If you are still searching for Mr.Perfect or Miss.Perfect you better stop now, because there is no such thing. We have to accept the fact that each has his/her own imperfections and the fact is that is what makes us unique. I have heard people remarking that a guy is perfect and anyone marrying him is one lucky girl. May not be. Same goes for the girls as well. I remember a conversation we once had among friends in college. Someone was suggesting how great it would be if Aishwarya Rai were to marry one of us. It would be great for a day or two, may be month at max but then how does one get along with his life, with his dreams if Aishwarya were to be by his side with her own dreams of acting, moving to hollywood, etc. It might not work out for everyone. At least I said that ‘What do we have in common that we could make a life out of it’. Though an astronomical improbability it made for an exciting discussion and there was a friend of mine who said he would still marry her even if she were to have both her limbs cut off. Wow…
Moving ahead, the whole point was it would not suffice even for the greatest beauty to be the first automatic choice on anyone’s list in marital engagement. So then who would make a perfect fit. Well, one size does not fit all. To each his own. In short ‘Compatibility’ is the keyword. You might think that a girl is just plain stupid, but to someone else she might be the most brilliant creature that ever walked this planet. Similarly one who you might think is an out-of-this-world beauty might not even make to someone else’s list. So even if the world’s most handsome man marries the world’s glamarous girl it might not be a perfect match unless they are compatible, unless they entertain the same values in their life. Same goes for the inteligent pairings. On the other hand compatible couples have a easy going with their marriage and it takes very little effort from them to keep it entertaining, day in and day out much to everyone else’s surprise.
I hate people who when you give them a marriage album start comparing the pair physically, stating the girl is little short for the boy or so. It is not completely irrelevant as I have a personal opinion that too much of a disparity in anything between couples calls for trouble (be it money, status or beauty) unless they are really bound together. But then it does not matter if the boy is a foot taller or the girl is couple of inches broader. All that matter is they have common values.
But compatibility is not superficious. Just because you like ‘Kamal Hassan’ and she likes ‘Rajni’ you need not call it quits. Your favorite colors might be different and so may be the food you both like. Still the underlying values, dreams and the outlook of life is what determines your compatibility. In fact it is easy to find that someone is just not right for you in minutes but it takes months to know that he/she is the one. That is why I always say a big No-No to the traditional arranged marriages. Of course people have started on a new concept (recently read an article on a book about arranged marriages), where it says that you can have a few meetings just to know each other (not the ones where the boy is from US on a short vacation and in pressure to get maried before he leaves back and so has just a day to speak to the girl and the boy/girl are at their acting best to please each other). You need some quality time to spend lavishly to get to know about someone truly. It is good if both approach it with open mind wanting to know how the other person would fit in their life. No one would have any doubts about their friends. So it might take the same time as it takes to make a good friend (and that depends and varies from person to person).
Remember it is hard to break once you are tied for life. And in the end when you do get married please accept your spouse as is. It is not easy to change someone and is doing so you might erase the individuality of the person. Everyone is different and so stop comparing with others who you meet in life, because you might not know this real ‘other’.
To end I will quote a passage from an email forward that has been already posted in this blog “I had arrived home late…as usual…and decided we would have breakfast food for dinner. I found the ingredients I needed, and quickly began to cook eggs, turkey sausage, and buttered toast. Thinking I had things under control, I glanced through the mail for the day. It was only a few minutes later that I remembered that I had forgotten to take the toast out of the oven! Now, had it been any other day — and had we had more than two pieces of bread in the entire house — I would have started all over. But it had been one of those days and I had just used up the last two pieces of bread. So burnt toast it was! As I set the plate down in front of Jack, I waited for a comment about the toast. But all I got was a “Thank you!” I watched as he ate bite by bite, all the time waiting for some comment about the toast. But instead, all Jack said was, “Babe, this is great. Thanks for cooking tonight. I know you had a hard day.” As I took a bite of my charred toast that night, I quietly thanked God for giving me a marriage where burnt toast wasn’t a deal-breaker!”
Embrace imperfection and live happy.