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.