The Destiny of a Hopeless Romantic

Being accustomed to the role as the proverbial third wheel, if you will, there was something believed to be effeminate about me. A completely asexual friend who girls could drink vodka with while speaking openly about menstral cycles without feeling uncomfortable about it as if I was one of the girls myself, or not even there present. It made me wonder if I was actually invisible or what I don’t know. I felt like I was watching a movie or TV serial from my couch, a passive spectator. I learnt  how to drink by keeping pace with girls - a big mistake being an inexperienced Bangladeshi Muslim boy. “Drink like a girl” seemed to me to mean drinking like a champion, I could not keep up. Imagine how many free drinks admiring men buy offer them  and how many let girls in to have free roam on open bars. I, being an inexperienced Muslim boy with hardly any experience in the field, fell comatose into my warm bed, waking up surrounded by sickness was nothing new.

So, anyways, Tanim and  Zarina came to pick me up to go to a mutual friend’s wedding party. We all had gone to the same school, and knew the groom's side of the family pretty well. It was a special occasion. As we drove into the venue, that became clear - it was a grand occasion. The building where the wedding ceremony was to take place was lit up like a Christmas tree, as was the entire street leading up to the gate as people were getting off their respective cars in line when their drivers would speed away so the queue could continue. Everyone was dressed to the nines, wearing their Sunday bests. 

There is something haunting about weddings to me. My emotions were scattered, I felt like a can of shaken soda ready to pop at any point, exploding all over anyone irrespective of who it was in my vicinity inside the epicentre of the blast zone. I was hit by a tsunami of anxiety when I saw exactly who it was sitting next to the groom on display like a king and his queen with bright lights illuminating all their features. The bride's hands and arms painted in exquisitely intricate patterns in henna. She looked majestic. I instantly placed the face, I knew who she was from my college days. I guess it could be understood, if not normal, why a beautiful girl from a distant village would engage in “extracurricular activities” to try and earn some quick dough. I guess her party days were over. 

“Dude,” I told Tanim. “I know that girl. She is not what you think.”

“Let’s go take a picture with the couple,” was his response. I was used to getting ignored whenever I attempted to make an important comment worthy of what was in my estimation a significant plot twist. 

Thank God, when it was our turn to sit for pictures with the bride and the groom on their thrones as is the custom at South Asian weddings, the bride didn’t even acknowledge my presence, as I would have preferred. She obsequiously smiled, she had dimples on her cheeks the size of craters, when I cringed from what I could only imagine was envy for the husband who was to marry this girl, probably with no idea of how intimately I knew his new wife or what kind of work she had been engaged in before they met. I assumed he had no idea that I had in fact paid money to solicit the favours from her that they would surely engage in later into the night as they celebrated their newlywed status. 

As soon as we were off stage, ate food and were heading to the after-party I broke the news to both Tanim and Zarina. 

“No way,” Zarina said. “That’s impossible. It must have been someone else”.

“I recognize the scar on the left side of her forehead, and the birthmark on her arm. I’m telling you, it's her alright.”

“Don’t tell anyone anything,” Zarina said. “Some things are better left unsaid.”

We went to the bar that was the venue for the afterparty, It was a great night, Live music, dancing, drinking, the works. We didn’t leave until the next morning, I did not say a word to either the bride or the groom. What would I say? Did you know that I banged your wife for money when we were in college? I didn’t have the heart to tell the guy that his wife got through college and paid for things by sleeping around with desperate men who were way out their league. I thought more power to her. She was a self-made girl from a not so well to do family and she made it. She had no worries now. She was getting married to a rich son of a businessman who would soon take over their family business. She would never struggle financially again. 

The strangest thing about that night was how lonely I felt. As the newlyweds spent the night embraced while slow dancing it seemed to me they didn’t even know each other, but they had their happily ever after. Am I destined to die alone, to never find love? Would I rather be in the position of the groom who had no idea who he was marrying? No one really spoke to me at the party in any meaningful way. Everyone was celebrating the union of the newlyweds. We all followed them to their decorated car that took them home for their first night together at dawn. The night didn’t feel like it was real, it was like I was watching a strange dark comedy. As usual, I didn’t hook up with anyone at the party, even though I tried my hand at putting myself out there with the cheesiest pickup lines I googled on my phone. Those damned things never work. 

“You look tired,” I said to an unsuspecting female creature of the same species. 

“I am,” she said. 

“It’s probably because you've been running around in my dreams all night,” I said, instantly feeling like a complete loon. It was embarrassing. I instantly regretted it. Tanim and his girlfriend Zarina had left the party without telling me so I walked home alone at night. I love a long, drunken walk in the darkness under the skies lonely as I am, lonely as I am destined to be for what feels like an eternity.