Partners of Friends (updated)

We are friends with our friends not merely because we are fond of them, but also because we get along with them, find them interesting, can have great conversations with them, can gel with them, can trust them, can open up to them, and so on. Most importantly, in most cases our wavelenghts match, even though we may have serious disagreements.

Now what happens when these friends have partners or get married. Do we get along with these partners or spouses too? I have had mixed experiences. Meeting with the partners of two good friends in December and having diametrically opposite experiences made me realize how different this can be.

Hari was going to India, and was to go via Germany, meeting his old colleagues and also showing his wife the country he had lived in for more than four years. I hadn't met him for years, and had never met his wife. I was to visit a place near Karlsruhe for work around that time, and so I decided to go earlier and meet them in Berlin.

Hari's marriage had been an arranged one. He had seen photographs and had been talking to her on telephone for quite a few months. He finished his PhD, went back to India, met her in person, went out with her, and then got married. When he'd told me about these plans on telephone, I was skeptical about his optimism. I wasn't saying that it wouldn't work, but what if he was disappointed when he met her, or worse, disliked her? The wedding arrangements had been made, and knowing him, it'd be unlikely that he'd make them call it off. What then? We had a bit of an argument. Later I emailed him to apologise for being so cynical and he said I had been articulating things had been on his mind, and that was the reason he got irritated as well.

He got married, and they both went to the US. I kinda lost touch with him.

But he was going to be Germany, and we decided to meet.

Madhuri is lovely. I mean particularly as a person, although I do find her pretty too, with the Mallu eyes that I find so attractive in women. She is extremely friendly (I felt I'd known her all my life), has good sense of humour, is intelligent, makes good conversation, is fun, caring, and seems to be "one of our crowd". There was no hesitation on her part, and we got along very well immediately. They obviously enjoy each other very much. And I hope this is one of greatest successes of the arranged marriage system. I must say I am both relieved and very happy for Hari. We hung out for two days, had dinner, visited the Pergamon museum, loitered around Berlin, christmas markets etc and had a thoroughly good time. Although Hari and I are very good friends, we do have issues and have one or more fights every time we meet. This was the first time we didn't, I think thanks to Madhuri.

*

About to weeks later (after Christmas), Chris and his Swedish girlfriend came to visit me. Chris is 4-5 years younger than me, and I am very fond of him. We had met in Tübingen where he worked as a summer student, and we got along extremely well. We exchanged visits after that and travelled around Germany as well. He have very wide interests and is extremely well-informed and we can have those endless conversations about almost everything under the sun. His girlfriend, Stina, on the other had was one of the most boring creatures I have ever met. She was grumpy and had a thoroughly bored expression most of the time. Offered no opinions. Try as I might, I couldn't involve her in conversation... all questions and leads were dealt with using the minimum possible words. After several trials I just left her alone and almost ignored her. The only thing she really wanted to do/see is the Natural History Museum, but unfortunately it was closed most of the time they were there. We went around the city centre on the New Year Eve, through the crowds, stopping at the concerts on the way. Again she had no enthusiasm, opinion or interest in anything. We watched the fireworks with small bottles of champagne from the forecourt of the Austrian Parliament... it is elevated and hence offers a good view of the fireworks, but is not crowded as there are no concerts, shops or stalls around. And soon afterwards walked back because she was tired.

I thoroughly enjoyed Chris' company like before, I trust he enjoyed himself too. But I absolutely couldn't figure her. De gustibus non est diputandum, goes a saying in Latin: there should be no argument about taste, and I agree with it completely. But to be honest (and nasty to a dear friend), I absolutely can't fathom what he sees in her.

*

These were two of the most recent experiences and they struck me because they were within a few weeks of each other and so opposite to each other. But now that I think of it, spouses/partners of friends have been a mixed bag.

I got along with Ana, Rajeeb's girlfriend very well indeed. On the other hand I knew HRJ's hubby, Jeetu, much before she knew him and in fact he had even been my roommate for a considerable period. But I never really gelled with him. Even now, on rare occasions when I talk to him on the phone, we don't have much to say to each other. I have a similar problem with Trupti's hubby too, although we are able to talk a bit more . Clovis was one of my first gay friends in Vienna, and I get along very well with his boyfriend Michael, in fact I haven't met Michael in the absence of Clovis, but it is possible that we get along even better. Ralf, is an old friend too, and although his girlfriend Helia isn't as interesting to talk to, we still get along quite well. I met Will's ex-girlfriend, Sonia, when she moved to Heidelberg long before he did. We became good friends, much better friends than I was with Will. I am still in touch with Sonia, but have lost contact with Will.

But I guess this is not surprising. People are all different, look for different things in people. Some click, others don't. I am really glad that I clicked with Madhuri... it would have been a real shame if I had not got along with Hari's wife.

Update: I had visited Chris and Stina in Munich in summer 07. And surprisingly enough, I enjoyed Stina's company quite a lot. She was more talkative and more participating in our discussions. She mentioned in passing in a completely different context, that Swedes become unfriendly in winter and change their characters completely in summer. Since they had visited me in Vienna in the middle of winter that might have been a reason for her unfriendliness. That and she was a bit unwell, and she was meeting me for the first time. I'm still not a big fan of her's but I get along better with her.

Another spouse of a friend I recently met for the first time is Sheetal, Crystal's wife (the same summer-- I had gone to Munich to get them to Vienna). Although we differ in many ways, I got along quite well with her... probably more than with Crystal himself.

