First posted 08 July 2002 ~ To know or not to know.

What you DON'T know can't hurt you. - I agree.

What you WOULD know has GOOD reason to hurt you. - How very true.

What a person does not say can say so much more than silence or whatever few words are uttered. Call it a gut feeling, or reading in-between the said and unsaid lines.

An otherwise innocuous reply about going out with "colleagues", is a spinning siren in a silent movie - maybe because there are many ways to utter the word, and "strained" is one of them. And then the subsequent reluctance to name the "colleagues".

The uneasy silence and awkward laugh as I whispered "unfaithful" to him during the trailer of "Unfaithful", a new movie starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane.

A too-easy readiness to say that it is fine to go out (read: date) with other people as long as there is no intention to be a couple.

I thought I was paranoid at his initial coolness after I broke the ice on the 11th day, thinking he did not seem as eager to make the emotional reconnection, although in other ways, there was no loss of enthusiasm. And so I happily drifted along.

Perhaps, I am one of those women who dismisses her paranoia during those times when she has good reason not to, because she can't bear the truth of the one time she is right.

Perhaps, I thought he was the "stronger" of the 2 of us, and I would fall first.

He went out with her not once, but thrice, during the 10 days, the first time just a few days into the "cold war". He went out with her a second and third time even though during the first time, she had made known her more than friendly intentions; and he had told her he was already attached. She had said she would "wait for him". He told me (only when I probed) that she had held his hand too. I couldn't bring myself to ask whether she tried to steal a kiss, because within minutes into a seemingly blissful Sunday afternoon tea, my eyes had already overflowed themselves by then, and we were in a cafe where people could see me wiping my eyes. That night, would someone who had happened to glance their way while she held his hand, have thought, "just another couple out on a night"?

He couldn't say why he still went out with her a second and a third time, after the first time.

He wouldn't tell me her name.

He wouldn't tell me whether she was pretty.

This morning, as I struggled through work behind my camouflage black-rimmed glasses,
He: are you still mad
I: what do you think i am mad about
He: not being told is it?

As I thought about the "why", I already knew it isn't because I was not told, nor is it because I was told. In fact, is "mad" even the word to describe how I feel now?

I know only that my silly tantrum and initiated 10-day "cold war" was spent with me moping at work, moping at home, and going out with Sharon a couple of times. Too slow, too long, too painful.

And within 10 days, he had gone on 3 dates with another woman. Too fast, too willing, too ready.

Has she called him after the 10 days?

If she asks him out again, will he go out with "just a friend"?

Questions that go unanswered.