Just haven’t met you yet.

Michael Buble is unnecessarily cute and talented. To protest this, I have had “Just Haven’t Met You Yet” by him on loop for the past few weeks.

Promise you kid, to give so much more than I get

I just haven’t met you yet

Ashley, my college roommate, introduced me to Michael Buble (pron:Boob-lay, I know, I know) when I once came back from class to hear his song “Home” pouring out of her speakers while she sang along from the shower at a volume that causes ear drums to bleed, finger nails to scrape against black boards and tooth enamel become very sensitive to air. And in spite of that, I was hooked. Buble’s honey-whiskey voice is perfect and the simple lyrics with a simple melody really do it for me.

Now, the video is not exactly genius. It’s pretty bad actually. What about a supermarket makes me think “love song?” Then they start pushing it with the brass band in the cereal aisle, and then there’s  the deli guy doing some sort of  hip thing, and the next thing you know he’s in a parking lot with all these coordinated dancers and it just stops making sense, like a Bollywood movie. (Did Ram Gopal Varma direct this?) Having said that, sure the video is crap, but Michale Buble’s hot enough to make it all worth it.

Well, I’ve met an alarming amount of single people recently and I think of them when I hear this song.

Weather we like to admit it or not, most of us want someone. Sure, there’s tons of folks who are genuinely happy, but there’s also a lot of people that  claim to love being single because they haven’t found anyone. (I’m not going to get into “women this” and “men that”. I prefer to think of us as just people.) I fear that we are a generation of Elenor Rigbys and Father Mackenzies.

I can’t simplify it or boil a person’s/ entire generation’s psyche into a few concise sentences. (Though that might be an interesting exercise for later times.) We’re a judgmental people, quickly forming impressions and very barely making an effort to get beyond it. Too busy you see, we have to rush home and watch that episode of Heros that we downloaded. And becasue of that, I think, we protect ourselves viciously.

I happened to join a friend at coffee shop recently. She has a job to die for, and fits into clothes that were previously on a mannequin, a supportive family and is single. She guffaws heartily at stories of sweet things that couples do when in love and on more than one quiet occasion has confessed to being lonely. So when a very cute guy came over to our table and went, “Oh Lord, blue pants!” we both first looked down at ourselves to confirm that we weren’t wearing the offending blue pants and then up at him expectantly.

“Hi!” he smiled at my friend directly. An honest, sweet, sincere smile.

“Yes?” she asked.

“You’re not wearing blue pants, I thought that was interesting,” he said cheekily.

I laughed out loud. A pick up line. A bleeding pick-up line, it had been ages since I’d heard one. A once-over confirmed that this was exactly the kind of guy she had often talked about. Funny, cute (very cute), in a sort of  preppy way. This Purab Kohli-esque guy with his signature adorable mop of hair.

“What?”

” My name is V******, just wanted to come over and say hi.” And for that one moment, I was floored. This is India, it takes a lot of guts to walk over to a girl and talk to her.  Scratch that, it takes balls to talk to a girl anywhere in the world. I decided that I liked this guy.

“Do you need this table or something? We’re kind of busy right now. We’ll be done in a couple of minutes.” She looked bored.

I saw his face crumple as he mumbled something and walked away.

As we walked out of the coffee shop I turned to her and without wanting to interfere or seem over bearing, I yelled, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What?”

“He was totally your type.”

“No, he was so stupid.”

I thought I was going to hit her. My arm actually tingled.

“Why was he stupid?”

“What the hell is blue pants? Who does he think he is? Just because he’s good looking doesn’t mean he can say whatever he wants and (further vague explanations)”

I dropped the subject.

And of course, I understand the other parameters that come into play. Gladwell’s Blink and thin-slicing and all that. And this was just a one off  incident, but what the hell?I’m not saying lower your standards, date a crazy person and blame me for it all after wards.  All I’m saying is, GIVE IT AN EFFING CHANCE.

Why are we lonely in one of the most populated cities in the world?

Taking a chance on love, adopting the “just haven’t met you yet” attitude is so much better than being lonely and miserable. Maybe we need to open up a bit, to possibilities, chance meetings and have a little more faith in the universe.