Is She the One?

by Ritesh Manglani.

I am a 28 male oftware engineer from Gujarat, India. It was recently when I gave in for marriage after resisting it for years and my parents started searching a girl for me, and as expected within a few weeks they fixed my meeting with this girl who was, according to my parents, a good wife material. My parents were really impressed with her and they were repeatedly saying “the girl is very beautiful” but is it just the beauty you look for in your life partner? I knew there is a lot more one wants. So like any other educated, wise man I decided to spend some time with this girl to know her better and then take the most important decision of my life.

People who don’t know much about Indian culture and the way matrimonial things work here. Here is some insight. It is being considered taboo if you are above 25-26 and still single (however this trend is changing these days thanks to the youngsters like me). We still have a system of arrange marriages, our family looks for the suitable boy/girl, once they find someone appropriate, they usually fix the meeting of potential bride-groom and leave the final decision to them but some families don’t even allow boy and girl to meet before marriage, and the family only takes the final decision.

I could just thank the god as my family falls in former one. People from western countries may find it absurd but that’s the way things work here.

After plenty of efforts, my dad managed to get one hour of time from the girl’s family. Being a rebel I protested as I knew one hour would not be enough but eventually my parents convinced me and I decided to just go with the flow, as somewhere back in mind I knew that I always have an option of saying “No” for the marriage after meeting.

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Late Bloomer

by Carly Zinderman.

You know that Drew Barrymore movie, Never Been Kissed? I totally relate to it, except for being a completely pathetic loser. Yet, in high school, no boy ever showed me the slightest bit of interest. I wasn’t worried about it though, my friends were never asked out either, despite the attempts my closest friend occasionally made on random guys that happened to catch her interest. Other than her over-aggressive pursuit of the male sex, my friends and I had next to no contact with boys during our four years of high school and for most of us, the male-free barrier continued on into our college years as well. But the dearth of dating didn’t bug me as much as you’d think. You don’t miss what you’ve never had and never having had a guy; I didn’t miss not having one. Besides, my friends and I had each other, and that was enough. We would sometimes joke about how we would be old cat ladies, which did bother me, because I’m a really a dog person.

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