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Coming Out II: to close friends

This is the second part of a three-part article. Check out the previous one first.

Kerstin was a postdoc in a neighbouring lab in Tübingen, and one of the smartest girls I have met in Europe. She was nice, although she could be quite bitchy. She was openly lesbian, and I had met her girlfriend too. One of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn't come out to her. Bitchy or not, gossipy or not, she'd have helped me, and may even have introduced me to a lot of people. In fact she may have taken me for a bit of a homophobe from some of my comments.

In June 1999, I had finished an important piece of work, that I had been struggling with for a while, and my supervisor insisted that I take a holiday. So I decided to visit H. in Berlin again. I heard that Kerstin was going to Berlin for the same weekend. When she came to know about my plans of visiting that weekend too, she was very curious about the reason of my visit.

That Saturday, H., a friend of his, and I were loitering around Berlin, and came across a huge parade. Noisy, crowded, outrageous costumes.. or nothing (or nothing much) on at all. A girl even asked me whether she could take my photo, and I "posed". None of the three of us desis spoke much German at that time, so we couldn't figure out what it was. H. said he'd heard of the Love Parade and this could be it. We didn't stay to watch, but moved on to the sights of Berlin. Later, a friend of his told us that it was the Gay Parade. Wow! My first encounter with a Gay Parade, one of the most famous Gay Parades of the world, and it didn't even register! The reason why Kerstin was in Berlin and her curiosity about my visit also clicked. I told H. that I'd tell her that we'd come across the "Love Parade" and see what she says. H. said he thought that'd be horribly nasty of me. If Kerstin is lesbian, that is her business. There was nothing wrong in being lesbian. Why should I make fun of her? Mentally, I stopped in my tracks. I was the gay guy, and I was being homophobic. The pretense was taking me too far. It had to be a straight guy who had to point this out to me. [Kerstin did ask me whether I saw the parade, and I truthfully answered that yes, we did, but we'd initially thought that it was the Love Parade. She got a bit agitated and explained that while the Love Parade had no significance, the Gay Parade had a lot. This was my first lesson in gay history. But I still didn't come out to her. How far can paranoia and plain stupidity take one!]

This episode got me thinking about my pretense bordering on homophobia, and also about why I'd need to pretend at all with people like H. Why would I have to pretend at all with people who are friends? They are not friends because they think I am straight! And to assume that would be to insult them and their affection for me. If someone did have a problem with my not being straight, would this person deserve being my friend at all?
When H. called up in Mar 2000 to wish me on my 26th birthday, I came out to him. I was terribly nervous, trembling, dry-mouthed, scared. Stupid, because I knew H., knew him well, and had decided to come out because of his correcting me! Nevertheless, the first coming out is never easy. He was shocked, but very supportive. I felt as if a huge burden had been lifted over my shoulders. [Interestingly enough, one of his first questions was about my behaviour in the Kerstin episode.]

From then on, coming out was like an addiction. I had targetted six of my close friends, scattered around the world, and one by one I came out to them. The circle widened. The reactions were varying. Most of these people were shocked, dumbstruck, some thought I was playing one of my tricks that I used to be notorious for. One argued with me that it was "not natural" and took his time to come to terms to this information, although at no point did he shut me out. I am really proud of the bunch of friends I have collected over the years-- proud of them, and proud of myself.

Chris was the fifth of the original six, the only non-Indian in this lot, and the only one I came out to in person at that time (all the other five were on the telephone as they didn't live in the town/country/continent). He was studying in Würzburg and had spent a summer in a neighbouring lab when we became very good friends. We visited each other in Tübingen (later Heidelberg) and Würzburg respectively a few times, and he introduced me to German history and we often travelled together to historical places. I felt myself falling in love with him (to this day, I think if he'd been gay, he'd be Mr. Perfect for me... and I'm not talking about looks here). I didn't want another "is he? he's not!", and other case of my fucking up a friendship. So once, just before returning from a visit, I came out to him in a rather roundabout manner. He was of course ok with it.

My brother's reaction was a classic one. I was in Heidelberg and writing my thesis, meaning I was spending (read: wasting) a lot of time on the computer and the internet on that pretext. During one of our long conversations on Yahoo Messenger, I came out. I asked him if he had a problem with it, whether he was shocked. This offended him, because he'd have thought I'd known him by now and that he is unshockable.

Of the girls that have been romantically interested in me, SM was one, though she insists that this is not true. Her initial reaction was of shock and complete disbelief when I came out to her (on the phone). I was already in Vienna, and it was a week or so before her PhD defence in Tübingen... she never fails to point out how inappropriate my timing for coming out to her was, and I do plead guilty. Later before moving to the US, she visited me in Vienna for the New Year (Dec 2003-Jan 2004) and she wanted to visit a gay bar. I had introduced her to Vijay, and she keeps repeating that if he'd not been gay, he'd be her Mr. Perfect. So Vijay and I took her to Cafe Willendorf at the Rosa Lila Villa. She liked it, of course, like most people do, but she found it no different from a regular cafe. And that's right too. We should have taken her to some place that's "more gay".

Once our Indian friends in Europe and I were visiting H. in Berlin for Christmas (2001). We had all gone for a movie, when H. who was sitting next to me told me he liked the girl in the trailer. Then suddenly he whispered that we'd always talked about the actresses he fancied, but it was silly he'd never asked me about the actors I liked. So who were they?
If I had to give just one reason for having come out to friends, it'd be this.

This is the second part of a three-part article. Check out the next one.

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