The 'ExtroIntro'Vert ©

So let me admit this straight away. I am a bit of a know-it-all. I am. A tiny bit. My boyfriend will disagree on the tiny part but let’s leave the extend to be discussed another day.

So this know-it-all is especially present when it comes to psychology. That also human and dogs. Somewhere in the back of my head I do consider myself somewhat of an expert. I have never even taken a class on it. Ever. I believe somethings come inherent to you. If fashion and style can be so inherent why can’t something like psychology be? Right? Some people are just more attune to this stuff okay. Feelings, emotions, characters etc. etc. As for dog psychology, I had 3 dogs. So there.

So yes that’s me. A very non typical know-it-all ‘pretend’ expert on psychology. Atleast in my head.

So I was going about living my life thinking I knew all about myself. How could I not? It was me! I had to know all about myself.

I often felt sorry about people who wanted to ‘discover’ themselves, what fools I thought.

“You have known you your entire life and if you still haven’t figured it out, it really might never happen. Best of luck for all your other relationships.”

My inner voice is quite sarcastic and a bit of a bigger know-it-all b****. I apologize on her behalf. No I do not have a double personality. We all have an inner voice okay.

One of the things I was sure about was that I was a people’s person. An extrovert. I thrived around people. I loved their company.

And then one day I read an article a friend of mine had posted on her Facebook wall titled ‘27 problems only introverts will understand’ (Link- http://www.buzzfeed.com/erinlarosa/problems-only-introverts-will-understand) and it all changed. I did not know all about myself.

I read it on the passing. And as each point went ahead I realized how relatable those points were to me and things I did in passing. It shocked me. What did it mean? Was I an introvert? All my habits did reflect the same.

In my 26 years of existence I have never pended myself down for an introvert. Nor has my family or my teachers or my colleagues. So could they all have been wrong?

I loved going out and had my own set of friends who I loved talking to. So wasn’t that what makes me an extrovert? ‘An outgoing and friendly person’. The classic definition of an extrovert. That was me!

But here were the realities-

• I like talking to people. But people are usually my selective group of friends. And even within this group is my super selective group of friends who I can speak to on a day to day basis. Trust me that number is really low.

• I do talk on the phone, albeit rarely. Whatsapp (and text messaging in earlier times) is my preferred form of communication. Message me. I am usually available and will usually reply in a matter of minutes. Call me and I might not answer. I feel I need to be mentally prepared to speak to someone on the phone be it my best friend. It seems like a task to speak on the phone. Often I do not answer because I am mentally not prepared to do ‘voice’ talk to them. With messaging I am more comfortable but sometimes I am in a zone and will usually take a lot of time before replying and kill the purpose of the word ‘instant’ messaging in instant. Chats I can’t do. At all. 

• I like going out. But I have my own timings & days. Like post work weekdays I do not like doing. I feel I have spoken to enough people in the day and have no energy to interact with anyone anymore and want to just go home. So I often fake sleepiness. But in reality you will find me up till 2-3 AM even on a weekday in my bed reading a book or writing or watching the latest sitcom. Then come Sundays. Sundays are my recharge days which I prefer doing nothing but sitting in my bed reading a book or writing or watching the latest sitcom. 

• I like meeting new people. But in a limit. And usually in known circumstances. How do I define ‘known’ circumstances? Like during student life, like on start of a new college year. During start of a new job. During start of a new hobby class. So if you think of it, I will possibly not be making any new friends anymore. 

• I like parties. But I prefer smaller parties where I know the people I am meeting. I prefer it even more if the people on the invitation list are my group of closest friends who I already hang out with (reiterating point about me not making any new friends anymore). I hate it when the host of the party introduces me to someone new and walks away because that usually means I will have to carry out conversation with this person I do not know for atleast a few minutes before I can pretend I got a call and walk away. It often feels like work talking to people! 

• When I come home from work I do not like it if there are guests over at home. I prefer going home, saying hi to my mommy, meeting my lovely doggies, changing and then crashing on the bed, reading a book or writing or watching the latest sitcom (I do feel me and my laptop can have the perfect relationship). 

• If you ask me to pick between going out and staying home, I will mentally pick staying home a lot of times. Doing what you ask? Sitting on my bed, reading a book or writing or watching the latest sitcom (my sitcom collection is the bomb, I should start charging people when they ask for my hard drive, I could make a hell lot of money, that is how huge my sitcom collection is).

So am I an introvert? I do tend to do a lot of things on that list.

Is it really that simple? You are either this or that? Can’t personalities have grey areas too? Maybe I was just a less social extrovert? Or a more social introvert?

I think here I have ka-boomed on a new personality called the ‘ExtroIntrovert’ (and again you will see the reflection of my know-it-all personality here).

But I am sure it’s a thing. Again I hope I am not the only one there. Anymore of our kind out there? Think about it. We all (yes we all includes me) do not know ourselves as well as we think we do. Some facets of our personality are rarely visible even to our ownselves.

