Finding love for me was a struggle, a battle, and a longing. I have gone halfway around the world, dated online, lied, speed dated, followed Indian matchmaking, prayed, consulted cards, mystics and psychics to find love. It has been quite a journey.
Early Lessons in Love
My teenage years, the years where you find out about love, attraction and dating, was spent far away from social life. You see, I was forbidden to date. I had one boy try once. But I was too afraid and didn’t want to lie to my parents so I refused him.
Soon after that, I was too busy dealing with my father having an affair, constantly moving houses and working as my family had three other kids to provide for I wanted to go to university. Working four days a week right after school didn’t give me much time for a social life, and life was harsh in high school. I didn’t wear the right clothes, speak the right language, or socialize with the right crowds. The only way I stood out from the crowd was that I was smart and sometimes that isn’t a good way to stand out.
Love Can Be Lost
I learned a lot from the seven years that my parents fought and eventually ended their marriage. I remember the love and companionship that they had and that many looked up to them as the ideal couple.
One of the lessons I learned is that love is like a gentle flame in the breeze, the light can go out. Being an idealistic teenager, the world came crashing down on me when I realized my father was having an affair. So many people respected my father, believed him to have integrity how could he be lying so blatantly to us? Of course, this line of thought is coming from a teenager, who has no idea of the gray smudges between the black and white of right and wrong.
Now, only as an adult, can I see that my parents weren’t putting their marriage first. Dad had gotten a new job downtown. Mom had just had a baby and gone back to school. There were stressors on their marriage that I’m sure they didn’t realized existed.
I learned that sometimes it is better to have a clean break rather than try over and over again something, which I actively practiced as a young adult. It was so bad that I wished so many times that they would get a divorce, but they didn’t believe in divorce. What kind of name would it give to the family? What about the children?
Cultural Background
Some of you might think that my parents were too strict. Not dating? Not divorcing because of the shame of the family? That’s so old fashioned, but my family was old fashioned. I come from a Hindu background, which means there is that belief that your parents or family will find a match for you. And I was fed that doctrine for a long time.
However, although I hoped and prayed that love would be as easy as that, even though I saw this happen to others time and time again, I had a different road to take. Throughout university and the early part of my twenties I was subject to meeting many “suitable boys”. Most of whom were the most unsuitable I had ever met in my life.
Some of these meetings were quite comical. Others were horrible. It seems that men are extremely picky when choosing a wife through this method. I’m too tall, too short, too religious, not religious enough, too vegetarian, not vegetarian enough and of course not only the men, but their mothers got turns to dig into me.
Now I am not saying that Indian match marriages are bad. Actually, I’ve seen many of them work out beautifully, including my own sister, my cousins and family friends (not to mention my own friends!).
