Now don't get me wrong, first off. I don't have anything against Indian men. But for some reason they seem to be attracted to me when I'm not trying to attract attention. Maybe it's in the way I look - dark curly hair, blues eyes, but a sallow skin. I've been told I look like - well, everything but Italian, of which I'm half. I don't know, but there's something going on. Three specific times come to mind.

In high school, my friend Vijay, who was three years older than me, called me up one night. "Hey, do you want to go to the movies and the arboretum to see the Christmas tree display? Jon is going, too." Well, Jon was a good friend of mine, so I figured it'd be OK - it wouldn't be a date. Well, Vijay showed up that night without Jon. He'd gotten "sick," apparently. It was only later that I wondered if Vijay had called Jon at all.

The movies went fine. He didn't try to hold my hand, although he leaned quite close and often. When we got to the arboretum, it was pretty crowded. We walked around outside and then went into the greenhouse. As we departed, a throng of people were trying to squeeze out the door all at once. We grabbed each others' hands so not become separated outside in the dark. But when we got outside, my grip relaxed. Vijay's didn't - my hand was still engulfed in his. I looked at it, then at him. "What, you think I'll get lost or something?" I asked. "You might," Vijay replied. "No. I won't," and I disengaged myself.

I finally figured out that Vijay had more on his mind than looking at Christmas lights when we arrived at the next unscheduled stop. He took me to his home - to meet his mother. Oh, boy - I knew I was in trouble! I was only fourteen or fifteen, and this was the first time I'd even gone out with Vijay as a friend! It was the last, too.

A couple of years ago I went to see a friend of mine in Maryland. "Iho" had been a great college friend - always a blast to hang out with. Well my evening with her and an aquaintance of Iho's was no exception. We went out to a restaurant, had an awesome dinner, and then went dancing at the same location as the night crowd came in. I did some fast dancing - which I love even though I might not be that great at it - although I've found the more I drink the better I think I dance! - mostly with my friends but occasionally was asked to dance by a few guys. Not one of them was white either. I turned them all down politely. Not that I care about the color of someone's skin. I did sort of fast dance with a really nice looking black guy - once and that was it. Maybe after he saw how I danced . . . .?

Walking around the bar, a guy stopped me in my tracks to ask me one of those leading questions - just an excuse to talk, the answer didn't matter. And it was an Indian guy. I talked to this guy for a few minutes (I never did have the heart to blow guys off in a mean way) and then excused myself to return to my friends. Well he followed me, and wouldn't leave me alone. Not rude, but persistent. He met his match when Iho came to my rescue!

She wouldn't even let him sit at our table or talk to me unless he bought us drinks. He bought them. She still wouldn't let him talk to me (I'm married) directly - he had to talk through Iho and only she would decide what he could and couldn't ask me. She made him say things like what he did, where he worked, what he did for hobbies, and she made him call me Ms. Maitri. I sat there laughing under my breath at the antics she put this poor guy through. He was pretty persistent, I must say, and hung around for about an hour before deciding my territory was too difficult to negotiate.

Finally, last year, while I was embarassingly unemployed in my chosen profession, I went back to work for an old boss of mine. I had a hard tiring day's work in a retail shop, and was vacuuming the carpet. The stupid girls that work there would vacuum everything in site, regardless of whether it would go into the machine or not. So the whole thing was jammed with string, sticky tags, small children, and whatnot. While cleaning out this gunk, in a back corner of the store, I noticed this skiny Indian guy hanging around.

He asked me a silly question about some product we did or didn't carry, and I politely answered him, and turned back to my task. But then he spoke up again, and told me he was new to the area. But his next question really made me stop and smile. "Would you be my friend and do things with me?" It was really sweet, if naive, and like I said, I can't really be rude and blow guys off. So I just said, "Well, I'm really flattered. But I don't think my husband would really like that."

That poor guy turned bright red, started backing away like I was infected or something, apologizing profusely. I let him know no harm done, and no offense taken. He left, and I still couldn't help shaking my head, wearing a big stupid grin.