Doing something you’ve wanted to do for a long, long time is so, so satisfying. I am also a boring, boring person for repeating words like this, but anyway...

I just told a man I would appreciate it if he didn’t call me any more. Thanks. Exactly those words. They might seem tame, especially after I tell you how much he has managed to irritate me over the last few months, but for sweet, please-one please-all me, that’s a major accomplishment.

So there was this Bengali man, in his late thirties, ugly, balding and a bore (these facts have everything to do with how I felt about him, and yes, I am a very frivolous person who is very partial to good-looking men) introduced to us, as in R and me, by a colleague from Delhi. He was apparently going to be in Bangalore for a year to do a course at an institute and wanted introductions to common friends. He called, I was at effusive hostess welcoming lonely person to Bangalore best. He called again, and then again. By third phone call, I knew just what I had let myself in for. He was such a bore. Not boring, which is entirely different, but a bore. Told me entire story of his entire life full of struggles by second phone call, if that helps you get his character and everything.

He invited himself over to our place one weekend some months back. I had of course primed entire gaggle of friends who all turned up on the said day to look at him. They pulled his leg rather badly, tried to shock him by flirting outrageously with each other’s partners, threw in-jokes at each other over his head. We were not a mean lot generally, but somehow, it was felt he deserved it. He seemed to take things pretty sportingly. But surprisingly, this did not lead to anyone’s liking him any more than I did. If I could say this without sounding very mean (I can’t, so what the heck) it sort of demonstrated what a loser he was.

Then he started calling me more and more frequently. Never R, who had been as much his host as me at the aforementioned 'party', but me. In the beginning it was always to invite us to his place and all, which I always replied to with an 'oh sure. will do sometime'. Then he started asking me to meet him for dinner after office. True to my Rude People Will Go To Hell beliefs, I hemmed and hawed and sounded vague, invented excuses about being busy. Didn’t take calls, didn’t reply to messages. Did this for about a week. He was nothing if not persistent. Friends egged me on to make him crawl back into his hole in misery. What sport it was. What a keenly watched match.

Finally, and I hate to admit this, I had to fall back on ‘R doesn’t like it’. [Scrrrratch! (Sound of name being struck from Register of Sometime Feminists)].

Which was bullshit of course, in the sense that R would definitely not like my meeting this guy, but that was just because I bothered to discuss it with him. Mostly, I leave him out of all this. So much work pressure, night shifts on top, poor fellow.

All quiet for a couple of months. Then messages of ‘can I call you’ – ignored for a couple of days. Then in new year bonhomie and good cheer, I took a call from him. After painful pleasantries were exchanged, the man, in very obvious defensive fashion, started off with ‘don’t take this otherwise, I hope you don’t mind my saying this etc etc’, then asked me (again R was not even mentioned) if I would meet him for dinner. Also said he had a ‘small gift’ for me which he had brought back from the US (of course it was a perfume, as he let slip. Cheesiness of it makes me want to puke) and would I meet him so he could give it to me?

Now I got seriously psyched out. Till now I was treating him as a sort of elderly bore, mostly harmless and slightly daft for not getting rather pointed hints. Again, and this should be noted, I refused to tell him to go to hell. Where did I read recently that some women have this sort of... umm... underconfidence... that makes them loath to see the worst side of things? Which, often enough, is the right side. Ok, so tell me all about how I am a popularity junkie. Stems from my repressed childhood, no doubt.

But equally, it’s about an aversion towards unnecessary dramatisation. Telling somebody to go to hell and all that is just so dramatic. I find it infinitely easier to ho and hum and be vague. Not give in, but not make a huge point of not giving in either. To my defence, I did say R would also love to meet him (heh heh) and WE would see him sometime, of course we would. Not much enthusiasm was shown to this statement.

He said he would call me early this week. Yesterday, I sat next to my phone for a good two hours, refusing to pick up the phone. He called some twenty times. On my cell, on my landline, from his cell, his landline, from an unidentified local number. Everything. I just sat tight. Called up R and random friends and acted psyched out (I was a bit, honestly).

Today, I get this text message from him: “U were busy yesterday, can I call you now? Also if you feel that I am going crazy let me know.”

That’s when those immortal lines were uttered. I would appreciate it if you didn’t call me. Thanks.

Sweeter words were never spoken. Aaah!