Irreconcilable differences

I was out for lunch with a banker and I asked him for a love story.

He didn’t tell me.

To encourage him, I told him a love story that another banker told me.

“He met a girl and they never started anything. It was nice for him because there was anticipation and there was longing for each other. But nothing happened in the end.” I told him.

“It is what Flaubert was trying to say in Sentimental Education,” I offered.

“What sentimental education?” The banker asked, taking a prawn dumpling.

“Oh. Flaubert reckoned that Anticipation is the purest form of pleasure. While the things that happened to you invariably disappoint, the things that don’t happen never fade and never dim. When nothing happened, these things exist as a form of a sweet sadness.” I said quoting from ‘somewhere’.

“Wow,” the banker said, looking bewildered.

Then suddenly in the next moment, there was a flash of light on his face. “You mean like foreplay?” he said.

The music that I was hearing in my mind while reciting what Flaubert said came to a full stop.

“Walau,” I said, in my most lian accent. “You have a way of stripping down to the bare minimum. Yes, like foreplay.”

“You say like that, not romantic already.” I added.

The banker laughed, looking quite pleased with the epiphany he had.

“……,” I said.

I sighed.

A future looks probable: I am going to live my life the way Flaubert had lived – in depression.