Life’s biggest gamble…are you ready?

October 20, 2006

There are very few topics under the sun about those I do not have a firm opinion or decisive frame of mind and I got to admit that marriage is one of them. Every six months when I am back home this topic keeps coming back and with every passing home trip I am running out of excuses, I have tried all of standard ones and some pretty innovative ones too. I guess being able to buy almost three years using all of those is by no definition a mean achievement, but the bigger question is how long? Tomorrow I will be attending two more friend’s weddings; others who got married in last couple of years have become dad n moms. ‘Am not complaining and neither I am in a hurry, I just need to make up my mind.

Honestly I can’t clearly explain you why I am running from marriage. Am I scared of commitments? I guess not that I know of. I haven’t made many of those in my short lifetime so far and whatever I made I tried living up to. Got accused for not keeping few of them but I know I honestly tried. I guess part of the reason I am so scarred about marriage is the risks associated with this eight letter word. Once married, you are supposed to understand and act on your partner’s feeling and if you are the one like me who have been extremely bad in dealing with other’s feeling, you better be scared. I mean, how are you supposed to know that when India is about to score that long awaited win against Australia in mother of all cricket matches, your partner would like to go for a long drive and that’s what is causing her little chubby chin go up, I honestly can’t figure that out. I can’t read feelings, can’t timely interpret facial frowns, can be too disconnected at times, can rarely say appropriate flowery tales when matters, and can rarely peep in someone’s heart; few things just don’t come to me naturally and that’s me.

I am a drifter and unless I get someone who can tie me down with a long long rope I may just drift apart hurting someone’s feeling unintentionally. In marriage, my worst nightmare would be to wake up one day and realize that both of us have drifted apart in opposite directions almost without noticing it with our own interests. No fuss made, no reasons like irreconcilable differences, no hard feelings; suddenly one day it dawns on you that you are still extremely friendly but there is no passion, depth or connection in your companionship. Scary, isn’t it? And when you are playing the biggest gamble of your life, you better be scared.

That’s’ may be the reason I am scared. I am probably just happy and content with life and things the way they are. May be I am just not willing to take that risk of shaking the apple cart. I know I am running a race against time and life will catch up very soon like it always does, I am anyway not one who is pledging to die as a bachelor. I am running my car on reserve gas and I got to stop before I run out of gas. Now the car and reserve gas might not be the best analogy to explain such a delicate issue like marriage and if that’s the case you would have to put up with me. I haven’t got a scholarly or legendary style of writing and I am sure you would have figured that out if you are reading this blog form past sometime.

I have seen lot of my friends getting married and settling down in life (as people call it, I am still trying to figure out what do they mean by settling down, to me what can’t remain afloat goes and settle down in the bottom). Few of them are no more what they used to be, I guess their preferences, priorities and outlook has changed and none of them are complaining. However, as an observer I do see people changing, and I guess I am scared of changing myself. I may not complain some years down the life but right now I am just on the fence watching wickets going down and hoping that they will call off the match due to poor light and I may not need to play. That’s optimism, huh, cheers.

"just friends"?

I was talking to one of my friend and this interesting topic came up. The essence of the discussion that led me to this topic was that friendship and relationship got to be two different things. I will not argue too much on that aspect. The aspect I had problem with was on transitioning between these two stages. She believed that if you are friends, you got to be friends for whole of the life, no room for relationship. Now I do not want to take a stand on this, may be life would have been simpler if rule of life would have been so clearly defined and taught to all of us. The point is life isn’t that straight forward or black and white, there is plenty of gray areas and that leaves a lot on mortals like me and you to make or mess it.

Personally I do not see an issue in friends seriously falling for each other; it makes amazing sense to me. I guess you should be more than lucky if you can find a companion in your best friend. It helps if you have known and understand each other truly because that’s what is crucial for a successful relationship. I believe you will agree that a friend is certainly preferred over a stranger.

Now let’s talk about friends turning in to lovers, navigating rough weather of transition and successfully transforming the friendship in to a relationship or messing up a great friendship (whichever the fate turns out to be). Transition from friendship to a potential relationship is a tricky one and unless otherwise you have a rule book on Do’s and Don’ts in life like my friend, you are very likely to find yourself on this juncture in your life. There is a stage between friendship and relationship which is above friendship but below commitment level and that’s the most vulnerable time of this transition. It’s a juncture when one needs to quickly switch gear and rise to the occasion. At this point one needs to be crystal clear on where the whole thing is heading, if you can commit to it, fine, go ahead. However if any one of you get to this stage with a hazy reading of situation, you are heading for a trouble. It will eventually lead you to destination nowhere and you will end up messing a great friendship. Sort things out as soon as you can because from here when things fall, it’s a rapid southward nosedive.

Oops…lecturing on relationships isn’t my cup of tea and I guess I just got too carried away with my thoughts, thanks for putting up with the last few lines. No lectures, ‘am not qualified for that ;-), Cheers,