My crushes getting crushed

Recently, I met a guy I had crush on during my college days. He was my senior in the same college. I had never spoken to him then. Being in too much awe of someone creates that kind of a distance. He used to play drums in annual functions at the college. "So cool," I used to think. I was the nerdy kind who always used to be the audience at such functions and whose alibi was "somebody has to be the audience." He used to walk as if on his toes, something I found very awkward when I saw him now. But back then, that was part of the coolness quotient too. He used to carry a particular girl with him who people said was his girlfriend. She looked a little wicked and so I concluded maybe that is what it takes to be cool guys' girlfriends. 

Smartheart had organized his high-school reunion before about a year. When I came to know the guy was smartheart's classmate, I felt nervous as to how I would encounter him let alone converse with him louder than my heart beats. At the club, where the group was  meeting, he walked towards smartheart and me (more towards smartheart on recognizing him) with the same ballet-like walk, except that somehow it didn’t seem so cool to me anymore. All this while, I was trying to cross paths with him but suddenly when he came my way, his importance shrinked. I told him I remember him playing drums at my college functions. “Oh were you in the same college as me? I never saw you,” came the reply. Thank you very much.

Smartheart does not play drums. I am guessing he wouldn’t have been longed by nerdy girls during his school/college days because he too looks nerdy. To make things worse, he walks with his feet on the ground. But I have noticed cool guys hold him in high regard for some reason. Smartheart’s coolness is reflected in his knowledge of the world when he talks to people but being humble and interested in them at the same time. That’s when I think to myself “He’s my dude.”

I strongly believe that God has given each one of us either beauty or brains. I feel so fortunate having chosen a life-partner who has more of the latter. If I would have fallen for a handsome fool, how unhappy I would have been when he wouldn’t have been able to decipher my thoughts, feelings and needs.

Enough of bragging about smartheart. Back to the cool-turned-fool guy. He said he got married sometime back and I assumed the never-smiling, catty-eyed girl would be the one completing his made-for-each-other equation. But at a common friend’s engagement, I met another girl who he introduced as his wife. Her glum disposition accentuated my inner voice which said to me, “Smita, look at you. How happy you are.” May be I am interpreting too much out of too little. But in any case, I appreciate when smartheart checks in to see if I have eaten before he eats, when he enthusiastically and proudly introduces me to everyone he meets rather than being an egotist, when he values brains and hearts more than the skin by making me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. This requires more than a heart. This requires brain to instruct the heart.

Co-incidentally, I met another crush of mine during my post-graduate days at a wedding. And surprisingly, he also turned out to be smartheart’s school mate. He knew I was married to smartheart. The first thing he told me was “Your husband was very brainy in school.” I said, “He still is.”