On Marriage

Many people close to me have reminded me that I am still single, and painted scenarios that would result from my staying single for long. Suggestions pour in, about registering online on marriage websites, meeting people and so on, so I can hopefully like someone.

I know the concern is well intended, so my questions have been simple:

• What would be the basis of my marriage: necessity / compulsion, or love? If I got married to someone I dont even know, love or care about, would I be happy?
• Do you really understand the kinds of issues I face on a daily basis, and my priorities in life, to suggest that marriage is the panacea for all those problems?
• What if I follow your advice, meet someone, and I like her and she doesn't like me, and then I become sad, because she rejects me. I have been through that, but atleast I fell in love in a natural way, and it was a great feeling. Why should I put myself through pain intentionally here?

The reactions are varied. I've been told, a "good" spouse would guide me, be my equal and we could together build a better future for ourselves and our respective families. Possible, given a 50-50 chance.

But, does that mean I should actively start hunting for a spouse? Should I start abandoning my work duties, my family duties and go about evaluating people and getting myself evaluated like you would, say, look for a good shirt by going to different stores? (and by the way, there's no money-back policy here for both the people if you don't like the offering later). Even if we assume the answer to that is "yes", how does one even evaluate a "potential spouse" ?

Here's my issue: Two people are trying to get acquainted, without any prior knowledge of each other. They have their own ideas of how to live life. Each of them is also under a lot of pressure from family and society to get married by a certain age. Naturally, they take the "project-based" approach and try to set a deadline by which they would try to understand the person and see if they can get along.

I don’t think its fair to set a "deadline" within which people are supposed to decide if they like each other - it’s just not natural. Marriage should be based on love, caring, trust and faith. These emotions must grow within people. How can all these emotions develop in the span of say, a month? You can maybe start liking a person in a month. Then you get to know their good side and their bad side. So do you spend 3 months to evaluate someone? What if at the end of 3 months you figure out that things are not working out though you initially thought they would, and now, you are already emotionally involved? I find the emotional tangle quite scary and disturbing, more so, because its self-inflicted.

Another undercurrent makes me feel queasy about the process. When people meet with marriage on their mind, there's a subconscious desire to project your best side, and make yourself as appealing as possible to the other person while at the same time evaluating them. It’s mostly unintentional, but it’s invariably there at the start. Above all, it also means that any initial feelings and expectations about the other person are not based on what the person really would be in normal, natural circumstances. How justified is it to decide to live one's entire life on such a flimsy foundation? Would I be able to confide in such a person? Probably not.

To me, its always been more important to marry because (and only if ) you love someone. If you love someone, you love them not despite, but because of their faults as well. It’s like watching your favorite movie. You watch the whole thing even if some parts are not very likeable just by themselves. Similarly, the good and bad things about a person make that person loveable – at least, that’s my way of looking at it. And I say it from personal experience. So converting marriage from an experience to a process seems very wierd. And marrying to cure loneliness sounds like fitting a round lid on a square hole.

For now though, marriage is not a goal, nor is finding an object to shower my love upon. Rather, I prefer to wait, till someday I love someone who also loves me back.