Hello future me,
I'm writing here after almost a year, but I have major news today. I'm getting married in 4 months from today! Thought I'd write a little about how it came about - just so that it might be fun to read someday long into the future. Here it goes:
Dec 2017:
I had moved to Austin around the end of Sept 2018. I was thoroughly enjoying being an independent earning member of the society. I had for the first time in my life, my own mode of transport, had the freedom to wake up whenever, cook whatever pleased me and in general take control of my own life. It was at this point that I received a proposal from one of my mom's colleagues' relatives. I was fully closed to the idea of marriage and viewed it as a kind of slavery that people willingly signed up for. I had 4 friends from university who worked with me and lived close by. We used to hangout most of the time together. One member of this group got married in December. He was significantly older than me and I didn't think much of it. However, a lot of my undergrad friends also started getting married and I started to think about how my life might change if I did decide to get married.
Feb 2018:
By Feb I had started seeing more and more people my age getting married and I started to seriously think about what kinds of people I saw myself with, where I wanted my life to go, what I could and could not tolerate in a SO. I agreed to let my parents register my profile with a matrimonial bureau. I got the first set of profiles of prospective grooms. Most were ~5 years older than me and much taller. I felt intimidated by it and couldn't imagine even befriending any of them. Again started having very negative thoughts about marriage. Another friend in my 4 people group got engaged.
Apr 2018:
Wedding related stuff went onto the backburner. Every set of profiles that my parents got I had new reasons to say no. I was closed off to even talking to any of the ones that seemed like good matches. Had long conversations with my sister on how she decided, etc. But I was still confused.
June 2018:
By this time, I had spoken to 3-4 people and had found one guy who seemed to be of a similar nature as me. We had similar interests but very different long term goals. We ignored this difference hoping it would somehow get resolved and continued talking. We met briefly and started to consider seriously on how we could make it work.
Aug 2018:
The offer fell through. We were not able to resolve differences in our long term goals. The guy's parents were not very much in favour of it and we decided to move on. This is the closest I've come to a heartbreak. I took some time completely off the wedding scene. Poured myself into work. It was at this point that the last of my friends in the 4 person group also got into a relationship. We stopped hanging out often as they got busy with their SOs.
Oct 2018:
Still wasn't completely over the June guy. Spoke to a few people, but not very seriously. I had some reason to say why it wouldn't work out.
Dec 2018:
This was when I got introduced to this guy I'll refer to as PMJ from now on. We spoke on and off over text and over the phone. He seemed like someone who was full of life. He seemed open minded and "woke". This was something I kept looking for but hadn't found in most people I spoke with. However, there seemed to be some differences in mine and his personalities. I'm more of a calm natured person when I found him to be more fiery. However, our long term goals seemed to match and I was always left with a pleasant feeling after talking to him. After all the no's I'd been going through for almost a year, I wasn't sure enough to decide whether he was THE one. We kept talking and decided to meet in person.
Feb 2019:
We met in person and spent hours just talking. I didn't realise how time passed and felt very positive about him. He seemed to be self-assured while not being proud. This is a very thin line and I'd been judging everyone very harshly on this criterion. He seemed just perfect with respect to this aspect. A few weeks later, both of us gave our acceptances. My parents had spoken to his parents and they gave a waving green flag as well. It was at this stage that there was talk of a March wedding. The one major change was that I'd have to move half way across the country. This was too big of a change for me and I couldn't take that leap. I deferred talks of a marriage until May/June. He agreed to it and left for a trip to India. I thought it was all done and it was just a matter of him coming back and resuming talks. However, he started to have second doubts about the long term goals that we had decided on and how it would impact him.
Apr 2019:
PMJ returned and we were off for sometime. He needed time to think and I got scared. From imagining myself being married to not talking to that person was a huge transition. I started worrying on what would have happened if I had indeed agreed to a March wedding and he had second guessed his decision later. Went back to being sour and negative about everything related to marriages.
June 2019:
At this point all 3 of my friends were married and I started to feel the need to find a partner. Sometime in May, PMJ had gotten back to me and had given his green signal for the wedding. This time it was my turn to take forever to decide what I wanted to do with my life. My parents visited me and I was busy entertaining them, taking trips etc. Every other conversation revolved around getting married, finding the right person etc. I somehow started to feel PMJ was the right one considering all factors. Fate also seemed to be pushing me towards him. However, I was too occupied with family gathering and did not want to decide it then. I never thought I'd be deciding when I did. Just a week before my parents were to leave back to India, I went to my sister's place for a week. During the bus journey,dove deep into my thoughts and was able to see things clearly. It was at that minute somehow I had absolute clarity on what I wanted in life. Nothing else made more sense at that point and I wasn't scared any longer. He had said yes, I had really liked his parents, he seemed to be exposed to 2019 type of free thinking and was ok with it. He seemed mature enough to be able to take well thought of decisions; someone whose opinions I felt were well thought through and at the same time someone who was fun loving and interested in experiencing new things in life. That weekend I let my parents and family know of my decision and I told PMJ of the same. I was a little anxious if he had moved on. But it was in both our fates to end up together. He agreed! We had a conversation after a loong time. And that was it!
Off late its been more of wedding prep and getting to know each other's lifestyle habits etc.
This post has been suuper long. I'll be checking in from time to time with details on wedding prep and other interesting stuff. But for now, this is where I end this post.
