Perfect Bride

Of late, I have been inundated with personal accounts of proposals, searches, oppositions and the entire gamut of experiences associated with marriage and a partner. Most people around me are on the search for or in the process of sealing the deal in hand, and yet coming excruciatingly short of the finish line.

There are those that have found the 'right' person, those that are not sure if the one they've found is 'right', those that are stubbornly looking for the 'right' one despite kissing a lot of frogs, those that believe there are no 'right' ones around and lots more one-off categories that would take a while to list down. The more I've heard of these experiences, the more I've realized that there are no easy stories around, simply demonstrating the age-old claim that 'ideal' doesn't quite exist.

If you've seen the reality show Perfect Bride, you know how unflattering the show is to the title. There are a few guys (of whom I'm acquainted to one!) along with their mothers, and a few girls who are all on the lookout for a marriage match. A leap ahead of online matrimony, one can witness the cut-throat world of partner searches, which is almost an enlarged picture of real-life relationships. I won't get into what drives these people to enrol for a show of this profile, for that topic would get quite damning and digress from the primary theme. I never quite took the MTV or Channel V reality shows seriously, because those shows and people don't classify as sane.

Here, emotions and words are faked with élan as people hold hands, profess love and would surely do a lot more if the mom's weren't around. The whole partner search concept is ridiculed by the way each 'contestant' hedges their risks blatantly with multiple people. And why not? The rest of the world is doing the same, without the relative discomfort of cameras and judges.

And no, the rules of "He's not that into you" don't apply here, Oprah! Even if they're into you, they're still going to take their time to accept your existence in their life. They’re going to say and do everything that suggests you’re in a relationship and then quip, “I’m not ready for you”. They're still going to keep you a stranger amongst family, friends and colleagues. If they’re on the extreme end of this scale, he’ll drop you off near the place you need to go, saying they don’t want people there to get the wrong idea. They’re definitely not going to tell their ex’s about you; ask and you’ll get innovative responses on this one. Don't even expect them to change their Facebook relationship status to committed, let alone link your name on it. And you can kiss that dream proposal goodbye. It ain't happening!

There are no "good" stories around for a reason. People have accepted the trade-off of deception and deceit over prospective pain. If you've not been able to make one work, you want that one to disappear into thin air making way for the Next Contestant. Nobody wants to have any visible residue around when the Next Contestant walks around for that all-important first glance. Whatever happened to Carrie Bradshaw's thumb rule of taking half the time you've been in a relationship to get over it.

We like our dessert better when it's not the only one on the menu. One obviously doesn't want to go home wanting if one's ordered the apple pie and they've run out of fresh apples, so having a walnut brownie option is worthwhile. Life is a race, and one wants to get where his or her peers want to faster than them. When people recite relatively "good" stories and swear by them, I encourage them to go to "Moment of Truth" (or Sach ka Saamna, the Hindi version) and return unscathed.

When I initially started talking to acquaintances about this "Hedging theory", there were quite a few of them that were taken aback at how cynical and cut-throat I made people seem. They then came back to me a while later and encouraged me to write about it, after having witnessed it in close proximity or bearing the brunt themselves. Today, that article would be redundant for obvious reasons.

Those that currently are on the lookout for someone can take solace from how they don't yet have to deal with this hypocrisy and deceit. Those that are currently with partners that are hedging can choose to practice it themselves. Those that are committed to someone, you're the smartest of the lot. You've already given in to this and accepted it as a part of your life, so this won't even raise eyebrows.