SHORT STORY: The sensitive guy with chronic diarrhoea

The guy sniffed. He had cried like a small kid who is losing his mother some minutes ago. The girl was exasperated. She had expected a romantic evening but what she had got was a 25 year old guy who wanted mama.

It had started well. The girl and the guy had gone together on a college trip. That is how they had met the first time. He had liked her smiling face. She had liked his aloofness. Any girl would love the strong silent types. He turned out to be silent but hardly the strong types.

But I am jumping the gun. To go back to the trip. They had started become friends on the trip. They kept in touch after they returned to Bombay. The guy sent her flowers when she fell ill with a bout of flu. He presented her a Somerset Maugham novel on her birthday. Though she never read books, she was touched and invited him to her home for the evening.

The guy was a sensitive soul. He had a difficult childhood. Well meaning but a simpleton mother who never understood her son. The father was a hard man, who had no time to sit and talk to his son. The result was a young man of 25 years who was painfully sensitive and who suffered from chronic diarrhoea. He had got no love from the parents. He was a mild guy and had not been taken seriously by his school 'friends.'

The guy at 25 years now thought that only a nice girl was what he needed. Romantic notions of a understanding lover, who would not mind that he had chronic diarrhoea.

So when he went to the girl's house that evening, he felt encouraged when the girl kissed him on the lips. He poured out his heart to her. He told her everything. The aloof parents, the uncaring friends and of course the chronic diarrhoea.

He touched the girl's maternal chord. She too became sentimental at the sad story. She told him to make love to her. But the guy wanted understanding, not coition. He could not make love to her.

Fifteen minutes later they sat in the drawing room in a uncomfortable silence.

"Do you love me?", asked the guy.

The girl was miffed at the failed sexual experience. Moreover the sentimental stage had passed. She was vividly aware of the fact that a weak man sat beside her on the sofa. But telling him to get lost would have seemed, well, inconsiderate.

"No", she replied, "but we can be good friends."

"Not friends, I want your love." said the guy. "I am 25 years old. Seems unlikely that I will find love again."

"Fuck your 25 years," barked the girl.

That is when the guy had started sniffing. The dreams of true love had gone in a puff of smoke. Life was tough. He was still alone. He sniffed and went home.