confused heart

I made a promise to myself that the person I fall in love with will be the person I share the rest of life with. That's why whenever I feel love approaching many questions pop into my head, as you can imagine, starting from is he the right person? Is there anything like the right person? to what if the children have his funny nose? These questions are basically the cause of the end of many beautiful love stories in my life.

I know I shouldn't probably think like that and that I should catch the moment and enjoy love while it's there, but I don't. It's part of my romantic doctrine to be dedicated to one person with whom I share everything in my life and my life itself if possible.

So when you read my love stories don't expect any happy endings because guess what? I'm still single. And here goes one of my stories...

Once upon a time lived a romantic lonely but charming little girl (that's supposedly me whom we shall call here Nelly) one night Nelly's friend Sal calls her. Sal tells Nelly that there's a part time job as an English teacher for college graduates (the story takes place in a non English speaking country). Nelly adores work. For one thing it brings money to her empty pockets and for another it's a keep –out- of -house reason.

"The job begins tomorrow" Sal says. "But the books...what will I be teaching?" were of course Nelly's words. Next day she went before time to the place where she's supposed to teach. Students, she realized, were around her own age, some of them are even older, much older and bigger in size too (it's basically her being little rather than them being big). She started the class shivering, tried to look confident and old (I guess learners bought it). The first class she taught was in a computer laboratory (for some reason or the other) so to add to her troubles she had to make sure that nobody is playing on their computers while she was trying to look knowledgeable and prepared .At the end of the class sat that guy hidden behind his computer screen and yes he was logged online while she was (supposedly) teaching. Yes he unwillingly turned off the computer, but he kept hidden behind the screen for the rest of the time. On the second day he sat in the last row near the windows "so he doesn't want to see or hear me, wow what an influence I've on people" I thought.

Later on it's obvious he's the naughtiest student in class. Made the funniest remarks all the time and then one day he brought himself to sit in the front chairs.

One day Nelly wanted to listen to a CD that a friend gave her, so after class she asked Arnold (the naughty student) " what r you listening to?" she actually meant "is this a disc man you're using? " he said "oh just some songs" he went away then came back and handed her his walkman then he stood outside the room and pretended to be talking to some one. There was a song playing, the words were to the effect of "hope we spend our lives together". Nelly waved to him to come and take his walkman she didn't want to listen to songs she wanted to listen to her CD (of Japanese music) he signed to her "continue" (the words she later discovered were a message to her).

On another occasion she was standing by the time table counting the days for the course to end, he came and stood next to her and asked
"Why r you counting the days like that?"
She said "well, I want the course to end; you know I've another job. That's all too much for me".
He just walked away without making any comments. "How rude!" she thought (later she knew that her answer hurt him).

In class she asked the students, one day to write a paragraph about themselves, their lives or their hobbies (you can see what a lousy teacher Nelly was). Everybody brought something except him.

"Why didn't you write anything? Were you too busy?"
"A little. But that's not it. "
"Why then?"
"I don't have anything to say".
"Oh? There's nothing in your life you can talk about? "
"There is"
"Then why didn't you write it?"
"I'd have written three words for you" (can you guess them?)
"Three words describe your entire life? Ok class let's go back to what we're saying" (again horrific teacher).
………
"I want to talk to you."
"Go ahead!"
"Not here"
"Where then?"
"Come!"
They went up stairs. Few people go upstairs she wondered what he wanted to say & has to be that secretive. Nelly guessed what he wants to say from the apparent embarrassment on his face. He must be in love with this girl he was always sitting next to in class. He started with red sweating face:

"I've found the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with".
Oh yea I know.
"Do you want me to tell her for you?" intelligently Nelly replied.

Why was he silent? The situation was awkward as he stood silent and blushing, and as a super shy person Nelly was more silent and more blushing than him if there was any more.

"If you dislike what I'll say, I can drop the course immediately. Actually I'll be out of town for the next two classes"

Oh is it not the girl he sits next to everyday? And suddenly it crashed upon her "it's me".
Nelly decided to play dumb.

"Why wouldn't I like it? It's nothing; it happens all the time and I am sure that Maggie wouldn't refuse you" (Maggie being of course the girl he sat next to all the time).

He was obviously angry.

"What's that got to do with Maggie exactly?"

The look scared her and made her laugh at the same time. Now it's all so obvious to her.

"Who's she then?"
Silence, Blushing, Sweating.
"You can trust me. Tell me & I'll tell her" (Still playing dumb).

Then she couldn't torture him any more. It seemed that they've been talking like this since eternity.
"Is it me?"
His turn to torture her.
Silence, blushing and more blushing.
A small nod from him that was barely visible, confirms her doubt.
Suddenly people came out from some class. Someone called her name, she had to rush downstairs.

"Shall we go downstairs now?"

"Is there anybody in your life?" (In this part of the world this is how people ask if you're engaged or have a boy friend).
"Excuse me?"
"Is there anybody in your life?"
"Yea there're millions of bodies. Where do you think I live? In deserts?" that's what she usually says in reply to this question this time she just said "no" (with a super silly smile & blushing on her face).

The class was so boring and dead without him. Nelly looked at his empty seat all the time while talking. A couple of days later, he came back with a present to her. She refused to take it (being his teacher & all). He insisted. She accepted unwillingly. Later on they decided to meet outside the teaching mood. Again she accepted unwillingly. He told her (out of nowhere) that he wanted to marry her and that he was in love with her and that he wanted to know what she thinks of all that. She hesitantly told him that all she knew about him was his name which was exactly about what he knew about her.

"Ok the let's get to know each other more".
She said that she didn't think she was ready for marriage yet.
"Take your time to know me & when we're ready we'll get married".
She asked "how do you love me if you didn't know me? What if I'm evil or psychotic?"
"I love what I see & there's no changing that".

So, to keep it short, he had answers to all the questions she could think of. In that meeting she got to know that he did not intend to take that course at all, and that his friends enlisted him in that course without even asking him. "So it's destiny as you can see that we meet and fall in love" he said. There were long silence moments during which he stared and smiled at her while she pretended to be busy drinking , eating, or looking at some thing or another. He told her that from day one he knew she was the one for him, but being her student he tried to discard the idea. "But it's impossible" he said, therefore he decided to tell her and travel away afterwards. They talked for hours. She asked him not to meet her or talk to her during the course about their personal feelings. He agreed. Later on he made excuses to call her, "can I submit my assignment Wednesday instead of Monday?", or "do we've a class tomorrow?" After the course they phoned each other daily and spoke together for hours.

But apparently the idea of falling in love at first sight did not appeal much to her. There has to be a lot of reasoning for her before accepting and acknowledging her feelings as well as those of others (& she finds anything else as incomprehensible). For her he was just her one year younger student who all of a sudden decided he was in love with her. What if he was doing that just to pass the test? What if he's playing? Why's he playing? She didn't have any answer it was all so confusing to her. She needed the answer to many questions .He tried to answer the questions she posed to him, but still she was confused. He –for some reason- always seemed to be childish to her may be because she has first known him as her student. He tried his best to fill in the gaps for her, but still that was not enough for her. She could still make a list of all the reasons why she thought they cannot be together. And so what could have been a very good story to tell to her grandchildren ended in confusion and many unanswered questions.

It may seem that she did not love or care for him and it may also seem that this love story did not take much time. Yet she, now, admits to herself that she loved and cared for him more than she admitted to him. He kept on reasoning with her for a whole year when she just blew the whole thing up.