It’s Weird Here

It really is. A lot of my friends and family have said “welcome to the club” or something to that effect and I can’t help but wonder if they’re being sarcastic. I don’t know what I was expecting to be honest. Here’s to hoping that my wife doesn’t read this until at least after our honeymoon, but I guess I was kind of expecting it to be worse in some ways and better in others. I suppose you can say marriage didn’t meet certain specific expectations. It hit the spot though, I’ll tell you that.

It’s really, really weird. Basically, I’ve been in all sorts of long and short term relationships, but none of them will ever live up to matrimony. For better or worse. Even if, supposedly, I had to live in with someone, it felt nothing like this. The feels are positive, mostly. The fact that you’re tied down with one woman for the rest of your life tries to hit you every now and then in a negative way, but it’s nothing you can’t shake yourself out of. The worst is when you think of your friends from the opposite sex, and you realize that you had never though of them “that way” before, but now you definitely, absolutely, positively cannot think of them in “that way” at all and you start to wonder why you hadn’t foreseen this thought?

You know how bad things happen when your expect them the least? It’s the same way with thoughts. I’d lay in bed sometimes, after I got engaged in 2011, and wonder what it would be like to be married. I wouldn’t exactly fantasize about it or anything, but I’d just try to inspect how it would feel. I would ruminate over scenarios that will probably never happen and problems and their solutions, and try to get the feel of everything. I would basically try to mentally prepare myself so I don’t get blindsided by a situation I didn’t see coming. The last question I mentioned in the paragraph prior to this did exactly that.

It’s difficult to explain. It’s actually difficult to understand. Socrates would understand. Socrates got married (to a woman at least 35 years younger than himself) and he’s famous for having said one thing about marriage, and I haven’t decided yet if I agree with what he had to say.

There’s only one thing I fear: social conditioning. I mean, Pakistani families are such assholes! I don’t want to get too deep into it, but even when people try to be nice, they’re being complete assholes. I want to take my marriage as far away as I possibly can from people. I don’t want their advice, because if they were so wise and right, more people would be happy. People try to influence other people and I am not the least bit impressionable, but I can’t say the same for my wife. I am the epitome of “in-on-ear-and-out-the-other” personality type, but even I’m not immune to what my subconscious chooses to register. Like earlier this week, someone from her extended family tried to advise us on transportation, and I was half a breath short of telling him to suck my dick. I didn’t because someone from my family had advised her on conservative dressing and she sucked it up. I needed to live up to the example she had, ever so elegantly, set for me.

That’s my only fear as far as marriage goes. I don’t want her, or myself, and our marriage to be influenced at all by this culture. Definitely not negatively, and I couldn’t care less for the positive influences. I mean, if something is meant to be, it will be, amirite?

I have never felt so complete though. I knew that it’d be great having someone to share everything with and having someone I can build memories for the rest of my life with, but I never knew how much I needed it. Putting my head down and soldiering through the thick and thin on my own for the last seven plus years, I was worried about being able to handle having someone with me all the time. It’s unbelievable how much more I’ve gotten out of it than I have had to give up, which is virtually nothing. The void that she filled in my life four years ago when I first met her had expanded infinitely and it wasn’t until she filled it again that I finally found peace & happiness.

It’s too early to say if marriage is everything I had expected it to be. Ask me again when I’m 40, and then again when I’m 60, and then again on my deathbed. I definitely intend to make it everything I ever expected it to be, more or less.

When in Pakistan…

Marry something.

Seriously! You have to. It’s our tradition. Plus it’s the law! Our land, our rules. Just do it. Something. Anything! Preferably, something educated. As a matter of fact, the higher this subject is educated, the more negative characteristics we’ll be willing to overlook.

For example: we’ll tolerate a unibrow for an intermediate education. We’ll take bad teeth, body hair and halitosis for a bachelor’s degree. Obesity and old age for a large inheritance. And obesity, unibrow and bad manners for an adult, well established, expatriate sloth. Unibrows, of course, count as a strength in certain parts of Pakistan. Specifically at and around 32.49722°N 74.53611°E. They’ll never figure it out.

That’s just the gist of our trading system. Please rest assured that the finer points are calculated by complex mathematical formulas, stored safely in the heads of our elders, and only brought forth by the twisting of a mustache in the presence of chai and absence of logic. You are in great hands. Literally, hundreds of them.

What’s that you say? You don’t want to get married? Why? Didn’t you know God sent everyone on earth as a couple; though precisely 3-6 years apart? There are other reasons too and if any one of the following reasons fit, we must not acquit.

It’s time:

We seldom abide by the rules of nature. With evolution, God bestowed upon us these amazing life clocks which we drilled into an area between our two cheeks and tethered to our brains. They’re quite simple. You are born, you are educated (or thrown into child labor), you maintain a presentable reputation and then BOOM! It’s marriage o’ clock. Sometimes, this hour of dread is preceded by gossip about how you’re still not married, but that’s not always the case. Also, you want to avoid the too-late-to-get-married o’ clock, which we will let you know of once it’s too late. Never before. Unless you have the aforementioned inheritance, by the time you finish reading this sentence, it’ll be too late.

It ticks for thee.

A chef & a maid:

Are you too busy (read: lazy) to feed and clean up after yourself? Perfect! The only logical solution we can think of is marriage. It’s not a man’s job to make his own bed in the morning and wash his own dirty underwear. There’s an app for that. It’s called a wife.

“Look at all these rice that aren’t my mustache.” Sorry.

Babies:

That’s right. Your parents are bored. Entertain them with grandchildren. Also, teach your kids at least 15 new tricks every day. Such as manners and not getting sick. If it can self-heal, we’ll be slightly impressed.

“I a make a you a baby. Take.”

Something about land:

In a society where wedlock becomes a trade and nepotism is promoted, consanguineous marriages are a big seller. It’s not only about inbreeding, it’s also about keeping the family heirlooms in the family. By family heirlooms, we mean assets. Anything capable of being owned, tangible or otherwise. Most of the time it’s land and property, but saying that “you’d be surprised” is an understatement.

Roughly the effect we’re trying to achieve.

Boredom:

You haven’t been married until you’ve gotten married out of sheer ennui. You’re done with your education, you’re making money (or sitting at home, as is the case with many females) and you don’t have much else to do. Before you go out and find love on your own, God forbid, we would like to do it for you. We’ll find you something you can love for the rest of your life due to a lack of awareness and a hint of insecurity.

“Mom! I’m bored. Rishta me, thanks.”