I could sit all alone for hours without a book or TV or people and still have a good time.

Not all times, sometimes you have to have physical company. But sometimes I don’t have to have company. I can just imagine something, some story, or think about something I read/experienced long back. Sometimes I can develop my own story, dialogues, screenplay etc. and I can just jump into imaginary world and dwell in it. During my Teenage years, it always used to be some story with my lover boys, obviously. These lover boys can be a real person, or a hero of a novel or a movie, anybody who inspired me.

The problem comes when I mix my imaginary thoughts with real thoughts and real people. You know, like the actual relationship might be ordinary and you let your imagination run wild and suddenly you think you are in this intense relationship.

The other person has no clue about it and suddenly oneday when you behave like a close pal, the other person is confused and bewildered. Well, I think it happens to everybody.

It happened to me with one Pal. I was new to that Project and somebody introduced me to “T” . I learned that she is married and her Husband will be joining her in few months and she is staying alone in my adjoining apartment. I was staying with a roommate. My roommate “S” is kind of aloof and she dwells in her own world. Probably imagining something. I was in a generous mood that day, so I offered “T” to come and have lunch at our home. “T” said she is busy maybe some other Time.

After that for a few days we didn’t see each other. She was working in some other project with the same Client. Oneday I met “T” in the washroom and she was telling she is gonna cook dinner. I said “what you will cook for one person. Why don’t you join us”. “T” joined us and it was fun. She is a very compassionate, thoughtful person and I felt a good vibe from her. My inner detector went “ding ding ding – Potential girlfriend material”. Anyways, “T” was in a really hectic project and I was in some okay project. Mmm, come to think about it I wrote and tested 3 programs in 3 months time, not a good thing to put in appraisal. Anyways, I told “T” to have dinner at my place everyday since she comes home very late, around 11:30 or 12 in the night. I liked her company so much, I used to wait for her for Dinner. My roommate usually doesn’t eat much for dinner. She likes to have soup and an apple for dinner, that’s it. So she normally eats around 8 o’ clock and settles down. When “T” comes home after a long day, it was a good feeling to feed her some nice hot Indian food and nice to watch her eat it heartily.

So, we became friends and we used to cook in her house Briyani & Spicy Shrimp curry and invite the whole jantha (I picked it from a Telugu friend, it means crowd I think) and party. We used to talk about how we met our guys (her husband and my then boyfriend) and stuff. Our frequencies matched, so it was good.

And then her husband came and we used to get together once in a while and we moved to different projects. She went to UK finally and we mailed each other once in a while.

For a long time I was thinking I have to call and talk to her sometime. As I said earlier, by this time I watered and took care of our friendship plant in my mind so much, I started to think that we were such close friends and we like each other very much etc..

And one day finally I called her. By this time, she has a kid too.

I started talking like as if we are closer than ever and suddenly felt I was alone in the friendship. Ofcourse, she was still the nicest person and she inquired about me and talked about the good old days. But the Magic is gone. She was not talking to me like I was her close friend. She was talking to me like, how People talk to an acquaintance. She was genuine and all, its just the friendship I imagined was not there.

I blame myself. It was a little upset at first, but then it was good to talk to her anyway.

Maybe it’s because we were talking over phone. Maybe if we get together now, we can renew our friendship. But it taught me not to imagine too much about relationships when real people are involved.

With Imaginary people, we can think whatever we want. That’s the fun with Imaginary People. Yeah, I hear that you are saying “aren’t you wee bit old to have imaginary friends?”. Well, what I can say. That’s me. And also, I am not just friends with the Imaginary people. Come on, you tell me how you can be just friends with George Clooney, Leonardo Dicarpio & Daniel craig?