Is there anything as yawn-inducing as someone in love? No, there isn?t, don?t argue with me. Not when they?re willing to babble on ? and on ? about it. And not when the person at the listening end is me.

There isn?t a darned thing I haven?t valiantly tried, to fend off such selfish attacks, whenever signals beeped the approach of yet another lovelorn one whose sheep?s eyes and bovine grin are a spectacle I?ve learnt to fear and loathe. I equate such people with those other villains who threaten peace on earth: bores, religious leaders and those who read Marquez for pleasure.

And yet they love me (the first kind, I mean). For that, alack, is my destiny. Whenever any benighted one feels like making a fool of himself, guess who actually gets to be the fall guyess?

Not that I?m without my own tricks. I?ve experimented with a) pointedly turning the TV on full volume, b) staring at the PC, c) feigning deep interest in a print laser d) dropping off into quiet slumber, e) telling a scatological joke and f) doing all of the above at once.

Actually, I made all that up. But it is true that when one of the smitten kind looms over me, I feel close to tears.

Why me? I silently implore my soul. Do I ? God forbid ? resemble their mothers?

Nah, it?s been happening to me since I could practically sit up. Some fool ayah used to wail long, lovelorn songs to me, knowing full well that they?d cause me to crash back in my cot and sleep like the dead any time she started up again.

But just to make sure, I inspected myself, scalp to chin, in the mirror. Below are the results.

Hair? Still there, sort of. Forehead? A trifle corrugated, but nothing that a little Botox couldn?t take care of. Eyes? More or less in the right place, although inclined to roll skyward and close quickly when confronted by the subject of my plaint. Nose? Looks like it can still sniff out the benighted kind at 50 paces. Mouth? Thin, possibly cruel. Jawline? Squarish, and surely intimidating to anyone with lovesick chitchat in mind.

The fault clearly lay elsewhere. Obviously, with these purveyors of verbal diarrhoea.

They ask me stupid questions (?Does he love me; does she love me not?? What do I look like, a daisy?). After which they beg for analyses (?He said hello to me in passing at the mall. Does that constitute love?? ?She invited me to her birthday bash ? along with 73 others ? does that mean, like, she?s kind of interested??)

You know what really hurts? They don?t care a rodent?s rear-end what I say in reply. I open my mouth to say ?Er, no, I ?? and they?ve already jettisoned my opinion for their next deranged rendering of what transpired ? or usually didn?t ? between the two.

You know what some fool said? ?All the world loves a lover.? I don?t. I think they are nothing but walkie-talkie carrier bags of huge emissions of intestinal vapours.