Ek Main Aur Ek Tu

I was recently talking to a friend who was convinced she had found someone who was 'The One' for her.

[Enter lazy, cliched Matrix pun here]

I see this concept of 'The One' in popular culture as a highly Western concept. Made super-ironic by the fact that so many people there who remarry in the course of their lifetimes. I guess it's not so much 'The One' as 'The One at the Moment, until a better One comes along.'

Anyway, as she was going on about her One and their plan for a lifetime of happiness, love and general into-the-sunsetness, I couldn't help but think about my Ones.

To be honest, there have been very few women in my life I've genuinely believed had the potential to someday be considered as a candidate for being 'The One' in a janam-janam-ka-saathi sense. But each relationship, near-relationship, friendship or worship-from-afar carries its learnings and residual emotions, and it isn't hard to characterise some of them as one wallows in memories of happier times.

So, as I was thinking about some of my Ones, I realised it's actually a fairly long and distinct list of perceptions and memories.

The First One

The One That Got Away

The One I Really Really Liked But Realistically Knew I Never Had A Shot With; Then Got a Shot With Which I Cringe-inducingly Muffed

The One I Got Drunk And Freaky With, And Who Was Thankfully Cool About It

The One That Was An Experiment

The One That I Never Dreamed Would Happen

The One I Should Never Ever Have Let Go Of (You Bloody Idiot You)

The One I Wish I Had Handled Better

The One My Closest Friends Thought Was Psycho (she wasn't)

The One Who Was Just a Little Psycho (Yes, I know that's rich coming from me)

The One That Still Causes Me Emotional Turmoil Although She Has No Idea She Does

The One Whose Sunlit Perfection I Basked In But Never Had The Guts To Woo

The Thunderbolt One

The One Who Will Always Be The One

Next hop, skip, jump thought in my stream of consciousness: will I ever find my One? Ha. Ha ha. No. Largely because I believe in neither the concept at a fundamental level, nor the likelihood of my being that deeply emotionally committed for long enough without my inherent cynicism about the human race and the nature of human relationships kicking in and making a complete mess of everything, casting me into the usual cyclical black hole of anger, distrust, self-destruction and isolational misanthropy. Lather, rinse, repeat.