Behold
The Future Of Matrimony!
Then
People Pursued Wedlock For The Element Of Commitment & Now People Are
Protracting It & In Some Cases Even Refusing To Take Vows To Enjoy Love
& Longevity In A Relationship. What An
Irony! Commitment Has Become Dreadful & Derogatory; The Means Of Achieving
Per Se Is By Not Committing. After All, It Takes 2 To Marry……..& The Rules
Of The Game Are Pretty Conflicting!!!
Though one Is Alone, It’s Allegedly Better than Being two, The Number
Signifying Conflict.
One
Of My Friend’s FB Status Said “Single @ 30.” She Received One Interesting Comment On It,
“Love Does Not Come From One Source Or From One Person, It Flows From Different
Streams/Sources, We Have To Just Embrace It.” So True! However, Easier Said
Than Done! Kindly Don’t Misconstrue, Different Sources/Streams Of Love As A
Slideshow Of “That” Kind Of Relationship, It Simply Means Nurturing, Fulfilling
& Enjoying Every Affiliation Around, Be It Your Friends, Family And Most
Importantly SELF, Or Should I Just Say ‘Life’.
Well
for me, I am a single parent; separated for...…well, it’s been a long while
now. There is a divide in my mind, one part says get married. How can you live like this forever? This is
definitely not a traditional life & another (a Lion’s share) is too scared
to change the ‘One opinion’ life
style and become subservient to the new relations/responsibilities that it
seeks. To compound my muddled up mind, there
Is This Sudden Spree Of ‘Don’t Get Married’ Advice Coming Especially From
Committed Breed of acquaintance around, They strongly opine, “You Are Stuck
With Your Blood Folks & Your Life Revolves Around Them. What You Watch On
TV, The People You Socialize With…………… Your Likes & Your Dislikes” Yes,
Marriage Is a Compromise, it is a loss of individuality; You Barter for Life
Long Security & heredity. You are doing what you ought to do for the virtue
of being born; you are helping the planet with custodians long after you are
gone.
Marriage
is One of Those Three Events Predestined to Happen In Your Life &
Purportedly Only God’s Work (Significant, Isn’t It!). They say the Time &
Place of Our Birth, Marriage & Death Is Fated. Now That Makes Marriage A
Very Imperative Milestone In Our Existence.
And It Is Indeed! It’s a great feeling to be welcomed by someone when
you reach home tired or even the existence of mere fact that someone is waiting
for you. Can you imagine celebrating festivals with friends? No, it has to be
with our people and at the place where we belong to. Isn’t it the best feeling
in this world to be a parent; to see our children grow and be a part of their
development process, to feel that unconditional love in them & to be
responsible for them? However, the Snag to
Matrimony Is That This Landmark Comes Way Too Early in our life. The Societal
Clock Ticks, The Pressure Mounts & Before People around Cast Doubts-You
Give In. The Criteria’s Are Tangible- Appearance, Money & Stature, you tick
the check boxes and get ready to embark on a journey from lonesome to twosome. However,
the Reality Strikes When Flowers on the Bed Dries!
The
Best Age To Tie The Knot Is When You Are In Your Thirties. That’s Span Fair
Enough to Figure out Your Life, What Is Best for You & Who Will Make You
Complete. By Then You Have tried this & tried That, If Not Tried Gathered
Enough Facts from Other’s Experience to Make the Optimal Choice. The difference
between getting married before 30 & after 30 is that generally in either
case you keep trying on relationships, but the former is road to somewhere
& latter is a road to nowhere.
Ever
wondered, having professionalism in our personal life! Family time (Dormant) is
9:00pm to 9:00am & office time (Active) is 9:00am to 9:00pm, there are
extended office hours & compromised family hours. One of the major reasons
why the marriages are going awry in today’s time is that we are not
professional about our personal life. There are no reviews, no appraisals, no
actionable feedbacks, no recognitions & no getaways to improve the family
bonding. Even if trips are made it is performed as a duty. Apparently husband and wives don’t have much
to talk, but there are endless stuffs to squabble.
With marriage comes responsibility; the
husband is the bread winner of the house & the wife’s duty is to take care
of the living and the non-living things at home, hence both are on a different
tangent altogether, what matters to one is hardly of any significance to
another; their frequency is very difficult to match. The singleton on the other hand does both the
duties. You see responsibilities are to be met by both, married or solo. The
variance is that latter does it at his/her whims & fancies and not many sentiments
have to be counted. Sounds Bliss!!!
