Diary of a Single Man

Under the porch of my 3BHK, I lit a cigarette, hoping the next phone call with my mother wouldn't end, again, on the usual two lines, when will you get married, and get married before I die. The first one grown up kids like me can handle. The second one, I don't think any of us ever really can. You don't get married just for yourself here, you get married for your family too. It's India.

It's almost comforting, being part of Indian society, to know that people out there are more worried about you getting married than you are yourself. Everyone greets me the same way now, and it's always followed by the same question, so when are you getting married, with a keenness that suggests they're the ones about to sleep with my future wife, not me. The more concerned ones give you a long, weary look, the kind that hints at some deeper problem. Come on, I'm thirty three. If I were interested in men, I'd know by now. Then there's the newer trend, colleagues nudging me toward every single girl who walks past in the office, as if they were all readily available and I was simply too dim to notice. One good pick up line, they seem to think, and she'd be mine. A few have even tried playing cupid outright. I do wonder if they worry this much about my next promotion, or my next salary hike.

Then there are my friends who find marriage unbearable and keep telling me how much they envy my life. I don't know how to explain to them that being single was never really the plan. The best ones are the ones who suggest a live in relationship, as if they'd also kindly point me toward the women, I'd have tried my luck if any of them actually existed. One of my subordinates, who keeps me company over weekend drinks, gets sympathetically concerned every single time. You must compromise, sir ji. You need someone for emotional security, good food, a healthy lifestyle, a kid too, why can't you just find a nice colleague. My sister's version is caste no bar. I told her we might as well add open to divorcee, open to inter religion while we're at it. My brother in law told my elder sister the other day that my age was advancing and my chances of finding a nice girl were shrinking with it. He firmly believes age and odds move in opposite directions. If that were true, he'd never have ended up with my sister, they have a three year gap, and he's the younger one. Why can't I get that lucky.

I remember arguing with my family over a matrimonial advertisement they wanted to run in the papers. Professionally qualified match required for fair, handsome MBA guy. Salary in six figures, senior level in a big MNC. When exactly did I go to business school? And wasn't I born a fairly ordinary shade of brown? If I were as handsome as the ad claimed, wouldn't I already be married? Let's just say wheatish, they offered, striking their compromise. Gosh.

If I ever met a prospective match through that advertisement, wouldn't her first thought be that she'd married into a family of liars?

But why blame any of them. Somewhere underneath it all, don't I know the real worry myself, the quiet dread of growing old without finding anyone at all? School friends, colleagues, they post about what their wives gifted them on birthdays and anniversaries, the vacations they're planning together. Every photo on Facebook looks like a perfect life, everyone laughing, everyone smiling, while I sit here writing my way through my own single hood instead.

When are you getting settled. I've hated that question for years now. I was settled, as far as I was concerned. Or was I.

I pay my own rent. I don't take a rupee from my parents. Picture it, a well placed professional, doing reasonably well for himself, walks into his empty 3BHK every evening and switches on the television. He wishes someone were there, just to make some pointless comment about the news, or the weather, anything. Or he wishes someone were lying beside him at night, sleeping soundly enough to snore right through his.

Thoughts of loneliness, of an entire life lived alone, are a strange kind of challenge. I'm doing fine, mostly. But what if I died one day and nobody found the body until it had already decomposed.

They say you're the only one responsible for being single. So maybe I should just go for it, try my luck with the girl at the office I'm apparently irresistible to. And what if she turns out just like all the others, stubbornly, impossibly hard to please.

So here I am. Happily single.