Too Many Well Wishers

Sometimes, I wonder where people are heading to.

I always thought marriage was something sacred. Something you enter not because you're of the right age, mindset or because there's someone who can keep you company all your life but because you're ready to move out of a single life into building some permanent bonds.

Marriage is about having a family. It's about being a focal point where two families merge and feel good about. My second cousins husband and husbands third cousin go, hey! Nice meeting you here!

Marriage is about having your own family. Children you bring up according to the best of both worlds.

Marriage is about responsibility. I have my life, my husband, my kids. I fall sick, I take care of myself. I don't run "home" like I do right now.

Most of all, marriage is about wanting to share a lifetime, to love, trust and grow with a person. It's not about pedigree, not about degrees, not about shared interests, comfort or any such crap. They are important. But not quite as much.

How can people get so frivilous about it? How can they think about flats in prime locations and promising degrees? Or a degree of comfort that might just lead to stagnation?

How do people even imagine that you can break old ties and still build and sustain new ones?

I have no clue.

A week (perhaps more) of soul searching and listening has driven me to anxiety. How little do people value being married? What value do they attach to their spouse? And why is everything linked to being the "right match"?

I have no clue. If it was as simple as all that, there would be happier people in the world.

Call me a romantic, call me unrealistic, tell me that "this is the way it is". I don't agree. I will not marry until I'm convinced. I will not marry hoping to be able to love someone. I will not marry hoping the genes will produce a Vishwanathan Anand. And oh, I will not marry just because everyone thinks that I should marry the person I spend most waking hours talking to.

I will marry who I want to and When I want to. So there...