The girl you love or the who girl who loves you?

Are you one who has loved
With the passion of a burning fire
Or are you the one who said ‘I love you too’
And in same breath called yourself a liar

But I will stop the watch

And inanely compose such a rhyme
Knowing no one will answer, I‘d ask,
Whom do you wanna be this time?

Whom would you marry? It’s an honest question. Probably some romantic idealists would say neither, but in a world of 6 Billion people what is the probability that the person you love also found you and only you to love? Or the other way around? Very bleak I would say. And if you are saying that you don’t know the whole world then you are just compromising with the people who you know; while your soulmate (if such a thing exists) might be some other country, speaking some other language and probably 20 year older than you.

That leaves me with this question and this very real scenario. Even in the most perfect couples there is always some power imbalance, somebody who first initiated the dialogue or dropped hints at the start of the relationships; somebody who mostly makes up first after a fight; somebody who is a little insecure; somebody who got told he or she is lucky to have found the other person.

So whom do you wanna be the lover or the loved? The person who took pity on the other person because he or she has been there even after rebuttals, insults and being used & discarded. Or the other person who thinks that the other is the one who he or she was destined to be with and can’t be without? Who always wanted to take care of her and is now able to, who always wanted to be the center of his attention and cause of his smile and now finally is.  

“Through the storm, we reach the shore
You gave it all but I want more” –

U2

I think it is better to marry the girl who loves you. It makes better sense logically. You can count on her loyalty. She will always go the extra mile to please you, she will watch the movies you want, eat food you like and have sex when you feel like. She will say sorry first when you fight, go away when you are angry and come back when you need support. It is her problem to make you like her and not the other way around; she will make you look good in front of her friends, throw surprise parties on your birthday and just smile when you forget hers. And if not anything else, it is huge ego boost to have someone doting on you so much.

Maybe you will someday fall in love with her, or at least you can tell yourself that. Ayn Rand had said that you need reasons to love someone. And whole hearted and blind love is a good reason as any. Any which ways you will get fond of her or at least dependent on her after you continue long enough. Hell you even start liking your dog that has been with you for 3 months, she is after all a human being. Least you can do is give her attention and an occasional act of kindness. Many people don’t even get that, and for most that is enough from the people they love. It will keep them satiated. One sided lovers have second -hand lives. They derive theirs from their lover; their happiness, their self-worth, their sense of purpose and their gratification. It is not a bad life if you ask me, for them I mean. They get happiness out of it and some distortion of a companionship. It is more than what half of the world is living with. And it certainly beats the bitterness, sarcasm and brewing but implicit hostility that is between many couples who never had or don’t have any love for each other anymore. But most of all you are not giving her the pain and heartbreak that someone gets when the love of their life leaves them. Many can’t get over it their entire lives and a few end it. It is the biggest favor anyone can do anyone if you ask me.

“Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you” –

U2

Marry the girl you love and you will be playing catch-up your whole life, it is like the deer who runs for a pool of water in the desert and the farther he runs, further the pool of water of gets away from him. Sooner or later the deer dies of the thirst and exhaustion he accumulated running for that pool of water. The pool of water is a mirage, an illusion, something that is there somewhere but you will never find it, and that search will kill you in the end. The deer would have been better off if he had never started running for that water in the first place. Likewise is the love you would never get. It is a tough life, because no matter how much would you do for her, it would never be enough, the constant nagging that if I would have done that or done that better, she would love me back will kill you sooner or later. And if that doesn’t, the insecurity will; every late night, every afternoon lunch without you, anytime when her whereabouts are not known, every time she run towards the phone when it rings, every time she smiles at some stranger will drive a million daggers through your heart. Gregory David Roberts had once written – “Some loves are like that. Your heart starts to feel like an over-crowded lifeboat. You throw your pride out to keep it afloat, and your self-respect and your independence. After a while you start throwing people out - your friends, everyone you used to know.   And it’s still not enough The lifeboat is still sinking, and you know it’s going to take you down with it.” Whom do you wanna be when then boat goes down? Rose or Jack? Trust me there is nothing sadder than one half of a great love that will never be.

I am a Nihilist, ontologically.  I don’t think life has a higher purpose. After we are gone there is nothing, we are ashes or dust. There is no greatness in self-sacrifice, morality, doing good for others, life is as Friedrich Nietzsche said “Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.”  But before that I am a hedonist, I believe that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. In very simple terms, a man is only goal is to strive to maximize net pleasure (pleasure minus pain). So what do you think will bring you the maximum pleasure? Of course marrying the girl who loves you.

And finally. Why do I ask this question? I don’t know. It is a good question to be asked. And I like Yossarian am a ‘collector of good questions’. For the most part I think it is habit of abyss gazing, and to quote Nietzsche again “And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Of these two girls, I have none. And I had both. And what would I do? I would marry the girl I love. But then … I’m an emotional fool.

“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness” –

Friedrich Nietzsche

P.S. - If you bothered to read through 1275 words and 1300 whites spaces please do bother to leave a comment, I want to know what people feel about this whole affair.

