It Was a Yes, But I Never Said It

26. Mandy Is Back or I Guess Not

Amidst this chaos of feelings that I am having for Rihan, Mandy asking me out wasn't needed even as a thought.

A couple of days back, one of my really nice friend Mandy asked me out. Long story short, I was thinking about Rihan when another guy was hitting on me. Such a terrible case I have turned into.

The incident with Rihan has made me an emotional fool. I spent so many years working on myself, not getting affected by anything, being practical and emotionless but the incident with Rihan has brought me back to stage one. An emotional fool who cries on little things. But what happened with Mandy wasn't a little thing at all.

Mandy is Mandy. We have been friends since college and we had a lot of fights. But no matter how much we fight things are always chill with Mandy. He always shows up. Dont know how but he always manages to fix things between us somehow. We had a fight in college and we reconnected post college. And it was as if we never fought. During that time we had a chat over which we shared that we have no interest in relationships and we are talking as friends. I value my friends very much. We therefore used to chat and joke over texts. He was becoming a close friend but then one day over call he asked have you trapped some other guy. Woah that was the most leud statement someone has said to me. I was confused. What was he trying to suggest? Is he suggesting that I trap guys one after the other or that I was trying to trap him. Either way, it sounded cheap and no matter who the person is, I would never give permission to anyone to raise a finger on my character. Hence I blocked him and never turned back.

But there he was, an year later, with his sorry texts, flooding all my social media accounts, be it instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, behance and what not. Seeing his texts my family thought that I have been acting like a total bitch.

I therefore thought of talking to him again and thought of inviting him over my place so that he can see I am not rich. Knowing the person he is, he would have surely lost any interest in me that he might had. With this plan I thought of letting go of the past and not to mention it again to save myself from further humiliation.

We always had light and chilled conversations as it's Mandy and with him it's always a friendly conversation. But my plan never worked. He never visited home and never got to know I am poor. I thought we are having friendly conversation, so I never did the overthinking. I feel Mandy is silly, act stupid at times but at the same time he is a nice human being. And who on earth is perfect. We should accept our friends the way they are. Hence I never looked back but ensured not to overstep any boundaries this time.

But I guess, unknowingly I did by asking help from him. I have asked for his help for a government related work which I thought would just be a reference sharing task for him but it ended up in us meeting thrice. He was nice and helpful all the while but one day while dropping me off he was suggesting that we should go on a one day trip to Manali or some hill station. I thought Mandy is being Mandy again, just talking stupid. So I just let it go with a smile and of course a no. As I could recall that we recently had a conversation around this over chat lately wherein I mentioned him that these aren't the type of trips taken with a friend. All my college friends are dear to me and nothing else. To this I was embarrassed a lot lately wherein he mentioned that I misunderstood him etc. So, this time over the drive back to home, I thought of not embarrassing myself any further and ignored his trips plan. Plus I thought that his brother doesn't hang out with him much as he mentioned and he might not have many friends which is the reason he is trying to make plans with anyone he could. I am not judging him but was trying to be understanding as he once shared a screenshot showing that he asked my girl friends for the same plan.

During that phase, he asked for a meet up. I thought it's just a friend's catch up as many times in the past I have told him that all my college friends are dear to me and that's it. And all those time, I have been embarrassed later as he always said I misunderstood him and he wasn't suggesting anything else. So, since he helped me so much, I thought it's fine to hangout with a friend. We had a good momo party. But towards the end he said I want to ask you something. He was fumbling, unable to speak up. All he could mutter was "I don't know how to ask you this..." and then there was silence. I wasn't expecting that. It seemed like he was about to ask me if I see a possibility of something happening between me and him. That moment was awkward and whatever it was, I said "No". No to everything.