Hoping my future self reading this is happy and still with PMJ! ;)
Until next time,
Shaya :D
I'm writing here after almost a year, but I have major news today. I'm getting married in 4 months from today! Thought I'd write a little about how it came about - just so that it might be fun to read someday long into the future. Here it goes:
Dec 2017:
I had moved to Austin around the end of Sept 2018. I was thoroughly enjoying being an independent earning member of the society. I had for the first time in my life, my own mode of transport, had the freedom to wake up whenever, cook whatever pleased me and in general take control of my own life. It was at this point that I received a proposal from one of my mom's colleagues' relatives. I was fully closed to the idea of marriage and viewed it as a kind of slavery that people willingly signed up for. I had 4 friends from university who worked with me and lived close by. We used to hangout most of the time together. One member of this group got married in December. He was significantly older than me and I didn't think much of it. However, a lot of my undergrad friends also started getting married and I started to think about how my life might change if I did decide to get married.
Feb 2018:
By Feb I had started seeing more and more people my age getting married and I started to seriously think about what kinds of people I saw myself with, where I wanted my life to go, what I could and could not tolerate in a SO. I agreed to let my parents register my profile with a matrimonial bureau. I got the first set of profiles of prospective grooms. Most were ~5 years older than me and much taller. I felt intimidated by it and couldn't imagine even befriending any of them. Again started having very negative thoughts about marriage. Another friend in my 4 people group got engaged.
Apr 2018:
Wedding related stuff went onto the backburner. Every set of profiles that my parents got I had new reasons to say no. I was closed off to even talking to any of the ones that seemed like good matches. Had long conversations with my sister on how she decided, etc. But I was still confused.
June 2018:
By this time, I had spoken to 3-4 people and had found one guy who seemed to be of a similar nature as me. We had similar interests but very different long term goals. We ignored this difference hoping it would somehow get resolved and continued talking. We met briefly and started to consider seriously on how we could make it work.
Aug 2018:
The offer fell through. We were not able to resolve differences in our long term goals. The guy's parents were not very much in favour of it and we decided to move on. This is the closest I've come to a heartbreak. I took some time completely off the wedding scene. Poured myself into work. It was at this point that the last of my friends in the 4 person group also got into a relationship. We stopped hanging out often as they got busy with their SOs.
Oct 2018:
Still wasn't completely over the June guy. Spoke to a few people, but not very seriously. I had some reason to say why it wouldn't work out.
Dec 2018:
This was when I got introduced to this guy I'll refer to as PMJ from now on. We spoke on and off over text and over the phone. He seemed like someone who was full of life. He seemed open minded and "woke". This was something I kept looking for but hadn't found in most people I spoke with. However, there seemed to be some differences in mine and his personalities. I'm more of a calm natured person when I found him to be more fiery. However, our long term goals seemed to match and I was always left with a pleasant feeling after talking to him. After all the no's I'd been going through for almost a year, I wasn't sure enough to decide whether he was THE one. We kept talking and decided to meet in person.
Feb 2019:
We met in person and spent hours just talking. I didn't realise how time passed and felt very positive about him. He seemed to be self-assured while not being proud. This is a very thin line and I'd been judging everyone very harshly on this criterion. He seemed just perfect with respect to this aspect. A few weeks later, both of us gave our acceptances. My parents had spoken to his parents and they gave a waving green flag as well. It was at this stage that there was talk of a March wedding. The one major change was that I'd have to move half way across the country. This was too big of a change for me and I couldn't take that leap. I deferred talks of a marriage until May/June. He agreed to it and left for a trip to India. I thought it was all done and it was just a matter of him coming back and resuming talks. However, he started to have second doubts about the long term goals that we had decided on and how it would impact him.
Apr 2019:
PMJ returned and we were off for sometime. He needed time to think and I got scared. From imagining myself being married to not talking to that person was a huge transition. I started worrying on what would have happened if I had indeed agreed to a March wedding and he had second guessed his decision later. Went back to being sour and negative about everything related to marriages.
June 2019:
At this point all 3 of my friends were married and I started to feel the need to find a partner. Sometime in May, PMJ had gotten back to me and had given his green signal for the wedding. This time it was my turn to take forever to decide what I wanted to do with my life. My parents visited me and I was busy entertaining them, taking trips etc. Every other conversation revolved around getting married, finding the right person etc. I somehow started to feel PMJ was the right one considering all factors. Fate also seemed to be pushing me towards him. However, I was too occupied with family gathering and did not want to decide it then. I never thought I'd be deciding when I did. Just a week before my parents were to leave back to India, I went to my sister's place for a week. During the bus journey,dove deep into my thoughts and was able to see things clearly. It was at that minute somehow I had absolute clarity on what I wanted in life. Nothing else made more sense at that point and I wasn't scared any longer. He had said yes, I had really liked his parents, he seemed to be exposed to 2019 type of free thinking and was ok with it. He seemed mature enough to be able to take well thought of decisions; someone whose opinions I felt were well thought through and at the same time someone who was fun loving and interested in experiencing new things in life. That weekend I let my parents and family know of my decision and I told PMJ of the same. I was a little anxious if he had moved on. But it was in both our fates to end up together. He agreed! We had a conversation after a loong time. And that was it!
Off late its been more of wedding prep and getting to know each other's lifestyle habits etc.
This post has been suuper long. I'll be checking in from time to time with details on wedding prep and other interesting stuff. But for now, this is where I end this post.
Hoping my future self reading this is happy and still with PMJ! ;)
Until next time,
Shaya :D
