The Truth About Attraction Of The Opposites

You know the phrase ‘opposites attract‘? What nobody tells you is whether they ever end up happily ever after.

Enter Exhibit A: One human male who is (by his own admission) best epitomized in pop culture by Shrek. Reclusive by nature, irreverent in attitude.

Exhibit B: One human female (Me! Me! Me!) that you are well-acquainted with so we’ll save the metaphors for another day. Naturally sociable, fervent by nature.

Put these two together. Pour in a bottle of opinionatedness, and stir in equal parts of intelligence and independence. And what do we have?

No, don’t go awww. Some of our conversations (?) would stop you dead in your tracks. Sample this. After the Babri Masjid case verdict was delivered, we argued for 3 hours! Not that either of us was part of the judiciary. Huh, when did that ever stop anybody from having an opinion? Or in our case, two opinions?

Yesterday ‘words’ were exchanged for over an hour over….the Mumbai Marathon. No, neither of us plans to participate. And uh, this, uh, the conversation took place around midnight. On a working day.

These were the more ‘intelligent’ things that it seemed we could admit to arguing over. How about exercise regimes, career moves, and housing accommodation? How about Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, street food, social structures, other people, recreational activities? If there’s a way to have two opinions over something, there’ll be three. And that’s just counting one of us. If there’s no way on earth something can be argued, believe me, we’ll find a way. *Groan* Sometimes our conversations only end when we’re both too croaky-voiced to yell anymore.

Yesterday after our marathon debate (yes, pun intended), he concluded,

We haven’t learnt to disagree properly. Yet.

Grrr. Now I’m angry because he thought of it before me. But to salvage my flagging ticker (remember the scene from Pyaar ke side-effects?), here’s my thought.

I’m confident, bold, assertive and articulate. Okay, fine, immodest as well. I know, I can be overwhelming. It takes a very specific kind of person to get along with me. Someone who won’t be shaken or let me run over them. He’s as much of that as it gets.

He’s the world’s most infuriatingly stubborn stick-in-the-mud. It would take a vital force of nature to shake him out of his point of view and swim along in the flow of life. Heh, you looking at me? I got that in bucketfuls, baby. Barrels of it. Talk about an irresistible force meeting an immovable object!

I was grouching about this to my friend A (who is one-half of a nice, well-behaved, placid-looking couple).

I’m sure everyone thinks we are horrible, fighting all the time!

He laughed and said,

No, you seem like a sweet couple that bickers a lot.

The other day I bent over to pick up a book from a below-eye-level shelf at the store. When I straightened up, I groaned and by way of explanation, offered,

“Backache. I must have slept on it wrong.”

“Ooff…idiot.”

was his succinct reply. Well, that’s actually romantic in Mr.Everyday parlance.

I suppose I should just shrug and accept an indelible fact. We are never going to stop bickering. We’ll probably be one of those couples that fences with walking sticks, in our old age. And then whoever falls first will be helped up by the other and set to rest. It won’t be me. (This is my blog, after all!) Uh-huh.

🙂 I can barely wait.