic jams and stupid bosses or unreasonable clients to feel sexy.

You don’t remember the last time you felt sexy. The universe proves you wrong again. In the hour you have been online, 26 boys have told you that you look sexy and cool on OKC. It disgusts you to read praises by so many horny men who can’t even seem to spell ‘hi’ right. The most popular version is ‘hai’. You shut the laptop (first time in two weeks) in utter disgust at your dependence on the Internet.

You try to read a book but the author is uninspiring and he manages to lull you into a dreamless sleep.

You wake up to mosquitoes and hanker for biryani. You check Facebook instead of Zomato by mistake, but you are instantly hooked. Everyone you know has had a great Sunday and they are all cheering each other. You say “Relaxing Sunday at home with mindless TV for company.”

In 10 minutes there are 20 Likes.

And that’s when you finally cry.