No more laughing on people who want to discover themselves, I have newfound respect for you :P

The YY Sex & Kids ©

Let me just say it.

Should I?

As I type my thoughts, I can already imagine the reaction my statement is going to get.

Okay so here it goes.

I am 26 years old and I do not have a soft spot for kids. I do not find kids cute. I never have had a desire to hold a kid. No such desire to play with them. Usually when I see a kid I tend to walk away in the other direction.

Are you gasping? Or are you wondering what is wrong with me? Both?

Or is it possible that some of you are even saying ‘me too’? I hope so. I really do.

During a recent ‘cleaning attack’ I found this photo of my mom holding my brother surrounded by my maternal grandparents. When I took this photo to my mom to show and reminisce, my mom pointed out how she was my age in this photo and her parents her current age. Intended or not it made me realize that I was 26 years old, single and obviously childless. Something that was unthinkable in my mom’s era. The perfect marriageable age for girls was considered to be 21-22 years and anyone above that was considered ‘too old’.

How much have things changed in the last 25 years?

Our parents are more tolerable. They will usually not push us at 21-22 years to get married. Marrying their girl child directly after she is done with her studying is not the norm anymore. Is it because they now get the need for women to have careers or is it because in today’s unstable world with high rate of divorces they want their daughters to be prepared for the worst? Sometimes I really wonder.

What about having babies? Has anything changed there?

What was the earlier norm? Get married and have kids within the next 2 years? I really do not think that has changed. Obviously because the marriageable age has been pushed and so the age when you have kids but no matter when you get married, immediately after marriage you will be pressurized indirectly or even directly to have kids. And that is what scares me. Because unless getting married makes one fall in love with kids I do not get how I will be to my kid?

When I was younger and I did not have a special spot for kids my mom thought it was normal because kids signified responsibility and care and I never had a younger sibling or even a younger cousin. I was used to being taken care of rather taking care of someone. So she naturally assumed that it would happen over time. At that time I was too busy wanting to be an adult/wanting independence/rebelling against my parents so I could not care (how I wish I could go back to that time). But now I honestly do. So is it because I have not taken care of anyone per se? Well I would surely not like to believe that. I have taken care of family members and friends on various occasions. I have taken care of my dogs on various occasions. Infact for one who I got as my birthday gift I was solely responsible for her first initial months of feeding and training (and yes she is a beauty and awesomely trained now..yay). So what is it?

Was I born with a missing something? Y and a half Y?

Or is that kids signify the ultimate responsibility and somewhere deep in my subconscious that scares me and hence manifests itself as not finding kids cute and wanting to stay away from them (psychology 101)?

I can’t seem to decode this. I really hope I am not alone in this.

Maybe things will change. Maybe they will not. Maybe these feelings will go away. But living in this country that I do will I ever be given the freedom to act on basis of these feeling? Will I ever be given the freedom to decide when I want a kid and whether or not I even want one? That I doubt.

Why India can’t stop Honking? ©

Time and time again these articles surface on the internet, get printed in magazines/ newspapers, people voice opinions related to this on the radio and I agree that while there is not much activism for it right now and for all there is it is very subdued so I really should not have an issue. But for all those saying that we need to stop honking as a nation, that it effects the noise pollution levels, about how some countries barely honk on roads- I completely agree with your cause and totally feel that we should stop honking. But just one question- How can India stop honking?

1) Pedestrians choose to cross the road without a so much of look left look right. Crossing the road is really not like getting up from your bed and going to the loo but it seems it is.

2) The most irritating pedestrians are actually those who walk on a road like they are walking inside a mall. Holding hands, gossiping, walking slowly while back slapping each other all in the middle of a road. Like really, mall walking on roads can be injurious to life. (Between when you honk at them, they turn back and glare at you like you are the stoopid one).

3) Then there are the elite of the society. The upper class. The high society. Like Sweety aunty must get out of her BMW 7 series in the middle of the road and cause a huge traffic jam as 10 others behind hers are now stopped, rather than just ask her driver to stop at the parking stopover which her favorite Citywalk Mall has so conveniently provided just a few feet away. Sweety aunty please be sweet and think of the 10 cards peeche you!

4) There are also those people who while driving at insane speeds think it is okay to just suddenly decide to turn right. Boy I know that your hormones are rushing at the speed of light and can make you fall for one girl in one minute and the other one the next but these are cars and roads, so next time please look around.

5) So we have all these fancy lanes, but the white lines are just useless demarcations right? Because when we feel like going in the right lane we will do that and when left we will do that. We change lanes like we are actually driving in the Fast & Furious. Even indicators are not given as a courtesy. Tch tch.

6) So how many times you stop when the light is yellow and then wait for another 5 minutes for it to turn green so that you can take your right. In the meanwhile this line has developed behind you and you are happy than in 1 minute the light will be green atleast for sure you will get through. But then there comes this one smartass who think it’s okay to come from behind all the cars and put his car infront of yours and before you know all these smartasses have come and kaboom you are stuck waiting for the next green light.

