Excerpt from an email today...

This morning I woke up to this email from one of my friends. I was close with him first year, and then haven't had much of a chance to hang out with him. It was the usual for the both of us: me with my B-related ebbs and flows, and him with his chain-smoking, late-night study-fests.

He's totally awesome though, and it was great to see him again and just catch up. He laid the whopper on me that he was going to be (arranged to be) married. Then the next day, he sent me this:


It was good meeting up that day after a long time. I guess now that almost all my requirements are over I am a bit more relaxed. Sorry I had not told you about the marriage plans earlier. I guess not too many people know about it except ____ people and some in the Indian community, which are the people I have been in touch with over the last year. The reason I decided to get married was because my room mate's mom convinced me to. Its a funny story. She said I should definitely get married, and i was like why? And she was
telling my roommate's dad to convince me that marriage is great. And then when I did not look convinced she said well you can have sex every night. I was like, no not every night. And she was like, yes! That was funny. So I said OK maybe I should give it a try.

It was hilarious. Anyway, jokes aside, I guess I decided that the sort of women I am attracted to are not the types I am compatible with. That may have played a role. Lets see how it goes though.

Now I feel a bit conflicted. What do I say in response to this? My instinct is to say, Dude, hold out, you'll find someone-- you're awesome; believe me, I know! -- but it's not my place. I know I'm judging, which is especially retarded because (1) I don't know any couples who were in arranged marriages; (2) I know even less about successful relationships or marriages. I wanted to write back a pages-long response (along the lines of the classic you're-selling-yourself-short-you're-an-amazing-guy-just-be-patient argument).

I keep wondering how far is too far to shove my nose into this affair. I feel bad because I must have made immediately apparent a lot of my "are you sure this is what you want" reservations. I think that's what he's responding to in this email. It also troubles me because I know I'm not voicing anything more strongly because I don't want to step on cultural toes. But to what extent does cultural tradition preclude my normal friendly yet ill-thought-out opinions?

I think this requires some whiskey and Meerkat Manor to digest it all...