The Unicorn

So...my friend and I were hanging out at her place watching crappy re-runs on TV and we got talking about the Unicorn. The Unicorn is that perfect person, The One, the yin to your yang or the yang to your yin, the caramel on your crème brûlée, the olive in your martini. Then she told me about this guy she knows. Let's call him Mr. X to safeguard his anonymity. She said that Mr. X is the perfect man for me, she wanted to set me up with him. And these are the reasons she listed:

1. He likes watching weird art movies and random Telegu movies. I like watching weird art movies and random Tamil movies.
2. He has nothing in his room except for a cupboard and bed, not a single thing that he doesn't need. I have epileptic fits about excessive consumerism.
3. He likes wandering off whenever he wants to. I like being left to my devices for long stretches of time and would live in a dungeon for the rest of my life if it had a library.
4. He likes to know everything about the music he likes. I like to know everything about anything I like.
5. He is a fitness freak. I am averse to bodies that are out of shape.
6. He wants separate bedrooms and bathrooms. I want separate bedrooms and bathrooms.
7. He does not want children. I do not want children.
8. He quotes Nietzsche. I quote from everywhere.

While she says all this, I realize that I never want to meet this guy. Ever. The conversation runs out, I leave, and as I walk home, I am thinking about this Unicorn. My friend wants an answer tomorrow, she wants to know if she can set us up. Why do I never want to meet him?

My friend, the same one I was talking to about Mr. X, had told me, "Relationships are all about compromises, you must be more accepting of other people, and have a positive outlook on life." And I said to her, "Fuck that." I don't see acceptance and compromise as an integral part of any relationship that I can be involved in. I am riddled with pessimism and doubt, I think hope is overrated, I delight in the sardonic and sarcastic, I detest idealism, question those "sincere" things that people say, laugh at noble thoughts. All in all, I never want to tiptoe through the tulips of other people's great feelings and emotions.

"You'll never find anyone," my friend told me. I realized she might be right. But I also realized that I couldn't care less. I'm quite okay if I live all alone and become the crazy old cat lady who gets eaten by the neighbour's dachshund.

However, I still don't have an answer to why I don't want to meet the Unicorn. Maybe if I met the Unicorn, everything would become perfect and boring. Maybe I'd rather be like Bertie Wooster and have sudden short-lived infatuations than anything permanent. Maybe I can't stand the thought of change. Maybe it's Maybelline.

I think of the words of the beloved Zenmaster Linji, "If you meet the Buddha, kill him."

The next day I call my friend and tell her, "I don't want to meet the Unicorn. Just like I don't want to meet the Easter Bunny. " "Fine," she said, "Stay holed up in your room forever. Don't come crying to me when you're forty and all alone."

I shrug and hang up. When I'm forty, I'm going to Ulan Bator and eat khorkhog with the nomads.