The Parade of Donkeys

I am watching a parade of donkeys, which is to say I am in the unenviable position of looking for a husband at this somewhat late stage in life. What got me started on this on task you ask? Well at some point, two odd years ago I though it might be nice (I hate that word- it manages to be rather insipid!) to emulate the marital bliss (!) that some of my friends seem to have achieved and if I could find a like-minded soul who would not tire of me I thought, 'why not?' Which is not to say, mind you, that this was a 'let's-get-this-out-of-the-way' kind of a notion; on the contrary it was, and is, very much about companionship and that at once oh-so dreaded and mythical idea of romantic love. I have unfortunately, or otherwise, much as I may pretend not to have, been brought up on the myth of love.

This is not completely unnatural considering that our public imagination is submerged in it. In my case this myth was even closer home, and therefore far less of myth and much more real, since my parents had a (yes, here it comes) love marriage way back in those days when these only happened in Bollywood movies. In fact, well into my teens when people heard of my hybrid origins (think strange mixture of North and South India) they were often both shocked and fascinated. This awe was then followed by a question that usually had me cringing and I quote- 'Hawww, your parents had a luuuve marriage?' Since I usually did not think of my parents in terms of Bollywood heartthrobs melodramatically defying their families, this question embarrassed me no end and my standard response to this was, 'Well as far as I know they didn't have a hate marriage!' My then nascent sense of irony was usually lost on them and I would be faced by confused looks of 'your parents hate each other?' followed by the shortest possible explanation of my hybrid origins. So there in a nutshell is why it is so difficult to get away from the myth of romantic love.

My parents of course have always assumed the sibling and myself would follow in their footsteps so that they would be saved the trouble of doing any spouse searching on our behalf. Since the sibling dutifully obliged, everyone- myself included- naturally concluded that I too would one day walk gob-smack into love and sort my life out. This, as you might guess, has not happened! So at some stage my parents had the 'talk' with me and suggested that they could look (unsuccessfully as it turned out, since they didn't know what they were supposed to do!) and then followed this up with the internet matrimonial idea (and I'm not going to name sites here so that you can go look me up!).

My initial reaction was a blunt refusal. After all, surely I would walk into someone one day and see stars! But upon a more rational revaluation I reluctantly conceded that the idea had some merit. After all I had managed not to meet anybody through college and while there had been the odd fanciful idea of marrying someone in the now distant past, that too had fallen by the wayside, and in hindsight thankfully so. Moreover, I work and will continue to do, in a sector that is dominated by women; in my last two jobs I have been part of 10-member teams with a single male each, which does tend to rather stack the odds against me! At this stage I was completing a master's degree, which too I had embarked upon after much delay and contemplation and it seemed as good a time as any to renew my (thus far unrequited) search for love. In any case, my father left me with the ultimate threat- 'if you don't post a profile, I will and you know you don't want that!' Eventually the idea grew on me and taking a deep breath I took the plunge into the unknown and dare I say, what an unknown it has been!