The Tragedy of Being Single

 

See most men in my age (including me) don’t want to marry or settle down is they don’t wanna miss the chance of sharing a Jacuzzi with naked supermodels, flying off to Bahamas on a whim and hooking up with random strangers, having drug-fueled-bringing-the-house-down parties and retaining their freedom. The only problem is; that this is not happening to the most of us, and will probably not happen, ever. Most of us get home from office at 8, eat Maggi or whatever is in offer in the nearest mess, jerk off and go to sleep. And weekends are spent in either sleeping (alone), watching whatever movie you can get tickets of and sharing a drink with the same old friends in the same old place with the same old jokes. To every man or woman who has Joey, Barney Stinson or the Sex and the city girls as their idol ; are you really living like them?

.

Ya I think by now you know what I’m getting at. The tragedy unmatched by Oresteia, Othello or Doctor Faustus, the great tragedy of being single.

And I’m not even going to mention the lack of sex in my argument.

See even when you are single you are not free, so that argument goes right out of the window, you are supposed to match so many expectations, including your own, you boss’s, your friends’, your mom’s and a lot of other people.

When you are single or rather unmarried in this case your boss expects you to stay till late, come early, take no leaves, work on weekends and go to the farthest corners of the world in a moment’s notice. Whenever you raise the slightest objection he always greets you with this line “Arey ghar pe jaake karna kya hai? Kaunsa daer se jaaoge to biwi naaraaz ho jaegi?” Or “Abhi to bachelor ho yaar, abhi to career pe focus karna chahiye, baad mae settle ho jaane ke baad aadmi nahi kar paata kuch”. So much for your personal life. While you married colleagues always get away with excuses like ‘My wife’s brother is getting married’ or ‘My daughter is unwell’ or plain old work-life balance, with a sly smile and a smirk at you.

Anybody who has house hunted in a non-student , non-IT centric locality will know how big a pain being unmarried is. This goes for girls as well, though maybe in a lesser degree. The board ‘Families Only’, ‘Bachelors not allowed’ can be seen practically on the face of every landlord. Like getting married is some kind of character certificate. I really want to shout sometimes that Dawood Ibrahim is married too, so was Charles Manson, and Osama had more than one wife! And to add to that I won’t have children who will cry at night, ring your doorbell and run, break your glass with balls or sketch on the walls. I won’t have wedding at my house where bad quality music is played for days nor will I have Jaagrans which will keep you up at night. I don’t think that occasional loud music or vomit in the stairs is so difficult to deal with. But this is what it is. Married people will get better houses and for less.

Leave houses and landlords, even pubs and discs turn you away. Like being single is a crime. Or single people are not supposed to have a drink, listen to some music and enjoy. They want you to conjure up a girl just for entering inside, which might be your reason to enter in the first place.

On top of that your married or committed friends, whenever they are away from their spouses want you to share your wild sex stories, your adventures and hear your iron resolution to stay single forever. Even if you are having fun or not it is impossible to match that kind of expectation unless you are a Rock Star. The truth that being single sometimes sucks or you might be actually be thinking on settling down is met with such absolute resistance and lectures like you said you wanted blow up the parliament.

And on the opposite extreme your mom constantly keeps reminding you that marriage is such a good idea. So if you want the recipe of Palak Paneer it is prefixed with ‘If you were married you wouldn’t need it in the first place” or if you tell her that you got a raise then the Congratulations is suffixed with “Now I think you should get married”. This goes double for girls.

Whenever two guys or two girls enter a fancy restaurant they are met with stares like they have tails hanging out. And when you want to make a reservation for hotel or resort people automatically assume you must be travelling with wife, any difference causes weird silence or clarification and re-clarifications. And after that you are either branded homosexual, terrorists, freaks or all three. A bunch of guys can have more fun in a resort than a couple ever can, except on the bed maybe.

You don’t have a default partner to go the movies only you wanna watch, concert of an artist only you have heard of and for shopping trips where you are the only one who wants to buy something. Your spouse, if he/she exists in naturally dragged along and doesn’t even make a fuss, or at least not too much.

Be it the flight, train or bus you are always moved to the other seat as people come in and say “Oh we both are together” or “Bhaaisahab aap B-2 pe seat number 16 pe jaa sakte hai kya, wo actually hamari 2 seat us dibbe mae aa gayi hai”. And it is not even a request, it is like somebody read you the Indian Penal Code clause 19 sub section 2b which states all single people are hereby banished to the least desired seat in any mode of transportation. Don’t even try to argue that you purposely booked the Side Upper Berth or you came early especially for the window seat otherwise you will be met with bickering, awkward stares and general disapproval by everyone around you, even by people who have nothing to do with is. Even when you argue with a married couple every passer-by assumes you must have done something nasty and top of that you are not even apologizing.

And the biggest torture is going out for drinks or an outing with an all couples group. Especially after the initial 10 minutes of pleasantries and cheers are over and everyone recedes to their respective corners.

I have to cut short my description of the horrors of the singles camp at this point as I gotta go out with the boys for dinner. Adios.

Eplilogue – They are many single people out there, some willingly and many un-willingly, and note that I said single and not unmarried. And both men and women. Most of them want to pair up; it is after all our naturally desired state. But despite wishing otherwise most of them are stuck in rut. And I have no clue why. At least in India you can blame the social structure a bit, lack of places for singles to mingle, stigma about women approaching first and the likes. Other places I don’t know what. Many of my friends, guys and girls have resigned themselves to the fate of arranged marriage and all of them want to find someone they love. But they are not able to. My only advice to them is take a few chances, I know I need to. But still, something somewhere is pretty fucked up in this world