Just dun wanna.

“You should get married”. Says my mom right after Happy Birthday. As if it’s inevitable.

I laugh.

She gives me that motherly stare that harbors disappointment of such extreme propensity that I almost tremble.

"Are you serious?" I ask.

And so begins the long speech about a parent’s hopes and dreams. About how they want happiness to re-emerge in our lives.

I laugh.

She shakes her head and walks out the door.

End of discussion.

Its scary. The thought of condemning myself and some hapless girl to a life of lovelessness. And I don’t want to hear any crap about how love may develop after a marriage. What develops is a mutual need, a mutual dependence. Like when you train your dog to get your slippers. You would be barefoot if he up and left. But marriage is more then acquiring a well trained pet. It’s something more sanctimonious, something a lot more important than a big ass function at which you invite the entire city and play loud music and pretend to be happy. It goes on beyond the jota chupai and the lado khilai and all the stupid customs that we so religiously observe at our weddings. It means surrendering yourself to one person for the rest of your lives. I don’t much fancy the idea of divorce, when I commit myself so utterly to a cause I would like to see it work out. I would like for my wife to be happy. To feel loved, cherished. Not like the distorted shadow of someone else before her which will linger in my thoughts not entirely because I’m unable to forget and let go, but because I really just don’t love her.

I know all the crap about marriages not having to do with love and the clichés about never marrying the person you love and about it doesn’t matter who you’re married to as long as you can lie about your extra marital excursions.

That’s all crap. Marriage is sanctimonious, at least it should be. And if you can’t let it be that because you don’t feel that devoted to this person just because you scribbled a signature across a bottom line on a piece of stamp paper then don’t fucking do it. Don’t get married, play the field, rack up pre-martial sex demerits instead of extra-marital ones.

I don’t like the people who go off and hook up with rich nubile young lasses who may or may not have been in love before. I don’t like them not because they’re getting married just because its the logical thing to do is like a betrayal of the love they claim to have almost died for but because the betrayal is to the future, not to the past. Maybe they can be honest and committed and stick to the ones they end up with. But highly unlikely of that happening. Besides I’m not willing to take that chance. I’ve never really been sold on marriage in the first place. Now the thought of being married without being in love with the person I’m married to is just disgusting. Why should she? I mean why the hell should she end up with someone who is already pretty much given most of what he had to give to someone else when she in all probability deserves to be loved the way I can’t love anyone again. It’s unfair to both of us. Just plain senseless submission to society and whimsy of parents who still find their children’s marriage the be all end of all of their own existence.

So sorry, mommy. Sorry ye who could have been my wife (mom has a long list of probable bahus). Ain’t gonna happen. I know my turning 26 scares my mother, She would’ve thought I’d have given her a couple of grand kids to spoil by now but hey, I tried, didn’t work out. Big deal. Not about to try it out just for the heck of it and be tied down by the loyalty I myself want to attach to my marriage when the person I’m with deserves loyalty that love should manifest, not just a sense of propriety. It’s just all very ugly to me. Extremely ugly. I’m better off all by myself. You can’t beat the independence. A wife is gonna nag. Eventually she will nag… nagging from a beloved is much easier to bear than from a compromise.

Yes I’m making silly excuses but when I focus on the ‘logical’ benefits of getting married its hard to justify choosing against it just by saying I dun wanna.

But the very basic condition of it all is that I just dun wanna. Not like this, not someone my mom chooses, not thru the disgusting bardakhawa custom. Hell even that is an exaggeration the thought of an arranged marriage is frightening; the thought of a love marriage now is amusing. That doesn’t leave much room for a parent’s wish to come true.

Shucks.

Sorry.