What’s it like to be single? My
transformation from being married to being single has shown me both the sides
of coin. The first thing that I did as a sole parent was I went alone for a movie.
The thought was forbidding but the experience was even better. Pretty much same
was my reaction on the decision to separation.
The pre-requisites to enjoy your singlehood
are:
a) You
should be gregarious. (Guess you are left with no choice but be social)
b)
You should love your own company.
It is not simple, to be on your own. The
silence in your heart is not as much daunting as the silence when you come back
home. Sometimes it makes you feel as if you are the last person left on this
planet. On weekends & holidays you keep staring & scrolling the contact
list on your phone wondering whom to call & then you change your mind
assuming that friends would be all busy with their respective families. So you
decide to wait for a phone call instead, but the gadget would just not buzz.
Interestingly on reporting this to friends they say, “I was doing the same
thing as you on weekend I just had few people around.” leaving you amused and
baffled, “You have a family damn it, make use of it!” There is nothing more
depressing than being sick and having no one around. God forbid if you have a
‘no nonsense’ neighbor than no one can save you from the agony that follows. Socializing
also becomes so difficult at times especially the ones where having a spouse
next to you is quintessential. If you don’t have one be ready to hear marriage
sermons. Beware! Don’t get bogged down or get carried away with all those happy
couples you see around. It is trickery you must not give in. Apparently, in the
presence of a single person the couples sub-consciously value the person
standing next to them like never before and tend to get more starry-eyed &
cozy. And you miss looking good as one, with your better half. But what one
misses the most as a standalone is the security & warmth that comes as a
package only with marriage and the subsequent family it makes. As a singleton,
you are your care-taker, you run your life, and as there is no back-up so there
is no respite. You must always go on.
So, you are alone, alone …alone. I have realized
that Facebook is for us singles. It is better to talk with its wall rather than
talking with four walls at home, at least there is a response.
Once you learn to cope up with the cons of
being single, and start accepting them as a part and parcel of the choice that
you have made, you run the risk of becoming self-obsessed. It becomes your only
way of life, the habit of being “single”. Accepting things makes life easy, you
learn to entertain yourself. Make many friends instead of few (Sometimes no friend
is also a welcome change), read books, travel, hone your hobby, work harder at
job and earn a fun filled weekend full of new activities. And all this makes
your life desirable. The haunted home becomes a meditation centre, where only
peace prevails. Single is sexy, it is the coolest thing; the in-thing…isn’t it!
On any given weekend, a normal couple would have wife giving a grocery list to
her husband; he would get that job done. Perhaps, followed by a nap in the
afternoon. Socializing with relatives far and near and maybe a movie or
lunch/dinner to ensure peace at home front is maintained. Sometimes you may just
want to ‘laze’ but when you have people back home waiting only for weekend, lazing
is a privilege you cannot earn even after week long hard work. Also, I don’t
understand this whole fuss about having a better half, with all I hear around
it sounds more like having a bitter half. Ultimately no one can take the place
of our friends; yes spouse is a big deal but if asked with whom you have the
best fun? You may fake your reply but your mind will think of days & times
with friends, where there are no inhibitions, you can just be yourself. As such
the subset of the likes and dislikes of husband and wife is bare minimum, liking
each other’s friends is a far cry, a very rare coincidence. Women generally get
rid of all their friends for the sake of new relation and with that they expect
their man to reciprocate, however it does not happen. So they end up envying
them as ‘the other woman’ who is more tended to & favored. Bizarre isn’t
it!
Even as I write this I am wondering so what
is best, being single or following the traditional path. Can one maintain his
or her individuality by being tagged to someone? Even to some extent. Guess the
answer is a ‘No’. Then how does one enjoy life in that case. There’s only one
life, and we should fulfill our bucket list as there may not be a second
chance. So, what is the best course of action, get married & live a life
where you multiply your responsibilities and find happiness in keeping everyone
around happy or be single with all the fun and freedom……which seems hollow at
times with no one who truly belongs to you and suffer the bouts of insecurity.
Life is not fair, but you have to live it to
the fullest anyways. I leave my life in the hands of god, I give up, I cannot
decide. One choice is unnerving and the other is the road less travelled.
