In Venusland

I have never been a fan of astrology, palmistry, numerology, face-reading and such like. maybe there might be something to them - i don't know for sure but most of the people who preach them are quacks and don't admit to the fallibility of the system. they think that it undermines their point while in fact the admission that they are only reading some probabilistic stuff might lend them a lot more credibility.
One area where people tend to get very sentimental about the aforementioned is when it touches what they all consider their Achilles' heel. and now i am just about to go over one of those areas where, from my current record, i have failed miserably.
i don't really know what the stars have ordained for me; i'm sure there is some system which reads, "very favorable playing conditions, home pitch advantage", etc. but my history shows that when it comes to interacting with the ladies, yours truly has always been likened to a tailender indian bat on a fiery bouncy Perth pitch, without a helmet on.
let's review some facts first and then we can talk.
some might say, the start was all right; my mom tells me that on the 24th of Dec, 1977, i was the only male born in the entire ward that afternoon in CMC, Vellore. that should have been a real B-12 shot in the arm, you'd think. but in reality my tour in venusland has been DoA.
why?
though, i was the only male born there, the nurse said it with those first words(apparently) i'd possibly heard when i was brought to my mom's side: Here's Santa Claus! and that brings home a very important talking point.
now, don't get me wrong; i have nothing per se against santa as such but it takes away a lot when you are compared to an eternally old man, whose face is hardly visible behind all the hair. if he were an Adonis of sorts, it still makes for good comparison but methinks santa has had too much of milk and cookies over the years. heck, if that is all you ever eat and all the exercising you do is to be a postman only on Xmas eve while travelling on a reindeer sleigh, you'd have as rotund a structure as santa. Also, he's sending these mixed messages all the time: he is generally kind to animals and such, but he's covered in fur, you know what i'm saying?
well, to be fair to the man, i can't blame him entirely. As i'm sure one of the fellows in {Shakespeare, GB Shaw, Freud, Nietzsche} must have surely uttered atleast once, you must take responsibility for your own fate. As a kid i was extremely shy and never talked much to any girl. some of my cousins keep taunting me now saying (personally, i think they are embellishing a lot) i have avoided even talking to them or worse, even avoided their gaze.
One story goes that when my cousin sisters encountered me on the road, i very quickly crossed the street to avoid talking to them. while i insist that it hardly sounds like the truth, most people who knew me well enough then would put their money on my cousins' words since it seemed so much like me at the time.
i remember another time when i was walking along with my elder sis and talking and stuff, when she playfully pushed me and i tripped and brushed against a couple of girls walking on the sidewalk. not only did i apologize immediately, i even quietly took in all their scolding and swearing at me till my sis, who'd have no more of it came forward and took it upon herself to wage the battle from there.
another thing that has worked against me entirely is the brother syndrome. to all the girls that i ever knew then, i was always one of an elder brother, younger bro, cousin bro or worse, a brother figure. now the last one is the real killer, and unknown to myself, i possessed tons of that stuff. i am yet to figure out what it actually is because as my sisters will readily testify, i have never done anything in the classical brother mode.
during school times, i remember not ever talking with any of the girls in my class ever, unless it was something academic. somehow i'd break into a cold sweat if someone wanted to say something to me which had nothing to do with school work at all. i know, what a dork!
one of my most embarrassing moments in school was while we had to take turns and read the lines of a play(which was one of the English comprehension lessons). and when it was my turn and i had to say," dear,..." (or maybe it was darling!) to the wife character of the play (whose lines were read by a girl in our class), my face apparently turned quite a few shades of red (of course, it didn't help that all my blasted classmates who were awaiting that line were already sniggering).
come classes 11-12, i was busy in the world of Ramiah, a world that compelled an obsession with the IITs that it certainly sounds alarming to most people in the sane world. Since my class was filled with only X-Y chromosome paired ones and no X-Xs, that was it. nothing to report. nada.
the next phase was while at ISI. again, not only were there no girls in the program the year i made my entry into ISI, there would be no more girls till i actually left the institute. most people, including a few professors, were glad that i graduated merely by that count. so again, my record says it all.
next comes phase 4, when i came to the States in the landmark year of our times, landmark on several counts: numerological, literary significance and geopolitical importance: 2001.
though i haven't had too encounters with the contrary gender as mine here too, i think the initial cold feet situation has disappeared. most of my school friends have distinctly remarked (in recent times when they have either seen me, spoken to me or chatted with me on email or something else) that i have changed a looooot! and somehow i think they weren't entirely referring to the lifebuoy i have developed around my waist. now i am certainly more confident in participating in conversations and stuff but age has been busy playing catch up too! and with age, the brother figure thing is only progressively getting stronger.
with each new year, new things keep happening. i don't know what this new year has in store for me. it is then that i wonder what role the stars, my face, feet and other 'readable' body parts have had in all of this; i am yet to fathom those mysteries.
its easy to blame my fate here, but being a man, i'm ready to share the blame;maybe its the influence of those stars or maybe its partly me; i still don't know. but i get the distinct feeling that if my record in interaction with the fairer sex is not bettered, it wouldn't be because i've been a doofus. i have evolved as a social being (counter that, Intelligent-design-ers!).
To most inappropriately quote Martin Luther King here, "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God."