A TV anchor meets a couple and the first question she asks is “Was yours a love marriage?” and the couple somehow feel bad saying that theirs was arranged. It doesn’t sound nice. And you should see the pride in the couple that say the other answer.
For many the fundamental problem in life is ‘Should I marry the girl my parent choose’ or ‘should I love someone and marry him/her’. Somehow pride is attached with love, especially during the college days. A Boy feels proud to say that a girl is in love with him and the same holds true to most of the girls as well. And those who are not in love are looked upon as incapable or even impotent. The fact is that you cannot just go and start loving someone or wait and pray that you would be loved.
Well then what do we do. Do we marry a girl who we haven’t even heard about and just because our parents assure that she is the best match for us. After all they claim that they have done a lot for us from childhood and know what is good for us. NO.. IMPOSSIBLE.. It doesn’t work all that well and for many it turns out to be the worst mistake of their life. In the best case it has a 50-50 chance for success. Something similar to tossing a coin and calling for heads. Great if you get heads, but WAIT it is a decision that is going to affect the better part of your life. Should you leave it to chance? Have you heard that “A known DEVIL is far better than an unknown ANGEL”.
I have seen people doing a great research before buying their bike. They want a classy, fuel efficient, powerful one that is also cheap. When they don’t get all they want, they just do some compromise on the ‘not-so-important’ features but make sure that their priority features are met. And they are proud to have the vehicle. Now when you take so much care for a vehicle which is not going to bother you (It doesnt even talk to you or go against your wishes) and you can sell it later if you don’t like it or when a newer model arrives, then to have someone as your better-half, who can make or mar your life, you need to be atleast a little more cautious that just tossing a coin and hoping for heads.
Now where does that leave us? I can summarize three options
1. Marry the one your parents choose and you don’t have the slightest idea about the person – A STRONG NO except when you are way too old (30+)
2. Love a person and marry him/her – MORE ON THIS BELOW
3. Choose your life partner – MORE ON THIS BELOW
Well the next option is to “Fall in love”, and you will literally fall. We have heard some facts like love should be spontaneous and that you should be careful to avoid infatuation. Bull Shit!! It is almost impossible to find true love and much more difficult to hold on to one. The first requirement is that you should be lucky enough and the next one is that you should be bold, brave and if need be fight with all your might to end up in marriage. Pretty tough considering that you need to prosper in your career at around the same time. But should you find one and go to to marry him/her, you can rest in peace. Believe me, there is nothing like having a wonderful friend at home who also happens to be your spouse. But it doesn’t end up in bliss for many and as I have pointed out, you need to be LUCKY.
So the best option is to ‘CHOOSE Your Life Partner’. And it is ‘risk-free’, ‘returns-guaranteed’ way of approaching the entire problem. This is very simple and is synonymous with dating. Make friends of the prospective persons and date with them. Stay in the yellow line, be more than a friend, but just don’t yet commit to the relationship. You will in the course of time get to know a lot about the person and even if it doesn’t work out (She says NO one fine day or you find that she is incompatible or worse still, inpalatable) you need not sprout beard or spend your money on drinks to show your dissappointment. Just move on to another person. But again you need to make some compromises and keep your PRIORITIES right (like $%%^!@(#, personality, character etc) or else you will spend most of your life searching. I know it is not all that easy to understand a person a lot by this way, but you can give it a try and you will get better results that just sitting in a corner and tossing a coin.