I did it again. Am confessing unabashedly. I played that ‘I got engaged’ joke on yet another poor unsuspecting soul :-P. This time the victim was P. But I didn’t trouble him much. I have been rather busy the past few weeks (following a 14/7 schedule) and had not communicated with him since quite some time. The poor thing asked me where I have been all this time… and I could *just* not resist the temptation to give the ‘ I got engaged’ funda to him. Pssst.. girlies, this is a sure shot way of knowing whether or not a guy is interested in you and if he *is*, then you can have a whale of a time on his expense ;-). Sadistic, I am sure you all think, but it all depends on what the guy feels for you and how you play it up ;-). In case he gets all senti then well and good.. he deserves that for not taking the initiative for that long. In case he doesn’t, you will be able to make out that it’s not really making a difference to him and you might as well never let him on the fact that your engagement never happened.

With P, it was a long distance thing, I told him on mail and then chatted with him for around 10 minutes. He sounded shocked, wish I could have seen his face. Since I had to rush home soon, I anyway told him that I was playing a joke on him. Couldn’t have let him sleep over that :-). He sounded a little relieved.

I still remember the time I did the same with psycho. I knew he was flirting and he knew I was, but both of us behaved as if nothing was happening. In between, he had to go home for a couple of days. When he got back, we met for catching up. Just a day before we met, I had attended the engagement function of a friend of mine. Dunno what came over me, but just on an impulse I decided I’ll play that joke on him and built the whole thing up with things like, “I have to give you some news” etc. I gave him the “news” with a lot of difficulty. No, I wasn’t feeling guilty or anything like that, I was having a *REALLY* tough time controlling my laughter. LOL, the difficulty with which i smothered my giggles is only known to me. I didn’t have to prepare on any “correct information”. I just rattled out all the particulars of the fiance of my friend. Thank God, I had attended that function, otherwise am sure, I would have looked like a tongue tied, red faced baboon, on not being able to answer things like “Does he have a moustache?”, “Does he wear spectacles?”, “Where is he working?”, “How tall is he?” etc.

I still remember that despair and angst writ large on psycho’s face. In fact it alarmed me to an extent coz I never imagined an otherwise rather unexpressive guy, to possess that ‘I-better-go-and-jump-in-the-pond’ look on his countenance. That catalysed the bursting of the oversized bubble I had blown. Anyway I was unable to bear the pain in my cheek bones that comes with trying to keep a straight face when your brain is ordering your cheeks to draw and upward curve. I suddenly exploded (I must say, I must have given a heart attack to psycho, the way I did) into laughter and confessed that it was all a joke… The poor thing was absolutely zapped and stood rooted to the spot with a glazed look. “I must say you act rather well”, was all he could muster up. I felt sorry for him. I said so too. But I guess the relief was more than the initial shock and soon we were laughing together wholeheartedly, with him throwing affectionate jibes at me like “You naughty imp, you caught me there”. This episode helped in erasing all uncomfortable boundaries for us. It only confirmed what we both had known all along.