Yesterday I was honoured to be privy to one of the most entertaining conversation of 2010 thanks to my friend who provides me with ample things to blog about. And this one revolved around marriage!
Yes no surprise! I needs must blog about this topic at least once a year, so let this be the “one” for the year. ( yes “love” rings okay bells in my ears while “marriage” kind of suffocates them and provides a feeling of a clock bell rung right next to the eardrum. Surely you comprehend what I try to transmit here, but if by any chance be alien, then do the best impersonation of comprehension. Yes faking be good for your health, a times, occasionally, among many being situations where you do grasp that the truth would kill you! And no I do not plan to list down the situations where it be good!)
Any ways coming back to the conversation, this wonderful conversation was fortunately initiated due to one of my friends “blunders” in replying to an email where her “possible” bridegroom to be (yes her parents have ventured into those troubled waters of “let us find a man for our daughter”) has sent her a mail assuming she was her mum. (summary: the man thought my friend was not her, but her mum. Yes kind of twisted but we shall follow the story) Well that is what I grasped on hearing the story through her laughter, her panicking and what else.
So be wrong in all this incomprehension?
Well the fact that she is worried that she was out of decorum and had offended him by answering his mail with a “ha ha ha!” and “ my mum is already taken, so you will have to settle for me!”
She wants to know what I with the expert opinion of another colleague thought of the situation.
What did I think?
Well I thought it was plain funny and well could not think beyond that point being totally taken up with laughter that occasionally choked me on the water I was trying to gulp down.
The other party (person number 3, tall young man who deems himself to be not normal) on the other hand, was very analytical and wanted to know what be the man in contention do for a living! (Yes this was necessary to judge the status of offence caused) On getting the answer that he be a doctor, his determination on the matter “the man ‘offended’ ” ( mind you he did verify the distinction between a doctor as in doctorate and doctor as in medical practitioner.
I shall not try to analyse myself, be in reality offended or not, as I am sure my respective friend (the girl who was in question and not the one providing feedback on the analysis) would have already found out the man’s reaction to it.
But what I remember from this situation are some of the sentences that were addressed to me where I realised some people seem to have better understanding of me than I seem to have grasped on me of late.
One such sentence being “darling, you are not at all ‘normal’”! ( He did elaborate on that fact that it was a good thing and that normal humans are boring)
But yeah, the understanding or the understatement of the year being that I am not normal. Two interpretations possible a. I am abnormal, b. I am eccentric.
I decided then and there that “eccentric” be my choice, it sounds very much more sophisticated when pronounced out loud!
“Vositha is eccentric!”. “ Vositha is abnormal!”
See the difference? Of course “ Vositha is eccentric” resonates better.
The next point of that I fixation : “back up plans!” (You know those men or women we decide to live with if we do not find out soul mate! )
I always wondered if it was some stupid twist of fate, the act of consenting to be someone’s back up plan or asking someone to be our back up! Why cannot this person be the “one” when we know that we can live life with the person sans troubles and still want to find another possible creature who could create chaos! Well all being due to hormones I presume and the lack of chemistry! Chemistry, chemistry, or “no mojo” as Aruni would phrase it.
Anyhow don’t you think that it is a little troubling how we the humans think? For example you have this awesome friend who you can have the best conversation with and then get along perfectly with and of course is nice and caring and then you say to him or her “well if I do not find my soul mate let us live the rest of our lives together” ( be it within marriage or not I am not sure. My back up plan does not want to get married and has marriage phobia so we of course have come to the consensus on sharing an apartment together where we would be allowed our own space. Admittedly I am no exception to this stupidity of back up plans. I like my own share of idiocy when it comes to these subjects)
So yeah we all have back up plans with anticipation of failed “Mr or Miss Right. So when does one intend the implementation of these plans?
I pronounced aloud that I plan to get married or settle down with a man who I think is my match when I am 29 to be harshly retorted that it be too early. The elaboration being that me being a “career oriented woman” ( fact 2 of enlightenment for 2010) that if I were to marry at that age I would lose all potential in my professional life. The explanation being, a man who is Sri Lankan, who is conservative, would want you to be a housewife!
Well a. I have not decided on marrying a Sri Lankan (which means I am open for other options and not that I do eliminate Sri Lankans from the equation),
b. I will not marry a conservative man. ( He will commit suicide within 10 seconds of starting a life with me)
c. I will not be a house wife ( again my turning such would render the man suicidal due to all the tantrums which I would potentially throw at him on arriving home from work. And yes the marriage would end in divorce or the death of one party. Not the best fairytale wedding I would want to have in my life!)
To conclude on what I learnt through this conversation or enlightening discussion
a. I might get married one day, but not sure whether I will be able to get over my commitment fear or the doubt factor towards men.
b. At 29 you are too young to get married, shall not think of it till I am 40!
c. Back up plans, we all have those, some of us are lucky with them the others well not so lucky as the others.
d. Never reply to a man who is proposed to you by your parents with a “ha ha my mum is married, guess you will have to settle for me!”. Too much time wasted on figuring out whether the man be offended, not offended, whether you were out of decorum, were rude or plain abnormal!
e. I am not normal, nor am I abnormal, just good old “eccentric”.
