Almost an Olympic sport

"How do you know XYZ?"

"Oh, I hooked up with him a couple of months ago. And how do you know him?"

"Well, my ex boyfriend used to do him a year ago and I'm planning on doing him in a couple of weeks. My best friend is doing him now."

The Bombay dating pool is big. But still, I find myself dipping and double dipping into the same pool that everyone I hang out with is in ... paddling away and deep diving occasionally. Which then lends itself to some piquant situations ... How does one react when you bump into your best friend on a date with someone who stood you up on yours? How do you react when your colleague starts shagging someone you have been actively pursuing for weeks? Is it OK to lose respect for your friend when he does someone else's boyfriend behind his back?

At least Bombay has a big Olympic sized dating pool. Bangalore's was a water filled pothole on the Eastern Express highway in comparison.

My friend A. thinks that it's not like that at all.. Bombay is just a series of large pools (Where am I going with this swimming metaphor? I think so much Michael Phelps amazing body watching has turned my brains). A pool for the creatively-inclined, a pool for the media queens, a pool for the call center crowd, a pool for the lawyers ... and most people tend to swim in their same pools. It's tough to swim in another pool. You have to shower and change first which is such an effort. Then you have to learn the backstroke cause in your pool you've only ever done the breaststroke (Trying hard not to say doggy style paddling!) So you just wade and loll about in your own space. And that's where the issue lies.

I'm sick of me and my friends finding the same people attractive, dating the same people and dumping the same people. It's such a hassle to plan a dinner now...have to make sure you invite someone you like while discreetly figuring out if he was indeed the same person who your best friend detests after their bad sexperience. And even worse, having to NOT invite the person you really like to protect him from the competition you'd have in a group.

And the advertising guy in me wonders if there are still any untapped markets left in here? Is that why gay men look for younger and younger partners to date? Just to get there before anyone else has had a chance to date them? To find somebody who has no baggage? (As opposed to me who is renting a space in Kopar Khairane to store all my emotional baggage).

When did dating get to be such a chore? Is there anybody left at all?