Single, but happy!

Single, but happy!

So ended my conversation with a few gal pals a few days ago and this statement of my friend got me thinking, shouldn’t it be single ‘and’ happy? Why do people have to prove to their families and friends that they can be happy ‘despite’ being single?

Here, I’m not going to talk about the challenges a single woman faces in India – the biggest being the lack of support from her family or the community she lives in or her struggle to keep herself safe. We have enough feministic opinions doing the rounds, lashing at the chauvinistic approach people (yes, men and women) adopt. But this is not what this blog post is about.

Just to give you some statistics, single women constitute 21% of India’s population, that’s a whopping 73 million! 

This proves, we aren’t as rare a breed, nor are we going extinct anytime soon! And am sure a sizeable proportion of this population is confronted by these challenges.

I want YOU to share your views here. But here’s some background….

So, as I was mentioning, one of my friends declared that she has decided to stay away from marriage as she is tired of the whole process of groom hunting. Her exasperation (like those of thousands of women) resulted from a long drawn process (spreading over years) of coming across profiles of potential grooms, which immediately brought up the excitement levels of her parents, only to crush them and push them into despair each time the ‘alliance’ did not work out. Let’s not even get into the reasons.

How it works…

The profiles of grooms usually come from relatives and friends who want to ‘help’ the family, and yes they mean well, or from matrimonial sites. We have no dearth of the latter – they are tailor made for your requirements, there are sites for various religions, castes, communities. Am sure there are specific ones for potential brides / grooms who are short, or much taller than ‘industry standards’, for people with darker skin tones, divorced people, widows / widowers, single parents and I guess also for people suffering from commitment phobia!  

The Pitfalls

How can you ensure that whatever has been mentioned on the profile is indeed true? We are a breed of intuitive human beings, but I doubt we are adept at identifying seasoned liars who hide behind innocent faces. Is there a way of seeing that smirk on a person’s face before that perfect picture was clicked? Sadly, in our ‘Muggle’* world a picture does not tell us much.

The Dilemma

So if we write off the whole groom searching process that we Indians normally are accustomed to, what are the options left?! To give you a little background, my single friends are career-oriented girls (I can almost picture a stereotypical ‘saas’** cringe at the word), who focused all their energies into getting good grades, stayed clear of relationships and continue to slog it out at work too. Yes, they have some great friends, but don’t party frequently or get an opportunity to meet a lot of single guys!

What then are the options left for people like my friend, who still hope to meet their Prince Charming (agreed they don’t come riding a white horse, these days, so it’s hard to identify them) so they get swept off their feet.

This brings me to the question I have been mulling over:

·        How can they meet someone they connect with and decide on whether or not they want to spend the rest of their lives with them? They also don’t want their parents getting involved in the process, till they are sure.

As their friend, I am convinced that my single gal pals are leading a complete life and enjoying their ‘single’ status. However, I’d love for them to meet that someone special, fall in love and get to spend the rest of their lives with the one they love! I adore these girls and really wish them the very best!

* A term from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, where this word denotes a person who does not possess magical skills

** Mother-in-law in Hindi