Strangers in the night, two lonely people we are

Bored of routine busy Saturday, last evening I started shuffling the mouse through the myriad windows open on the system, when the tiny green bulb flashing on a friend’s g-talk, indicating his online status caught my attention. Impromptu I sent a ‘Hi’ and in sometime received a pop-up with ‘Hello’ in reply from him, a former classmate and current contemporary of a rival newspaper. Following the customary exchange of pleasantries I told him how my current editor, who also happens to be his former boss, is absolutely fond of him. Thereafter this is how the brief chat session unfolded: 
Me- Our editor seems to really appreciate you :p 
He- Seriously? 
Me- Yes.  Not one day goes without mentioning your name. 
He- In what context btw 
Me- Anything. Your existence is the biggest context; I guess 
He- Burai karte hai? 
Me- Are you mad? Burai kyu karenge? He is absolutely fond of you. 
He- But he was telling me the other day that I am not doing any story. 
Me- Ah! That is just to encourage you. You see, he really loves mentioning you. 
No, there is nothing brain-wracking about the conversation that could raise an eye-brow or two. The whole purpose of mentioning it is to drive-in a realization my otherwise-buoyant-mind met with. From the very word go there were at least three instance when I typed ‘the editor LOVES you’ and replaced it each time with ‘really appreciates you’, ‘fond of you’ and finally ‘loves mentioning you’. My thought bulb suddenly came to life in the third instance when I was trying to reason out my reluctantance about mentioning the word ‘Love’. The very next question that popped-up was, ‘Would I falter writing the same a decade back?’ Perhaps no. 
The most trivial conversation abruptly released a tremor in my queries’ quarry, unearthing a slew of doubts. It posed a question on my claim of being progressive and outgoing. I realized the only reason I did not mention ‘love’ was my attempt at sounding politically correct. Don’t know why, but maybe I thought it would sound ‘homosexual’ and my friend would not appreciate it. My action perhaps serves a classic testimony to the ‘hypocrite’ lying dormant in many of us. 
I always thought I was avant-garde at least when it came to love and romance and often considered myself an advocate of the philosophy that ‘Everyone has the right to love’. However, the small incident failed me.  It made me accost the latent prejudices that many of us still hold on to, despite our tall claims of ‘coming of age’. Something I have still not been able to comprehend is the underlying rationale that gave such simple conversation a convulsed turn.  Why, in the very first place did I think of mentioning ‘love’ could sound inapt and even if it did what was so inauspicious about it? Had my editor been from the fair sex, indeed it would not have evoked my mental make-up, triggering my thoughts to find an escape in form of this article, at a wee hour. Then why did their belonging to the same sex create this avalanche in my thought-process? 
The infinite lacuna of thoughts and dichotomy of outlook is so appalling. It is bewildering that the same me whose thoughts are so progressive can be clouded by such starkly different uncouth feelings; leaving me flummoxed if I have at all understood myself in the past 26 years! It is so like being someone during day and someone overtly alien after nightfall!!