He’s Cultured
When I got back to my apartment, I flung the door open and released the tempestuous fit of rage that had been brewing in me for the past hour.
“Die a thousand deaths, you treacherous Anglophile!” I roared.
My eyes fell on my miserable diary on the couch, with dumb inspirational quotes printed on its cover. It was just lying there, all vulnerable to my hideous anger. I flipped to the most recent entry, a grotesque love poem that I had written a few hours ago just before I set off on that day’s terrible endeavor. I tore it out and ripped it into a thousand shreds.
“There! Now there isn’t a trace in the world left of these miserable words and I can die alone in peace.” I said. I caught a reflection of myself in the mirror and felt disgusted. What I saw there wasn’t me. I tore off the expensive jewelry I was wearing and undid my fancy ridiculous hairstyle to let down my plain, short brown hair.
“There. That’s better.” I said.
“Woah there!” Came the voice of my room mate and best friend, Minerva. “What the heck happened?” She asked, passing me a glass of water to calm me down.
“It was a total disaster!” I shouted. When I was angry, I really lived up to my name. I was named after the shaking Aspen tree, whose leaves quiver in the wind as if they’re agitated by it.
“Well, sit down and tell me the story, Aspen.” She said. Her voice was soft and soothing and her eyes were full of genuine concern. She reminded me of both my mother and my therapist.
I gave a long sigh before sitting down to start the tale.
“Was it the same guy you met on that dating app?” she asked.
“Yeah” I confirmed, smiling at the memory of when I first swiped across his profile.
The dating app said his name was Kabir Hassan, and I had instantly liked the sound of that.
“Ooooh, what are you smiling at? Did someone send you a cute text?” you had asked me.
We were both at a pizza parlor for lunch, just after one of our classes at the nearby university. I had been hiding my phone from you the entire time, Minerva, not wanting you to see what I was doing. But of course you were really nosy and giggled when you found out what app I was using and saw the picture of Kabir.
He was sitting on a horse with a sword in hand. His long hair was blowing in the wind.
Underneath his profile picture, his short bio contained the following quote:
‘What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?’
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Does he think he’s from the 1500s? He’s cute though.” You laughed. “He sure is unique.” Suddenly you stopped laughing when you had a look at me. I was stunned speechless and my jaw had dropped in awe.
“Woah… are you okay? I know you have a thing for guys with long hair. So do you think he’s cute?”
He seemed so cool, clearly with an interest in history, philosophy and literature as evidenced by the sword in his profile picture and the fact that he was quoting Goethe.
“He’s-” I started.
“Cute? Boyfriend material?”
“Cultured.” I declared, and smiled maniacally.
“Seems like your kinda guy then” you said, and sipped on your coke.
I didn’t hesitate in contacting Kabir.
“Should I tell him I think he has beautiful hair?”
“Yikes! Try something more conventional first.” That’s my Minerva. You’ve always been single, yet somehow you gives better dating advice than all our friends who are in relationships.
“Hi Kabir. I stumbled across your profile and thought you seemed really cool. I was wondering if you could get back to me and tell me a little bit more about yourself. Maybe we can meet up some time.” I read to you. Once you nodded in satisfaction, I pressed the send button.
I got a response almost immediately after and was delighted.
“Hello, Aspen. How do you fare on this fine morning, m’lady? To tell you a bit about my interests, I love acting and am part of a troop of Shakespeare enthusiasts. In fact I’m going to be in a production of Hamlet this weekend if you’re interested. I’m also going to start on my PHD in classics soon at Oxford university, so if you love talking about Greek mythology then I’m your man!”
By the end of the message, you burst out laughing in that delightful laugh of yours. Some people have irritating laughs, but not you, Minerva. “He’s really full of it, isn’t he? I’ve never seen someone so arrogant and self-centred.”
“Maybe…” I said thoughtfully “but he brags about things that are worth bragging about. I know I wouldn’t shut up if I got accepted into Oxford for a classics PHD. I’d tell everyone I saw about it, even random people on the streets, in Latin!”
