Better to have loved and lost?

"It's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all", says this friend and smirks at me. Why smirk at me? It's obvious that I have not 'loved and won' or, at least, held on to my 'winnings', considering that I am single (And put a sock in your mouth if you are about to bleat 'ready to mingle'.) But exactly why should he assume that I am of those who have 'never loved at all', for otherwise he would not be smirking at me.

You know, this is about the only thing, though, where to not win does not make you a loser. In almost any other activity, if you lose, all the guys, who would never even dream of trying, will line up and chorus 'Loser' at you. But this? Apparently, for once, it is better to have lost than to never have tried! (I have heard cries about having lost only the love without losing the person, from those who 'won' and married, but I would not know about that. I suppose it goes to show that, as in many things, people like the thought of having it, chase it vigorously, but have no clue what to do with it once they get it. Lucky are the few who do.)

Whether you consider them wise or poor deprived souls, it is not like I really belong with the 'never have loved at all' gang. And I am not even talking about my swooning over Sridevi, mooning over Madhuri, and so on. I know how highly you guys estimate my IQ but even I know the difference between romance and fantasy.

The first time I loved and made bold to tell it to the girl, she was curious about whether I was acquainted with the mirror. As in, she asked me, "Ever seen your face in the mirror?" ("Kabhi shakal dekhi aayine mein?" sounds much better, really - not when it is addressed to you, of course!) Now, just because I do not shave, why do people think that I avoid mirrors totally? Of course I had seen my face in the mirror. Two eyes, tick. One nose, if you really look for it, tick. And, since the food that I push in between all that facial hair disappears inside me, I presume that I do have that opening which people call a mouth. So, exactly what was she wondering about? Anyway, I got a sort of hint that, if there was a blissful future of nappy-changing in my life, it was unlikely to be with this girl.

And then there was this girl, who occupied my fantasies, when we regularly traveled together in the bus to our respective offices. And one day we happened to sit beside each other. I cleared my throat and started off with 'Excuse me'. She turned to me with a bright smile and said, "Yes, Uncle?"

In all my extensive reading, I have seen girls addressing their dream man with all sorts of words but 'Uncle' was never one of them. So, it did not seem likely to me that I was going to walk hand-in-hand with this lady into the sunset. And when the 'uncles' became ubiquitous, it was clear that the absence of a few strands of dead protein on the head was having a disastrous effect on any possibility of 'loving and winning'.

But, well, I had loved and lost, hadn't I? More often than most, really, considering that if you loved and won the first, you really have done it only once. (AND, if you have held on to your 'winnings', you better make sure that you claim it is the first time when love REALLY struck you.)

What? You don't think I have loved and lost? That to lose something you must have it in the first place and I never had it? What do you mean? I loved, I lost.  Multiple times. If you mean that the other person never loved me, and so it does not fit, you should have said, "Better to have BEEN loved and lost it, than to have never been loved at all." THEN I would agree with you.

AND if you allowed love to find you (I don't mean waiting for the person but waiting for the emotion to be felt for whichever of the people you meet), instead of going around trying to find it, maybe you would not be losing it and then justifying why it is still good to do so. So there!