Why I don't want to get married

For now.

I was rummaging through some of my old files and stumbled upon a questionnaire a friend had sent to me about marriage and my preferences. The idea of marriage is that when two people get along well/love each other or are deemed to be good matches for each other (by families of said people) and decide to make it public that they intend to live the rest of their lives together. (Of course is it a public notification or approval may lead to another blog sometime in the future.) All this is fine as long as you consider some of the aspects involved in it.

A couple of my friends have gotten married by now, and some people look upon realizing that I am of all 25 years of age (Silver Jubilee for the win) tell me that I should get married as well. The thing about some of these friends is that they had started dating / seeing each other sometime in college. So take 1-4 years of the college time and add four more years since to get about 5-9 years of being in a relationship during or after which they took a joint decision to get married. I can live with marriages that lead from that. I mean you have spent time close to a person to have known that person well enough to make and estimate of how they will turn out to be and take a call on that. When they felt the time was right they decided to marry each other.

When they felt the time was right and not age. Who came up with the idea anyway? You’re of the right age, you should get married now. Seriously, dude? Yes I am at an age where I have a job  and have my wisdom (limited as it may be) can be counted on to make some life decisions, does not mean that I get married now. It is the time that is important and not age (Of course you’re old enough to be an adult that is). It is different time durations for everyone. Some think a few months of being in a relation is fine, while others think years. It’s totally based on the said two people involved.

Doing household chores makes me think about it. A few days ago I had posted this as a status update on facebook: 

Tonight I thought if it would be different to have been married. I came back just before 1(noon shift) and too tired to cook but hungry. It would seem so easy to wake her up and ask her to make something (even if it is instant noodles for me)

Comment by me: Of course like Dumbledore said, we must choose between what is easy and what is right

Now I had come back from a shift work at 1 in the night (or morning) and was hungry. Unfortunately there were no cookies or fruits in the house that day (as I had eaten them all up and not restocked). Since I was tired I wondered if I had been married, wouldn’t it seem easy to wake her up and have her cook something for me. Easy doesn’t always mean right. Imagine being waken up in the middle of a sound sleep to cook something for someone (Of course she could be doing other things as well like a friend pointed out. She could be at a friend’s, or reading, or watching a movie, etc... But let us for now get with the idea of her being asleep when I come home). Imagine being woken up from a sound sleep just to cook something for someone.  Some people would like to tell me that this is not any someone, and since she is my wife she is supposed to do it for me. I don’t want her to do things for me just because she is my wife, I want her to be my wife because of the things she does for me.  Similarly I don’t want to do things for someone just because I am married to her, I want to be married because of the things I do for her or am willing to do for her.

Similarly, this has to do with things like my bed as well. I am in general not much bothered about my bed. I can sleep on beds and floors with equal comfort. As long I change my sheets regularly, I don’t bother much. Which is why before they get ironed, my washed clothes get dumped on my bed along with a book that is half way of being read,  along with what is today an empty bottle of water(I should pick that up once this is posted). The idea is that I don’t want my preferences to add work for her or make her cringe. It would make sense to have such clothes in a neat pile in the bag in the corner of the room or that empty section in the cupboard. Since it doesn’t matter to me that much I dump them on the bed, however it would matter to her (it being her bed as well).

When I think of kids, I end up at times freaking out about whether they will eat non-veg or pray or not. I like to eat, veg and non-veg inclusive. If my wife eats non-veg as well then things are all great. And I have no problem being with someone who is a vegetarian. I mean it’s a matter of not putting non-veg in her plate or gargling real good with mouth wash after dinner or just plain old eating away from her eyes when I do.  Things will be fine based on the understanding me and my wife of not forcing things on each other. Bring kids into the equation and you have an unstable reaction. What if she brings up kids with the idea that eating meat is not good because we are killing innocent animals for it, which is a bad thing to do. And then they see daddy dearest eating a chicken burger and enjoying it closed eyes and lost thoughts. I don’t know how the conversation will go from there.

I am also not a religious person (anymore) and don’t pray or observe fasts or days. The two of these things have absolutely nothing to do with each other. However which religion (and how much of it) you follow can be an important part of your identity. When kids see their mom praying and visiting temples (or any other religious place) and dad not giving a hoot about it and question me why I don’t pray, what do I tell them? That I don’t pray because don’t believe, or bother more about humans than gods. Will they imagine me a ring of fire behind me every time they see me eat meat? Of course none of this may come in to picture, or before it does me and my wife would have some sort of understanding on how to get the kids through this and leave it totally up to their choice. But I tend to freak out about it at times.

That being said, I don’t want to get married for now because I don’t have anyone to whom I can relate enough to get married to. When the time is right and we both think, it will be marriage time.  

Love is

Not diarrhea  That is right, Love is not diarrhea  Ok, why do you ask that I say this? Because I cannot take it when people left and right are telling me that love just happens. There is no reason behind, love never happens for a reason. You know how the saying goes that shit happens. Love doesn't happen like that. Love is not diarrhea.

OK, you can skip this paragraph for the imagery it may provide. I am sorry for that. I vividly remember what my first conscious memory of diarrhea is. I remember wearing grey shorts and sitting in the front courtyard of my house and reading. I felt a little tingly sensation in my stomach. I felt like I had gas and wanted to fart. I tried, except instead of gas a thick fluid came through. I felt disgusted and ran to the toilet as I felt myself getting moister with every step I took.

Love is nothing like that. Love happens for a reason. When some people told me that love doesn't happen for a reason I honestly felt like saying “Kids these days, don’t know what love is”! Of course saner sense prevailed when I also thought that since these were my friends, they were not that young or me that old to think or say this. Yes, I understand that the realization that you are in love with someone can be sudden or gradual. It can come out of the blue to you, but the feeling is not baseless.

Yes, you may think that the reason for your love can fail. You love someone for what they promised, and what they could have been but chose not to. Such is not a failure of our reason, but the failure of your loved to reflect the values you seek. Ayn Rand got this right: One falls in love with the embodiment of the values that formed a person's character. And if the person, in whom you wished to see those values come alive, didn't breathe of them then it is not the failure of your love but of them.

Love is not a sacrifice. You can give up many things in the name of love. If doing something or not having something brings a smile or comfort to the person you love, then it is not a sacrifice. You did it for bringing happiness to your loved, and that mattered to you more than what you did or gave up. You got something in return for what you did.

You can love someone and realize the reason only when you think upon it. But you cannot love someone without a reason. You may have a set notion for the type of person you will love, and when you meet that type of person you will know that this is the person you were searching for. A physical form containing the values you seek. But you cannot have a person you love just like that. Love just doesn't happen, it happens for a reason.  There are people who end up saying that I don’t know why I loved him/her because they did not base their love on something. You can know of course why you don’t love a person anymore. You thought different of that person before, and now you have reasons to believe that he doesn't meet them. It is OK  please move on.

You see even diarrhea doesn't happen without reason. There could be toxins, food poisoning, infections or any different reason for it to happen.

Everyone has a different reason for love.  For some it is the sense of comfort the other person brings to you. It can also be a feeling of security that you can be yourself in the presence of that person that you can be without inhibitions. It can be because of the felling you got once you kissed you would never want to kiss anyone else again. I realized that for me it was a sense of admiration. An admiration for the questions that I had to ask myself, for the reasons she did the things she did, for her courage to live her life as she wanted, for making me realize the difference between who I am and who I wanted to be.

And if nothing else, ask yourself one thing when you think you love a person. What is it that makes you love this person and not someone else? What is it that sets this person apart from the countless others you have met? For if you love this person without a reason, you might as well be loving another stranger in the crowd.