11. Attention!!! - What the heck

“Attention !” – “I’ll do anything man, I am even ready to shout ‘Attention!’ like a military general, just to make her look at me, because once I get the look naa, I can work my way through with my charm”, says my friend. I say, “ Arey, there’s your cute school friend at the other end of the hall, who’s constantly trying to get your attention, and you are totally ignoring her”, to which he says “no dude, she’s not the, u know, girl friend type. She isn’t demanding, high handed, flirtatious which are total turn on’s for me. She too easily agrees to what I have to say and hardly asks for anything, giving me the impression that she doesn’t want to be anything more than a friend.”

How often does this not happen, the person you want to talk to isn’t as eager to listen to you, as is a person, whom you aren’t so eagerly interested to listen to, yourself. The wretched irony of life, or can it be thought of as a guiding light? Don’t you hear people saying, “What goes around comes around”, or is this just a myth. Lets just not confine the issue to talking, lets take it a step further by saying that the interest you show in a person, the effort you put or want to put to get that person’s attention does not get the kind of reciprocation or response you would like to get.

When it comes to love, a good friend of mine says, “I just cant understand the concept of adjustment in love. People say, why go searching for love when there are people you know who are ready give you love? How can you adjust and compromise in matters of love?”. I’d say a better word for it would be “contentment”, but that’s a secondary thing. If you are in love with someone who isn’t interested even the slightest bit in you, then what does one do? Reassess whether is it really love or is it just infatuation packaged in a glittery wrapper ? Or Continue to be in love without letting the ‘person’ know of it? What if there is another person in love with you already :o ? Or Stay contented saying, this wasn’t meant to be, so let me search for other open roads? Another friend of mine says, “Adjustment is a part of life dude, u have to adjust yourself according to the circumstances and situations”, but that’s a separate issue all together.

We so desperately try to get that someone’s attention, we’ll try every trick in the book, every potion and spell that we know just to get noticed by the right person. And invariably what happens is that it’s everyone else other than that someone, who end up noticing you. And the same holds true for people trying to get your attention as well, you are so busy trying to get someone else’s attention that you don’t pay attention to the efforts made to get your attention. Sounds clichéd, twisted, but that’s the way it is.

I have got so vexed looking at how this “vicious circle” gets formed everywhere, that I’ve stopped consciously from making efforts to be noticeable, even accidentally. Have resigned from the “Attention-mongers” department, have adopted the “if I have to get noticed by someone, it will happen eventually, no point in trying consciously to draw attention.”. have begun paying Attention to every possible attempt made to make me feel better or happier and it is giving me a lot more satisfaction coz I can see the happiness in people’s face when they get the desired reciprocation for their tries.

But then again, the chirpy child within me gets outta control now and then and gets back to trying to impress upon people and get me noticed. There’s this conflict which crops up every now and then , but finally practicality wins(I hate it to win, but it ultimately does) and I am back to being what I have always been, a poor “Attention - gatherer”.