In the pilot episode of Sex and the City, the ever-wise seer Carrie Bradshaw has this to say:
"Welcome to the age of Uninnocence. No one has breakfast at Tiffany's and no one has affairs to remember. Instead, we have breakfast at 7 a.m., and affairs we try to forget as quickly as possible. Self protection and closing the deal are paramount. Cupid has flown the co-op."
It could just as easily be Mumbai as it is Manhattan, hell the two are practically sistahs anyway!
So the other night, I'm on my way for a coffee date with this guy I've been chatting with online for sometime now. He seems fun, witty, educated, has a sexy pic (ok, so the face is a bit smudged with Photoshop, but the pecs are still hunky enough to grab my shallow attention), and we decide to meet for some after-dinner mocha. I sit down at the table, plug in my iPOD and await his arrival. And there he is. All fifty-whatever years of him, with a waist that's 36 at least, white hair at his temple, a wrinkled face that grins when he sees me, chunky arms, and I'm wondering whatever happened to the cute pecs in the pic and the cute hunk I imagined owning them.
So he sits down and asks me how I am. I smile in a terribly self conscious way and answer him. My coffee arrives, for which I'd placed the order before Mr False Snap showed up, so there's no scope for an early exit. I wonder whether I should risk a scalded tongue and just beat it, but then he starts telling me about his old relationship which lasted seven years before his boyfriend decided he wanted to play the field again. Ummm... ok. So I got hooked by the sob story. And I stayed. I didn't scald my tongue and I clucked sympathetically to his story, and I answered his questions about my life and career, and even managed a couple of polite queries about his career. But I also waved at the waiter to fetch me my cheque pronto, and as soon as I paid, I suggested we leave. At the door, I turn around with a false smile, say "Nice to see you, take care!" and flail down a cab. Goodbye and get a more recent pic taken, please.
But the thing is, the False Pic Syndrome is not really as uncommon as we'd like it to be. Every gay boy has been through his fair share of encountering the pest. You're bouncing on Cloud 9, expecting to meet this uberhunk, and instead you meet Mr Perv who's there in his ill-fitting tee and scratching his balls. And slowly, the disbelief morphs into shock, then disgust, then resignation, then a bit of anger. I'd probably feel sorry for the poor sod who has to try these sorry tricks, if it weren't for the fact that he plays it on me! I mean, do they actually think they can pass of as the hunks they portray onscreen???? Are Indian gay mean really that deluded?
OK, wrong question to ask. I'm actually looking for love (of all things!) here! *hysterical laughter*
But the FP Syndrome actually struck me after quite some time. I'm usually more demanding about pics online these days than I used to be, and that's been a life-saver. That used to happen a lot more to me back in Calcutta and Chennai, when hardly anyone used to have snaps online, and so meeting a dud was the expected thing to happen. Most gay boys used to spy out the intended meeting area from afar and run when they saw Mr Ugly standing there, checking his watch anxiously - and of course, the cell phone would be switched off for a good three hours, so that he couldn't call/sms you. And while I always thought this was a very churlish way to act, I couldn't be very contemptuous either, since I knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of the FP Syndrome. To my credit, I've done this routine only once, though - when it was a 45 year old FAT man in white pyjama-kurta waiting at the curb, instead of the cute 20-year old I'd been promised. So... I turned and I left. Switched off the phone, of course.
Most of the times, though, I employed the grin-and-bare approach, and I just tell them straight off: "I'm sorry, you're not what I expected, and you're not my type. Bye bye."
And if they start the "But...", you do like Miranda, and go: "No, no. That wasn't a question!"
:)
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