7) Whenever there is a free right or left the drivers who have to go straight will never leave space for the free turns. Oh why dear fellow citizen must you be so mean?

8) Bus drivers. Auto drivers. Rickshaw drivers. BRT.

9) Oh how are we forgetting Sweety auntie’s daughter Baby? So while she stops on a red light she starts touching up her makeup (remember its apparently just touching up as she already seems so painted and you wonder if these many colours were actually be created to put on a face specially in bright sunlight). Comes out the Mac playbook. There comes the lipstick, touch up with the Lip Gloss, then her eyeliner is perfected and then the shadows. Little blush on the cheeks please? Oh perfect. But did I tell you that it was 2 minute red light? And once Baby starts with “Babying” up she can’t stop till she’s finished. And you are stuck behind her!

10) You are going home after a long day and can’t wait to get back. Your drive is long enough and you are hoping for no traffic as its late enough. And then at the most unexpected place there is a huge jam. And after being stuck there for 1 hour, you realize the reason- Baarat was dancing on the road and blowing crackers. And then you think to yourself, maybe some people do own some roads.

So we honk and we honk and we honk!

(PS- We need to really civilize ourselves as drivers and pedestrians with more empathy and consideration of others and improvement in infrastructure and then we shall truly stop honking.)

Why to love ‘How I Met Your Mother’ even after 8 long seasons of not knowing the mother? ©

Let’s start with finale of season 8. Did not get to watch it the day it aired but the minute I knew the mother had been revealed I actually felt goose bumps and went straight away to Google her picture and when I did see her I went all “awwww.” The casting directors must take a bow. They have found the perfect Mrs. Mosby! When I finally got time to sit down and watch the show, I felt like a kid waiting for her present. I contemplated fast forwarding the 21 minutes to just see the moment the mother is revealed but that would mean missing the 21 minutes of the show so I didn’t. I don’t know how many of the breed of HIMYM loyalists are left. But for us breed, it was one special episode.

Most of my friends who belonged to this breed in the beginning have slowly moved on by now. While some have completely stopped watching it, others keep watching it for the hope that it will end one day and great mystery will be revealed. I on the other hand, have always loved this show and will miss it dearly once it’s over. I really can’t wait for season 9 but it also saddens me that there will be no season 10.

So why do I love this show? There are exactly 4 reasons to that.

1)      Ted

How can one not love Ted? His belief in the universe and never ending search for true love is heartwarming. Even after one fall after the other, the guy still believes he will find his one, his one true one, his soul mate, the girl who will complete him, the mother of his future children and that is “awwww.” So much hope in the magic. How can you not love that? It is our inspiration. Life leaves us all so jaded. As we grow up life stops being more about work career and growing up than love and soulmates. When we were younger we often felt that we were put on this planet to love, to find love and as we have grown up- among those of us who found our love, our one, we have let love take a back seat while work/career/ growing up drives and for those who tried and didn’t they have resigned and moved on from love only itself. Being a part of this clan I feel truly ashamed sometimes that we all seem so practical and boring. Don’t get me wrong. We can’t always live to love or walk like there is music playing in our heads or take every love lost in our stride and smile through but we can be a bit more optimistic. A bit more romantic. A bit more “awwww.”

Ted makes me believe that one can always believe in love so much, one can believe in hope always, one can believe in soulmates, one can believe in romance.

2)      Barney

Okay so everyone at one point of time has loved Barney. Be it because of his antics with ladies or all his bro codes, or his plays from the playbook or his “legen..wait for it.. daryness” But the most magical part about this character is how it has grown over the years. How Barney has gone from being a never want to commit kind of guy to gradually growing into someone who was ready to commit. And all this while never losing his awesomeness. Kudos!

3)      Lily and Marshal

You can’t not love this couple. I would kill my boyfriend if he became anything like Marhshall but Lily and Marshal together work as a couple. A part of my love for them is because in this “who’s next world” they are a symbol that long relationships do not mean love fizzles out or you grow boring together, but that the years are growing together not aging and becoming more fun because of your better half. I love that they have shown this great strong couple who have had their share of problems but have roughed it through. It’s cute how truly dependent they are on each other, how they are not two but one person, and how they complete each other in every way. (For all of you rolling your eyes right now, don’t else they will permanently get stuck there :P, love a little huh)

4)      Robin

This lady is how lot of the men would like ladies to be, hot and not emotional (no wonder she and Barney make sense together). She is strong, independent and totally in control. Ted was in love with her and she was always honest about how she felt from day 1 never ever giving false expectations. Respect.

So those are the 4 reasons why this show is still worth loving.

As much I don’t want this show to finish I can’t wait for the series finale. But I just hope they do not give it the end Friends got, with friends moving on in their lives away from each other. I am at the age in life where some of the people close to me are married, some getting married and some who will be married in the coming few years. Everyone is moving on. And I would like to believe (and hope really), that marriage or having children does not mean that your life with your friends is over. That things have to end. Things change, agreed but I know friends always find a way to be friends and I hope that is how this show ends on one final note.