The Truth About Marriages in Third World Countries

Close to a year ago, my super long relationship with the love of my life ended due to red flags that my ex boyfriend and I chose to ignore for close to 5 years. We thought love was all it took to make a relationship last forever? Guess who fell flat on their butts and got hurt? Us. LOL.

Anyway jokes apart, my relationship ended and soon after that people started asking me to come out of the hangover of it. I took several steps to do that too. I downloaded a dating app (that lasted all of 2 hours), I moved out of my parents house (honestly, this one’s been nice) and I started working on myself (a blessing again).

But as I reached the 26th year of my life, the extended family in my culture decided that it was time for me to get married. Because women irrespective of how successful they are in their corporate jobs, need to get married before they reach 30. Now I’m sure most people here would’ve seen the show Indian Matchmaking. My life was now, an episode of the show, where my parents asked me to go and meet random guys and decide if they could be my husband. As bizarre as this may sound, a lot of people in India still marry basis what their parents decide for them and I guess I had to be a part of that crowd now.

My parents sat me down one day, and showed me a profile that they had created for me on a matrimonial website. The profile hosted some of my nicest pictures, my caste and religion status, my education details and the fact that I was a “modern-Indian” girl who made a 6 figure every month in the difficult corporate world. Talk about objectification. Anyway, very soon I was matched with a guy who was 4 years older than me and was a techie in some company.

Therefore began the basic saga of what I’d wear when I were to meet him and what I would talk to him about. Let’s call this guy K.

K was extremely nice and courteous and both of us met in a café near my house. He was also from the same caste as me and was thrilled to meet me in person. While the conversation with him was easy, and he seemed to be nice and funny, our date ended in about 2 hours since I was not drinking and K couldn’t have any more drinks. He insisted to drop me home and just as I was getting off the car, asked what my answer was.

I was astounded.

I hadn’t even thought about what living with K would mean.

Sure, he was nice but how do I romanticize 2 hours of conversation into a marriage? Something that would last for a long time?

I told him that I’d need time to think and quickly rushed up to my apartment.

I was greeted by my housemate who immediately told me to breathe since I was hyperventilating after the question that he’d just asked.

I couldn’t marry him. I was not even sure if I liked him. And, I was definitely not attracted to him.

I called my parents to give them my reasoning a couple of hours later. But instead, they sounded ecstatic as they answered my phone call. Apparently, K had gone home and told his parents that he was in love. Let alone that, he had mistaken my silence for a yes from my end and everyone seemed to think that we’d fallen in love.

It took 3 hours of clarifications and a lot of bitterness between both our families to finally clear the air.

K also called and confronted me and told me that my “body language” said otherwise.

Anyway, all things said and done, there ended my first date and a prospective marriage scene with a boy who I still honestly can’t figure out.

My first date shook me and I knew that this wasn’t how I’d want to get married but it also made me think about love and if love was enough for marriage?

After my episode with K, I took a couple of months off the whole arranged dating scene only to land myself back in it. My parents still haven’t given up on finding me the perfect match and I honestly, still don’t know if I even want to find them. I have been on a few more dates and honestly, all I want to do is jump out of the window on some of them. People may look like they’ve progressed but deep down everyone in India just wants to marry a girl who’ll stay shut and listen to them!

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Previously Published on medium

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