What a catch!

What's your type?

Err... my type?

My type changes.

I had a phase where I was completely smitten by guys who were into music, and could play the guitar.

Then there was the phase where I used to find guys from non-hindi speaking states, speaking hindi fluently, extremely sexy.

Then came the phase where I was totally gone for geeks who could fix my computer.

Lately, I have been particularly obsessed with the academic kind... you know, the nerd type.

These phases can range from mild respect to slight crush to a more severe form of worship.

However, when I was told I had to go and meet this author Dr Chang (name changed to avoid libel suits), I wasn't particularly interested. His name just did not sound interesting enough. Anyway, to confirm the appointment, I googled him to find his phone number. I found the details on his institute's website - complete with a photo of him. And when I saw that photo, I stopped in my tracks. Sheesh! Realising that I needed a second opinion, I sent it to a colleague. "Would you expect a Dr Chang to look like this???" I asked. She was very amused.

But then, perhaps it was some ye olde pic from his early twenties, I told myself.

On the morning of the meeting, as I sat in the cafe and waited for him, I had no idea what I was in for. Suddenly I spotted this chap in jeans and a casual shirt walking towards me. He waved to me from a distance, and I sat there in shock.

It took me a while to remember my manners.

"Hi, I'm Sayesha. WHAT???? HOW CAN YOU BE DR CHANG? AREN'T ALL DR CHANGS SUPPOSED TO BE OLD AND FAT AND BALDING???"

Luckily I managed to withhold the part in capital letters. Phew.

How can someone called Dr Chang be not only so young, but so cute as well? How how how?? Where was the catch? What was the catch?

But the most shocking part came when he started speaking. What clarity of thought, what intelligence. Every word of his made perfect sense. I was floored. How many of those do they make these days???

As we talked, he bought me coffee. Darn. As the publisher's representative, I was supposed to buy him coffee. But I let him buy the coffee. Because I felt like a little girl who had just bumped into a famous movie star. Would you say NO if John Abraham offers to buy you coffee???

Diversion alert.

Some time ago, I watched a crappy movie called Bowfinger. It was really crappy. (Wait, I've already said that.) Yeah, so the crappy movie had only one good thing about it. It taught me the concept of "it". "It" is a quality that very few people have. If someone has "it", everyone stops what they are doing and look at the person with "it". you're interested in every word they say, every move they make. Dr Chang surely had "it". I was interested in every little thing he had to say. I was observing every little move he made, from the way he stirred his coffee to the way he was flipping my business card between his fingers as he spoke.

Thankfully, I did not minute all that down.

He spoke at length about the education system in Singapore, about how parents and teachers are partly to blame for kids' careless mistakes, by always providing a checkpoint, which reduces accountability and responsibility on the kids' part. He spoke about what teachers really need. He spoke about publishers' dilemmas when deciding to publish books.

He understood every aspect of what he was talking about. He made you understand every aspect of what he was talking about. I was really impressed.

So I came back to the office, and immediately started gushing to the colleague. The same one who had earlier been subjected to the torture of playing the extremely immature 'let's guess his age' game with me.

"You know, this guy I had the meeting with.. is such a dude! He not only looks younger than the pic I showed you yesterday, he's cute too! And he was dressed as if he was all set out to go out after work, you know, typical friday night guy type. And guess what? He can talk! He's brilliant! I mean, he doesn't even need to be intelligent man... he's that cute! And a phD on top of that! This guy is so freakin brainy... blah blah blah... " I went on and on and on.

My colleague was smiling by now. "Ah... mild crush, I see." She said.

I stopped in my tracks.

*Gulp*

Crush?? Mild crush?? What if she was right?? A crush???? I can't have a crush on my author! Now don't get me wrong here. Just like any other human being, I love having crushes. I believe that they make the world so rosy, they make you wake up with a smile on your face. Even though it's all only temporary. But I don't like the idea of having a crush on someone you're gonna encounter now and then, thus having the risk of saying something stupid in front of them. Crushes must be a certain kind. Recently, a very cute dutch guy joined my company, but he's so damn nice and approachable that one can't possibly have a crush on him. Like I always say, your crushes should be completely unapproachable. Or they should have an attitude problem. So you can dismiss them as being arrogant and move on.

I couldn't afford to have a crush on Dr Chang. I gotta work with him. Darn. I knew I had to find something to kill the crush. There must be a catch, a flaw, somewhere. There had to be.

So I sent out my spies in all directions to dig out all the info on him, and to trace the catch that I knew was definitely there.

"I refuse to have a crush on him." I told myself.

Soon, one of the spies called back.

"Sayesha, I have some bad news for you."

"Hmmm.. he's married and has four kids?"

"Ummm... actually worse than that..."

What could be worse? That he was actually 60 and was wearing a wig and a paunch-concealer?

"Tell me. I can take it."

"He's... errr... gay..."

"YIPPEE!!! That's awesome!" I said.

"Huh?" She was shocked. "You're happy about that??"

"Yeay!!! He's gay!!! Thanks for the great news!" I said, and hung up on the very puzzled spy of mine.

He's gay. Now I don't have to worry. Now I can work with him in peace.