Few days ago when I solicited your comments on "Arranged Marriage" (A-M), I thought I was ready to go - to answer those questions I posed. Especially after I read so many thoughtful, practical, and balanced yet passionate comments from you all. Since then, I had been thinking and thinking. But the doors of my heart are refusing to open - acting like a stubborn, unreasonable 2-year old. I tried so hard but no answer.
So I am going to rant about my frustrations and insights here. I am strongly reminded of what my very-spiritual-friend said to me once "how can u jump classes when you don't know what's been taught in the intermediate class? no….you have to spend time in that class…"
So, I had been trying hard to find ways of balancing L/B and D, compassionate and passionate love (discussed in previous posts) in my head. They largely involve blessings from family, mutual understanding (more like being on the same page about life's present and future) and similarity of background/common interests - in no particular order of importance as is evident from your comments on A-M post. But besides checking off some obvious boxes about looks, education etc I wasn't able to go very far. I mean, how do you really "connect" with someone? "We just clicked" usually leads to short-term encounters I described earlier and that is NOT what I wanted.
Anyway.
I did precisely the thing that I always do in such situations. I said to myself - screw it. I don't know what to do but unless I go in there and try, how will I ever know? I can't just wait around. So I disciplined myself, got my act together and went on to follow the parvasi bharatiya* A-M track (you-know-what-that-is) with the blessings of my closed ones. All right then. I will just meet people and I will know. As Shital had mentioned, "just clicking" has to be "built". As strange as it sounds, that is the only way. She put it very neatly: " It now becomes a Q of making it work - as you may not be in love at that time with your partner, but also to some extent, an identity crisis on your part because you are going to spend the rest of your life with someone who you have met only afew times"...Well, what she forgot to mention is that - it is not as easy as it sounds!! The part I ignored here is the one that came back to bite me badly. Identity crisis on your part. Why didn't you put red flags around it, S?
My beautiful theory: I will meet people and I will know fell flat on the face. It Doesn't Work That Way. If you enter this process with such foggy head, all you will get is a headache and migraine. Ulcers too. As we were checking out profile after profile all looking similar (reading, hiking, workouts, eastern+western values), I got more and more confused. Then I started surveying my loved ones: What kind of a guy I should go far? How do you see me living in future? How will you describe me as a person? What do you think I like more - career or family? etc ** As you can guess, I was getting a variety of answers for these questions and the fog in my head was just getting thicker and thicker. Still I continued.
But yesterday I got my answer from one smart cousin: Only you can know what kind of guy you want. When I asked, how will I ever know that realistically (i.e. not George Clooney), he said something that blasted through the fog in my head: you just need to find yourself and then you will figure out everything else..
*read NRI
**yup, this is what I have been up to lately - so feel blessed if you are not one of those getting surveyed. Also, I strongly suspect that S's moving to Seattle has something to do with this..
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