Monday, January 25, 2010

If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands

Sometimes you just feel happy for someone else. A friend of a friend whom I don't know very well got engaged recently. At first, when I heard the news, I was a bit jealous and in a "why not me?" mode. But then when I saw the proof in photos and how everyone was glowing, that jealousy turned into hope and the happiness shone through. Looking through the pictures, I just felt HAPPY. Just happy for her, for her finding someone, for it working out for them. And hopeful. Hopeful about things working out for me the way they did for her, or even better than that. I may not always admit this (but most people have figured it out anyway), I would love to be committed at this point in time. Since I'm graduating next year, the sense of growing old and being single is starting to loom over my head. I have to actually grow up in less than a year and a half. Be a grown up. With a job (iA). With bills. With responsibilities. How scary! I'd never get married during school, not in a bajillion years, but post-grad, I would prefer to be married within a year or two and right now, I'd like to be in a getting-to-know-someone stage with engagement on the horizon. *sigh* You don't always get what you want, do you?

The reason I want to be committed sooner rather than later is because I'd want to be with someone around my age, whose stepped into the real world at the same time or just a few years before me. I want to be able to build a life with someone. Buy our first home together and travel and all of that. Grow with each other. Have time to ourselves before we have to go on a mad rush to procreate. Marrying someone established who is too set in their ways to compromise their way of life or their values, which could also hold true for myself in a few years, is not something I want. The younger the people are in a relationship, the easier it is to mould themselves to the other's personalities and idiosyncrasies, which will most likely lead to an easier lifetime of togetherness.

But then, I think of the whole desi way of doing things. The rishta process: the finding out about someone, the "biodata" sending, the picture exchange, the nothing happening or the moving forward. I HUGELY oppose this whole process, it pisses me off.  I'd rather meet someone through a mutual friend, get to know each other, and then involve families. After all, it's the two of us that have to lead a life together, not all these in-between people. Just thinking about having to endure the bullshit that is the rishta process makes me averse to the whole concept of marriage. Thus, currently, I have decided to only get hitched to someone I meet or am introduced to through someone, where there's a conversation before an exchange of resumes and cover letters. I'd love to say that I'd only marry someone I find myself and we fall in love and all that jazz, but the chances of finding a good-enough guy in the blackhole-like city I live in are nill...therefore, I put my faith in the hands of mutual friend-ness.

(FYI, no, there is no rishta process-type activity going on at my place...I'm generally letting out my frustrations with it AND just to clarify, rishta process or no rishta process, the decision will be entirely mine. My family won't force me into anything (just making sure EVERYONE is CLEAR on that point!) )

 Anyways, not that she'll ever read this, I do wish my friend the very best!

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