At the cost of sounding like a stalker, I have lately wondered what to do with my misplaced curiosity about the more interesting people in our lives. I have an urge which has got me into a fair amount of trouble with the more common members of the opposite sex who are quick to misinterpret my need to pick at their brains as having the male all encompassing motive. Of course, this is exactly the point where my curiosity fades into slight disgust - both at the object of former pseudo voyeurism as well as myself at not having seen through their emotional retardedness. But the trait remains despite many attempts at supression. For instance, a certain person at my office is one of these quiet pseudo Brit blokes who disquiets you with a confidence that can only be borne of deep living. And it takes some disquieting to disquiet me. He's one of those strong and silent types who probably found the girl of his dreams, said yes-that's-it and settled down with her for the rest of his life. One of those finer specimens who make you understand why we still go around believing in fidelity. Now I would love to have one of those tete-a-tetes, be done with it and move on to the next brain, but that attractive solitude is exactly the reason I know I never will get to. The first time I realised I loved this was when I sat opposite a person purely by chance in a Dubai airport executive lounge while waiting for a flight delayed by 15 hours and had the most fascinating 6 hour conversation with him. Turned out, he was a twice married orphaned Pakistani doctor who had escaped his native village and gone on to become a surgeon at Chicago city hospital. And as I left him for my plane, I thought to myself, "This is what humanity means - exchanging life stories over dinner even though you'll never meet each other again." Everyone's had them - those long conversations in Indian trains or overnight in a bus with the person next to you. You don't want to meet the person again, but you're glad your paths crossed. Thankfully, over the years I have learnt not to misconstrue this curiosity as anything but, but the fact remains that it very annoying that the most interesting specimens of our world are the ones who just about give a sliver of themselves away and hide everything else. Very annoying indeed.
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