Just Like A Marketplace Commodity

 

Just Like A Marketplace Commodity

"You still hide your true feelings, don't you?" she asked.

"Yes. I have to. It's not like I've got a choice," he replied.

"Why? What problems do you have? Why don't you share them with anyone?"

"Others have problems of their own." That was not the answer he wanted to give, but something about her didn't let him share his true feelings.

"From now on, you can share everything with me," she said.

"Okay, if you say so."

 He thought he had found someone who would listen to him, take out time for him. Things had seemed really hopeful then. She said it so convincingly; or perhaps it was just the effect girls had on him. Whatever it may have been, eventually, he had learnt the lesson he tended to forget over time.

It turned out she didn't have time for him. Her words may have indicated the opposite, but her actions didn't. Replies from her had gotten rarer and rarer, and eventually stopped like an endangered species becoming extinct. This was probably an omen that she was the wrong girl to trust, but he had already began to trust her. This was not a bank account from which he could withdraw his trust whenever he wanted.

Every day, he pondered bringing this up with her, but he had already done that long ago with someone else just like her and the consequences hadn't been pleasant. There was no choice but to go on believing that the people he wanted to trust were not worthy of it.

Then again, he might be overthinking. No, he thought, I'm not. Such things had happened too often and there was a limit to overlooking them. It seemed like some cruel jape they were playing on him, promising things to him and acting like they had never made those promises.

Why do they do it? He gave them all the attention they wanted from him, only they wouldn't do the same. I get it now. Their attention was too valuable to be spent on insignificant people like him, whereas his attention, his time, were not. If they were, why would he go around giving them to anyone who asked for it?

He could stop it. He could stop paying so much attention to them, but then they wouldn't talk to him. He would be seen as an arrogant, haughty prick who was too busy with himself to spend time with his friends.

He has an attitude problem, they would say. They wouldn't be wrong. It was true. He felt that way, too. If only I knew what to do. He had tried paying attention. He had also tried not paying attention. Neither had presented acceptable outcomes. His only mistake was to expect that something he was giving out freely would return to him. That was not how the market worked, was it? And attention was just a commodity in the market of social interaction. Any commodity fetches something in return only if it's attractive, aesthetically pleasing. In this barter system where attention and time were exchanged for attention and time, respectively, the exchange was possible only if you could find a buyer who would find your commodity attractive.

Hmm...attractive commodities...aren't those the ones thickly coated with fake resplendence concealing the true face? he thought. So what might attractive attention be coated with? Perhaps fake admiration, fake laughter, a fake display of emotions, even.

His attention and time had never had such elements. Whatever he had to offer was bare, raw, without any coatings and concealment. That's why the barter failed.

However, whatever a commodity lacked for in attractiveness, there was one thing that made up for it - usefulness. Even a raw, bare, coating-less attention could be bartered for a bit of usefulness. That explains why she paid attention to me at certain times.

The problem was, such commodity as he was offering didn't have a loyal buyer. Attractiveness lures more barterers than usefulness. Looks like it is a better trap. For this reason, no matter how useful his attention and time was, she eventually made her way towards the attractive ones.

He was still looking to barter the same commodity, but the interested barterers had become fewer and fewer until no one remained. Just like an endangered species becoming extinct, he thought as a sad smile crossed his lips for an instant.

-Avnish Bansal