Marrying Anita

oh no I have not turned a Dyke nor am I endorsing the recently repealed 377rule by marrying the same sex any soon.Less Spicily, I've just finished reading an unassumingly brilliant biographical novel called ''Marrying Anita' by Anita Jain and I just cannot hold back relating with her and the story of her life.

So 'Marrying Anita' is a story of 30something Anita Jain, An American born& Bred hash-smoking, smart, successful and erudite Harvard grad working in an NY publication ..well everything seems to be going for her..except for one tiny lil detail..
she cant seem to find a man who'll marry her or even last more than a week. She's done her share of blind dates, dinners, internet dating, the works, but somehow the ride ends before you realise where you wanted to go.
32. Woman. Unmarried. Indian. Add parents and relatives with a typical 'so when're you marrying ?" that seems to have become the new hellos/how're yous....
Under a pressure cooker to marry and given up on the western dating scene , Anita decides to come back to her roots and So begins her journey to New-India ( Delhi in this case) on a quest for a man to marry and a familiar sounding description of her experiences there, her confronting the changed face of India and surprisingly and disappointingly finding a fading difference between the American mentality she wanted to get away from by coming to India and the Indian one bordering on almost the same.

Now why me , a perfectly normal ( OK fine if you get past the nocturnal hyperactivity and occasional zaniness),educated, 21 year old doing relating with a 32yr old unmarried and desperately-on-a-manhunt woman? well there's more than meets the eye. I'm not an American born or have even stayed there long enough to feel like a confused American-Indian,barring a month of winter in New Jersey but I guess by now I'm traveled, read and experienced enough to recognize a pattern and feel why despite her background and age, I still feel her story an echo of my life and of few others that I know .

Not that I'm really harboring any hidden ambition to MARRY myself YET or am even unhappy being 'single' , but the similarity in her absolute failure at finding 'love' or a long-term serious relationship with someone she likes and getting disappointed by the men she expects fireworks from ,seems to freak me. Sure I've had my share of flings,slightly more than friendly moments at parties,' yahoo/gmail 'Relationships' and even a few here-now-gone-tomorrow-back-again dalliances and even a real 'intense ' affair when I was 13 and he was 13n a half and we were madly in love with each other for years to the extent of planning our future together. But in hindsight I'm afraid it could just be a case of two teenagers at the threshold of teenage curiosity looking around to explore emotions n anatomy .But hardly in my 21odd years of life, have I been able to find someone I could see my future with. Someone who you think about as 'the one'...I've not even had 'false alarms' as I call the people who deceivingly look promising. Every time I'm with someone I can already see the end. I can exactly see how it's gonna pan out. You'll go out,feeling like it's the best time you've ever had and have your typical youth fun but only to have it end in nothing, leaving you feeling empty and emotionally devoid....In this day of instant dating and those ubiquitous ' are you interested' type facebook apps, has dating become far too easily available to value it? Are days of "love and romance' being replaced by pure need based relationships?

Funnily, I know people who've been going steady with their Bfs/Gfs for years! Hell Everyday I come to know of some chick who's marrying her bf of 4 years ! at 21! and from hardcore conservative Jain n Muslim background no less.and mind you, these people were not like Greek Gods and Roman Goddesses! they were normal average people who just clicked with someone like 'click click' and have stuck on! Why go far when my own siblings found the perfect person after dating for years and are now ensconced in perfect matrimony . Sure those are some shoes to step into. Never mind the fact, that I've always been the academically better one of the siblings, traveled more, and have more friends than them put together.

I cannot find a reason. I'm not that bad to look at. ( As re-affirmed by some people from time-to-time. thank you:-) I'm not boring or dull for sure. ( Ha , I never get bored of myself.)i do my eyebrows and wax.So what is it that screams ' Do-not-get-into-long-term-with-her' ?I've had many discussions about it with many friends who're in the same boat and there seems to be consensus. The pattern I "men"tioned? Ok here it is.Guys may find a girl who can think, has something above her face literally ( A head!) can discuss F1 and Federal Reserve just as comfortably as cracking sex jokes and doesn't coo " BAabyyyy I waanch a cinnamon, no-sugar, capaccino...Riiiight Nooooow " - smart, impressive and attractive but is she ever wife/long term gf material? Or are they just too intimidating for these men and a threat to his chauvinist ego? So They constantly have to lose to the naiver, coy, " where do babies come from', Fair-skinned-Slim-convent-educated-'cultured' women ? After all how many times have you heard " i love her. she's so intelligent and funny" as opposed to " I love her she's hot/sexy/beautiful. " Even if she doesn't know Chaucer from saucer.What's worse (or better)? the selective discrimination is not only from the martian end. There've been times I know a guy has made advances and hoped for something, but it's been nipped in the bud.( by ME) why? cos he pronounced "parents as "pay-runts" or cos he was too hairy or too less hair or cos he wore too high-waisted pants. you get the Picture. And in the rare cases that I do find someone too irrestible, halleluiah , he's already taken or miles away! ( hence the long-distance reltionships)

But then, losing to these women the guys who'd prefer them in the first place, doesn't seem like a bad deal. On second thoughts , I'd wait. Or stay single than compromise by dumbing down for a guy as Scarlett O' Hara was repeatedly advised by everyone in hope of ever finding a man to marry. ( she ultimately married 3!) And lame as it sounds, I kinda believe in the whole "soul-mate" concept .So no matter who you are, ugly, dumb, short, fat,dumb, smart there's someone for everyone and in a lifetime you'll meet them. Ofcourse our Atal Bihari and Rekha ji is not much hope-arouser there. But i hope we're the rule, not the exception.

Hope springs eternal. and I hope I could find my Mr. not-really-perfect but almost there guy who reads "marrying Anita" and can say " I'd marry that woman anyday".
To cut myself some slack, Hell I'm 21! Had i been 33 and not been able to hang on to someone till now, I'd probably be clutching at the straws too. And things in between.