Is it really selfish to be selfish?

The most selfish thing one can do is to cheat on their partner, but is it really selfish to be selfish?

There are enough theories about it out there, that speak for and against the act of selfishness being actually selfish, but there is none that can help me, you or this world put down one particular notion as a universal truth for everyone to believe and abide by.

It was not a warm lazy Saturday afternoon set in Delhi, where while doing the weekend house clean-up I suddenly heard his phone ring, and when I reached out to pick it up, I realised it is that one phone call that I never in my life had expected to have received.

In fact, it was loads of weekdays, after weekends, after weekdays that kept sending me signals, and I kept ignoring them, until that one day, when his phone did ring, and he picked it up and went to the balcony for five minutes to address it, to later join me back at the dinner table, not feeling the need to tell me who it was and why he had to get up and go away to take that call.

After that one night at dinner, I suddenly started paying attention to all the calls he got, and how his facial expressions would change at each of them. Not that he wanted it all to come out on his face so transparently, but four years is a time long enough to know how your partner’s lips would curve in response to what kind of an emotion.

Only if, four years would have also been enough to know that this person you thought you knew inside out, is someone you barely know, and that is not because you have not been attentive enough, but because they have been too good at making you want to believe what you wanted to.