Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Familiarity

Have you ever wondered how the first time you meet a person, you make an impression of him in your mind, and as you start interacting with them, to the extent of back-slapping, how your impression changes. (It changes for the better or worse, depending on whether you are back-slapping or back-stabbing). How, the first time you are ready to ignore a particular trait as a discount in the persona, but a few months later, you can joke about the same trait.
My cousin runs an internet cafe in Mysore. He has a live-in hire, who looks after it because the cafe is open 24 hours. The fellow maintained the sanctity of the cafe for a month or so, then he was seen to be managing the cafe in shorts, or on a rare day, pajamas.
A guy joined my gym a few months back. He would gingerly walk about the men's room, waiting for everyone to leave the room before he changed for the shower. Today, he walks all over the men's room, sits in the steam room, dries his hair after a shower, all in his briefs, and with the towel over his shoulder. As it was becoming quite an embarassment to the shier gents in our gym, I once ask him why he did not wrap the towel across his waist. His answer - choD na yaar, apna hi gym hai...
It is not without reason they say familiarity breeds contempt.

5 comments:

Shruthi said...

Ha ha.. reminds me of the hostel.. When I first moved in, I would send my roommate out or ask her to turn her back, or close her eyes when I changed. Later, I couldn't care less. Of course, I did not become entirely shameless either, I just learnt how to change efficiently :O

Viky said...

ROFLing on sending room-mate out...and what about her? Did she send you out too?

Turn her back...Close her eyes...Muhahahaha....enormous fun...did she threaten you that she'd open her eyes just when you dropped your dress...heh heh...

But we lose that 'sacred' view of things...like we would not sit on the college 'kaTTe' in our first year, but by final year, that was the hangout place...

Shruthi said...

Exactly - our engg college had a mOri... and i swore i would never sit in that mOri - but towards the end, I did :)

naaah.. my roommate had a wonderful way of changing... she seamlessly changed from one dress to another without any.. err... you know what..--- urrmmmm difficult to explain it to you... but i learnt that technique from her :)

Viky said...

Thu..morige iLdidra???

And what is this? What am I supposed to understand...she seamlessly changed from one dress to another without any.. err... you know what..--- urrmmmm

Naughty you....*sly smile*

Anonymous said...

Well, at least the guy was wearing his briefs. If you had been in the US, he would have been in his b'day suit in all his glory!