“Alright, but did you see his ridiculous hair? Imagine how much time he spends on it. His vanity shows in every picture.”
“Hey” I chided “watch what you say about my future husband.”
Then you laughed so hard that tears came into your eyes. “Okay now I’m genuinely worried about you. You haven’t even met this guy yet and he seems like the total embodiment of narcissism.”
“Well, you haven’t met him yet either. So how can you say that? I’ll watch his acting this weekend.”
“What kind of first date is that? I mean it would make sense if you were both in the audience…”
“Trust me, it’ll be fantastic. I think I found my soulmate, someone who’s cultured.”
Before we left the pizza parlor, you asked me if I wanted anything else, perhaps another can of soda. I politely declined on account of that Kabir probably didn’t drink soda, only tea.
Saturday night seemed surreal. He looked so beautiful under the spotlight as he delivered his soliloquies. Best of all was his gorgeous wavy, black hair cascading down to his shoulders like the waves of a mesmerizing midnight sea. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it.
After the show, he told me he knew a good place where we could go to eat. I was delighted when he took me to a little cafe with antique maps, globes and suits of armor lining the walls. There were bookshelves with the most beloved volumes exquisitely bound with handcrafted covers.
“I like to gather here for literary society meetings with my friends. We discuss the works of a lot of great fantasy writers like Tolkien and C.S Lewis here.” He explained.
By this point, I was done being surprised by the things Kabir said. I got used to how cultured he was. I simply smiled and asked “care for a cup of tea?”
“Oh, tea is wonderful. You have good taste, Aspen. But might I suggest something else?”
“Sure.”
“They have a very special, luxurious hot chocolate elixir here. It’s bitter dark chocolate with added chili peppers, an Aztec recipe. You’ll never taste a more glorious concoction.” He said with a mischievous twinkle in his obsidian eyes.
“Spicy hot chocolate? Sounds great. Sign me up.” I agreed.
I soon learned that Kabir hated small talk. He didn’t even want to discuss much about the production of the play. The more detached the topic was from our personal lives, the better he liked talking about it. As a result, he was inclined to talk about philosophy or anything he thought was profound. As he went on and on about epistemological thought experiments and how Rene Descartes arrived at his famous cogito ergo sum, I realized what the problem with Kabir was. The side effect of his being so cultured was that he was smart. Too smart. I have never felt so intellectually inferior to someone in my life before.
You, my dear friend, warned me that maybe Kabir wasn’t all that smart. Maybe he was just putting on a facade to impress me. But how can that be when the man knew how to speak twenty languages and had won international piano competitions?
He asked me where I wanted to meet up for our next date. I was going to say the movies or some random restaurant, but of course I didn’t want to seem uncultured, so I let him pick.
“Lets go to the art gallery!” He said. And it was decided.
Do you remember what happened after that, Minerva? That was the night I went home and read until 3 AM. You woke up and asked me what I was doing, and I said I was studying.
“For a test? I didn’t know you were taking a summer course, Aspen.” You said.
“No, not for a test. It’s just that Kabir is really intelligent and I find that intimidating. I need to read up on art history before we go to the gallery together…”
“You mean you’re studying for a date?” you asked. It really made you chuckle. I realize how ridiculous it seemed now. I should’ve just slept.
Kabir showed up fashionably late to the art gallery. “Sorry about that. I was at a horse show. Bucephalus and I got first place.”
“Congratulations.” I said. But secretly I had been wondering what kind of name for a horse that was. When I got home and looked it up later, I realized it had been the name of Alexander the Great’s favourite horse.
The next few dates went just like that. I asked him where he wanted to go, and he whisked me off to Medieval Fairs, museums, classical music concerts and the fanciest, most expensive restaurants you’d have ever seen where he insisted on paying the full bill. Chivalry isn’t dead. I’d have a love letter, poem or bouquet of red roses delivered to me after every outing.
