It came as no surprise that he dated this woman long distance when they were both in India and his phone bill ran to forty-five thousand Indian rupees in a month. On their first date, he drove 20 kilometers to the nearest pharmacy to buy condoms because she said she had gotten in the mood. I was as impressed as I needed to be. It did not bother me that the same woman lost interest in sex even before the ink on the marriage certificate had dried.

This was clearly a go as far as I was concerned. Before I forget to mention, his divorce was not yet granted when we met. It was in the works in India, pending the seal of the judge on papers they had signed and the Domestic Violence laws had just been passed. This was getting to be more challenging by the minute and all the way up my alley. Neither R nor Malhar had come with some many challenges. Every once in a while H would send me links to articles on mental health and its relationship to marital happiness. I would read them out of curiosity and wonder about their relevance to our situation. Surely, he did not think my mental health was lacking.

According to him, his wife suffered from chronic depression and he did everything in his power to help her. Even after she locked herself up in their bedroom with the biggest kitchen knife threatening to kill herself, he persisted with her. Loyalty and grace under pressure scores big with me, ergo H was a keeper without a question.

Breaking up with H was a long, drawn-out and tedious process not in the least because I was loath to see a lifetime opportunity of being a man's savior go to hell in a hand basket. To his credit he maintained dignified silence to the end, but I felt drained emotionally because he just was not letting go in the mind. While we had reached logical closure in the relationship, it had to end in a symbolic way for us to be fully freed of each other.

Thanks to H, I have come to realize that a man suggesting we could meet inside Victoria's Secret, while quaint and quirky, may not necessarily signal a chance of life-long marital bliss. Offering to buy me a toy of choice, so that waiting for "the one" was not so onerous, may be more than a friendly gesture of concern and perhaps needs to be viewed as such.