Don't Ask , Don't tell

Its been about a month since i have started with this project. The consulatants are mostly off shore peeps ...that belong to one company ... except for me and four other guys ( we are subcontrators) ... out of this 3 are indian and one guy who is part of change management team is american.

The thing is I dont completely fit in with the consultants ... and at the same time the fact is I am not a client either .... I mean i look like the average consultant (indian, Young etc ... ) but I dont have a indian accent on the contrary i have a very strong canadian accent and the "regular" american can differentiate my accent to the regular american accent. But more than this I guess the difference is ... they all represent one single entity ... to which I don't belong ... they know it , I know it so ... most of the time it is extraordinarily difficult for them to include me ... but not to generalize there is V who goes out of his way to include me , and was the only person who told me that I was part of the "consultant group". Of course T , the other consultant is automatically imbibed into the group ... this i guess happens becos of his ability to speak in hindi ... oh the other thing is all of them speak hindi ... even the two other "tamil" peeps in the project are fluent hindi speakers .... though i have the ability to understand ... my response can only be in English ... of course the 3rd independent consultant is from Hyderbad so has the ability to talk hindi but for some reason has not fit into the larger group like T ... why I dont kno ... this is also true for NAMA -- who is from bombay but is independent too --- we currently sit on the same table so happen to socialize quite often!!!! so whats with this long background info ... the point is its a work place and ofcourse having friends there atleast to eat lunch together is key .... Of course i could eat with my "team" ---- but the thing is I already spend every waking moment with them ... so taking a break from them is important to keep my sanity ....

The first week i ate lunch by myself ... and after that R (another consultant) invited me to have lunch with him .... after which on and off we ate together ... but R was leaving the project and his replacement was the HYDie guy and so ---on and off we still hang out during lunch.... I wonder what would have happened if R had stuck on ... that was a good relationship waiting to happen... it still is... though he is now in California ... we still keep in touch ... I digress ... the point is ... the other american consultant and me sat on the same table when i started with the project and so got to talking and clicked ... so must lunch hours are spent with each other .... and so are coffee breaks and other free times ....we have this weird connection .... our friendship goes beyond the work place ...

Off late we have lunch off the campus and so on ... and i know every time he comes up to me to ask me something or vice versa ... we get the "LOOK" from the other consultants... on several occassions other people of the project (clients) have mentioned to me that I have a CRUSH on him and so on and usually we laugh it off... this thought I am sure has crossed the consultants minds too .... and somehow I can tell that they are talking about us ... so i mentioned this to him and i said that we should not project this view to others that we are some how involved.... but he just doesn't get the point .... the other day i was having lunch with all the desi consultants and he walked right upto me tickled me and walked away ... i saw a few grins and eye rolling that happened in the table ... i dont blame them .... the point is .... I know and He knows that nothing like that could ever happen between us ... cos he is GAY !!! he he he .....