Not just good friends

He is a confidante, good friend, philosopher and guide; and he is not your spouse

He gets to hear the most intimate of your secrets — how you wish your mom-in-law must go and stay with your bro-in-law, how your husband refuses to grow up and depends on you even for the smallest chore, how that sticky and flirtatious colleague makes your skin burn and how you sometimes wish you never had a kid.

More often than not you steal an hour after work just to talk to him and it has become a habit to call him two minutes after your boss has screamed on you.

Sorry he is not your husband or boyfriend. You call him a ‘very good friend’ and you will never miss his call on your mobile even when your husband’s waiting on the other line.

“I would lie if I say that we are just good friends. I would also lie if I tell you that I am head over heels in love with him. He somewhere there and the very feeling that he is there gets me going. No we have never been to bed,” a 29-year would perhaps say about her ‘boyfriend’.

Don't make a mistake, she is ‘happily’ married with a kid for the last eight years and insists that her husband is very much aware of “this guy” that she is “absolutely not dating”.

“May be it’s love. May be it’s not. May be he is a punching bag for me. But I can bunk a dinner date with my husband to spend an hour with him after a stressful day at work,” she mutters under her breadth.

Accept it or not, it’s a threesome relationship. And it’s very much in the mind and heart. Somewhere down the line, this third person is ‘the sensitive one’ that you always wanted to have in your life.

“I generally not think about her so much. Because she is always there. Always there to pick up my calls even if she’s in the middle of a meeting. I have taken her for granted and she doesn’t have a problem with that. I saw the difference it made to my life when she had gone out of station for a month as she was shooting a documentary. I was like…uff when are you coming back yaar!” says a 29-year old 'male'in a hushed tone.

Of course, the guy has a two-year old child and a ‘lovely’ wife who tends to “get on his nerves” at times.

This is how the third factor three works for you. Silenty but surely.

Factor three helps to turn your wince into a wink. And factor three helps you blush in the middle of Bandstand when he says, all of a sudden, that you are looking good in a sari.