He didn’t want to get married, but his parents, in a typical Asian fashion were forcing him to. The neighbour’s son’s wife had even gotten pregnant, and he didn’t even have a profile on a wedding website. The idea itself was repulsive, but his mother had fixed a blind date with some daughter of one of her old friends. He thought, he would just go, engage into small talk for five minutes and tell her that he wasn’t interested and that she make an excuse of not liking him. They were going to meet in a coffee shop near his office after work.
He was walking to the shop, rather grumpily. He hadn’t even bothered to ask her the colour of her clothes to be able to identify her in the coffee shop, not to mention that he had already assumed that he could recognise her from the loud colour of her clothes and overly made up face, quintessential of the daughters of his Mom’s friends’ daughters or frankly, even their mothers. He had asked Mom for a photograph, but thought of her navigating the vast waters of social media, to get him that photograph made him realise the futility of the enterprise. He had hoped secretly that he wouldn’t find her and run out and not have to even deal with the small talk. He reached the shop, which was surprisingly deserted for the time of the evening. She was sitting in a white full sleeves formal dress that ended just before her knees. She was intently looking at her laptop typing away furiously, her brows furrowed. She seemed a little irritated. His face softened a bit and he walked up to her and said ‘Hi!”.