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June 05, 2008
MAIN FEATURE: Eternal bliss anyone?
Single women already ‘do’ have a life, they just need to look at the upside of being single and free!
“Ten secrets to get a man positively addicted to you for life.” Gone are the days when I actually looked up sites like this. And thank God for that! Hindsight asks me why I would want to get anyone ‘addicted’ to me — (shudder) pretty claustrophobic and pretty scary!
However, in the past, getting hooked/hooking someone was the ultimate goal. After all who did not want ‘eternal bliss’?
Hindsight (again) tells me, why I didn’t look around and see that ‘eternal bliss’ was causing quite some sleepless nights for some married friends I knew.
Eternal bliss’ often snored, put restrictions on when my friends could go visit their mom’s houses, demanded garam rotis when she was dying (Okay! She just didn’t feel like making garam rotis), would demand she take the hijab or not take the hijab, wear her hair long or not wear her hair long, rubbish her yoga class as a silly woman’s thing, etc. Hmmmm! the ‘eternal bliss’ of my Barbara Cartland and Mills & Boon reading days was quite different from this local version of the snoring ‘eternal bliss’
But since hindsight is always a tad late in coming, I got caught in the bridal wave and boy, did I go through the works to get ‘eternal bliss’! The entire military-style approach — get dressed, get scrutinised by own mother, get scrutinised by boy’s mother, answer embarrassing questions (aimed at guessing how old I was)… Whoa! It didn’t seem to stop. You had to play the game over and over and over. (A word here for prospective moms-in-law — can’t you come up with a new interrogating style? The what-year-did-you-do-your-Matric belongs in Jurassic times)
These episodes were sometimes spiced up a bit by outspoken friends who handled the drawing room episodes by saying "Apney langoor ko bhi tou samney karain" when faced with the question barrage and X-ray gazes of prospective-moms-in-law.
With self-esteem hitting bottom-low, I endured this till I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. So guess what? I quit! I can’t be party to this anymore. Instead, I decided I’ll party myself. Simple commonsense showed up this time. I told myself: “You will get married when you will get married. Stop the woe-is-me and there-is-something-wrong-with-me-because-I’m-not-married approach’. I finally decided to listen to common sense.
Married friends told me to find ‘eternal bliss’ (the real one) myself and enjoy life before the joys of single-hood are over. Marriage is NOT what I imagined — a ticket to well… everything I wanted to do. Rather, marriage came with a lot of responsibility which only increased when children entered the picture.
Marriage is not what I imagined — a ticket to well… everything I wanted to do. Rather, marriage came with a lot of responsibility which only increased when children entered the picture.
I decided to look around for the upside of being single and found many things. Freedom tops the list. I come and go as I please and don’t have to be accountable for my whereabouts — most of the time at least. There is financial freedom – again there is no one raising their eyebrows if and when I decide to splurge. My time is my own. I read books, watch movies and listen to ‘my’ favourite music when I want to. I can have hours of reflecting without anyone impinging on my time.
Travelling is a breeze, I literally pick up and pack and go away. I don’t have to fix my mood because I’m sharing my room with someone — I can be bad-tempered in style. Yes, I have skirmishes with mom, but she is mom — the moods fade away as soon they occur. It’s great being able to wear my hair/clothes/make-up the way I want to. Say a big “No” to family politics and bunk all the boring weddings in the family and curl up with a book and a pizza when the family does the marriage shift.
But probably a lot of married women could do all of the above. A single vs. married comparison list is probably not even fair. Each state of being has its own ups and downs. And this is also not about guys being jerks or how awful married life is. A happy and healthy (at least most of the time) marriage is wonderful. A loving companion would be great. The issue lies with settling for marriage just for the heck of it, minus the companionship. It’s about feeling miserable just because you have surfed the bridal wave as best as you could and still find yourself driving in the single lane. It’s like waiting for the signal to turn green. (For the sake of this example let’s pretend for a minute that everyone in Pakistan stops at a red light because of well… er… the goodness of their heart or something). The signal will turn green in its own time. To fidget, fuss and create a scene when it’s red will not make things easier for anyone. To feel low at times when the signal is red and your life lacks a mate is normal, but to let the misery take over your life is bad news. It is about having some self-respect and faith in God and not settling for a strange divorced guy with kids just because some match-making aunty thinks you are over the hill.
Single woman already ‘do’ have a life. Even in Pakistan. What every single woman (and man for that matter) needs is someone who is going to enhance their life, not make it an endless series of compromises. Any decent man worth his salt is not interested in a clingy, whining, insecure female who will make him curse the day he got married.
In the end, getting married is not between me and some guy. It’s between me and God. He should - and will — orchestrate it as and when the time comes, rather than me trying various harebrained schemes and worrying to death about it. Till then, it’s time to relax and have a great time enjoying singlehood. Guy or no guy, real ‘eternal bliss’ will surely find its way.
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