Once when we were at a Medieval Fair, eating dinner in the tavern after watching a joust and dressed as a lord and lady, I asked him a bit about himself.
“Out of curiosity, what’s your background anyway, Kabir?”
It was as if the question made him uncomfortable. I don’t know why it did.
“One eighth British.” He finally answered.
I raised an eyebrow at that. “And seven eights?”
“Indian.”
“I thought so.” I said.
Then his face brightened up when he added “I’m a descendant of Indian royalty, you know.”
I always thought of how much he looked like a prince, but now I found out that he really was one. If I married him, would that make me a princess? Wasn’t that every girl’s dream?
At first I was delighted, but when I returned home that night and tried to go to sleep, an unpleasant thought occurred to me.
I didn’t know much about history, certainly not as much as Kabir did although I did love the subject. But why would the British let the native royal family of a country they invaded live? Wasn’t that asking for rebellions and trouble? The only way they’d let the monarch’s family live was if the royalty all became spineless traitors, if they were stupid enough to let the British take their strings like puppet masters.
And worse, what if they knew that the British had evil intentions but still chose to side with them and sell out their own people in treachery? One could forgive them for self-preservation, but still that would be pretty rotten wouldn’t it?
I wondered if Kabir’s ancestors were like that. Suddenly, the fact that he was royalty didn’t seem so special at all. In fact, I was a firm believer in staying away from rich and powerful men. Wealth could corrupt their morality, after all. But I decided not everyone had to be like their ancestors. I finally drifted off to sleep.
Do you remember this morning, Minerva? I told you I’d be heading out to hang out with him again.
“Not looking like that, you won’t.” You told me. You undid my high ponytail and braided it. Then you put it into a bun. You let me borrow this beautiful evening dress I’m still wearing, and you did my make up too.
You said “look at your eyes! They’re wild and green like a cat’s. You don’t need much make up with eyes like that, but a little bit will transform you into a duchess.”
Kabir had smiled when he saw me, but he didn’t even compliment my appearance. He went straight to discussing books today.
“Oh I was reading too, about colonialism. It really was terrible what the British did in India. Deliberately caused famines? Destroying food crops and replacing them with opium plantations? Horrible stuff.”
This caused Kabir to pause. He looked up from his plate. He was rarely this quiet. Normally he would talk way too much.
“But look on the bright side. They built railways to connect the whole country. They improved the infrastructure.”
I was shocked. Was he really telling me that I should get over the death of millions just because of railways?
“I’m proud of being one eighth British.”
I smiled and let him continue talking about what he wanted. But I had made my decision.
Suddenly all his conversation topics started sounding shallow. Did he even know what he was talking about? He was just some spoiled rich brat. He’d go on and on about Athenian democracy, Romantic era literature, and the Bible. I started to see how Euro centric his topics were.
If he wanted to discuss culture, why not mention Subsaharan Africa, the indigenous people of Australia, the Iroquois confederacy, or his own ancestors?
Maybe we should be talking more about things that really mattered. How about our personal lives, the futures we wanted and the dreams we had? How about astronomy, stem cells, the search for the cure for cancer, and recent discoveries in neuroscience?
You see, Minerva, I didn’t need that man in my life. I told him I didn’t think it was going to work out, then paid my half of the bill and left. I didn’t want him to see me fume with rage.
“Oh my gosh” Minerva said, now that I was done the tale. “You did the right thing. There are plenty of fish in the sea who don’t justify colonialism.”
“I should’ve listened to you.” I said. But like a good friend, Minerva didn’t say “I told you so”. All she did was give me a hug.
My phone vibrated and I saw I had a new notification. It was a text from Kabir, and with all the coldness of an Englishman he wrote “okay. I’ll just move on to the next lady who messaged me.”
I checked the dating app and saw that no singles had messaged me other than him. I was all alone now, and I felt free. I didn’t need someone cultured like I thought I did. I needed someone who would love me for who I was and who had a benevolent and generous nature.

