Selection

Sorry for my late reply viswa sir. Wishing you and Mrs viswamitera belated happy wedding anniversary.

 

I opt for the write-in 'any opinion is welcome' rather than extend the facilitating hints because many of the ubiquitous kick-starter points (1-13 in the original post) are remote in my offbeat approach to life. Below are the features fancied in a man which makes him an eligible bachelor to my definition and suitability.

Goofy: He is spontaneous witty who doesn't coax profound meaning out of every flutter and shine in the wild. He simply goofs about in his pottering. Funny and teasy! He indulges in a hearty chuckle at life's absurdity and failing. I prefer native intelligence to textual intelligence, someone who is a quick and creative thinker rather than a slavish thinker with stuffy ideas. The man should be committed to silly dalliances and utterly make-believe thought experiments with me. If he inquires dry: 'what are your views on capitalism and communism'... or 'what are your views on the role of a woman and a man ...<blah>' I would scurry away. I prefer the animated: why did the elephant cross the road form of inquisition of the mind. He springs up, tosses back, weighs down ..with crackling humor and unpedantic indulgence.



Moose: For a human, that too a woman, I could be short-burst hair-splitting capable of deploying militant levels of combat whilst defending the size of pepper corns added to the sambhar powder, and equally give an earful in sharp confrontations in personal conflicts. I'm iron-clad or immune to emotional breakdown to not only withstand but promptly graze over virulent spars with mental partition. I could flip-flop between intense and inane dealings with ease. The man should sustain the gradient mettle to lock horns with me and not feel rundown by the extremities in my confrontational style (I whip up hot-debate and swing to cold-debate and scorch it up only to freeze it down or dismissively laugh it up in a tomfoolery). Many find that bewildering and intimidating in me ....where the norm is to brood plaintively and ceaselessly till the bone crumbles and sulk till the skin withers ...but the kindred man always finds such upheaval from ferocity to flippancy attractive and amusing in me. He should be lively with charitable interpretations in conflicts: She does not mean it the way she says it whereas I playfully insist: You meant it the way you could never have said. He should be a jolly moose in barbed face-off and comic gainsay. I don't impose on the man to say the right thing at the right time as that would be delusion to wait up on the opportune timing. He could utter the devastating put-down at unlikely timing and I could shrug of as is expected of him when I swap the blows.



Pygmalion: I look down on men who look up to me. The man should sense an uncouth waif with obnoxious upbringing in me. The man sports to reform and ascend me rather than be gratifying to the differential aspect in me. He should refine me, uplift me, and recast me into better me. He should incite that aspiration in me from his smugness. He is that pygmalion who ever falls in love with his metamorphosing padawan.



I have no concern for biological clock tick-tocking away rapidly depleting me of the transition into a fulfilling woman. I have no truck with relationship labels, common wisdom, solicitous interference in my vicinity of friends. I am jocularly teased as that earlier George Clooney who cavorts with many but commits to none (which by the way is a well-spread rumor contrived by me to maintain my invincible status). I have unhurried leisure to discover what it takes for me to be in a compelling and blossoming relationship with an eligible bachelor who is goofy and moosey and pyggy.

 

There are deal breaker requirements, and then there are trade-offs. Educated girls (and boys do too) have their spider web diagram quality-criteria comparisons. Deal breaker requirement(s) are outside this spider diagram. Given the DB-criterion is satisfied, the largest area on the spider diagram is the winning choice.



Recently there was a case of wanting a hairy-husky, but having ended up with a specimen that was smooth-skinny after x years of marriage. This was a likely case of not having a deal-breaker at the beginning, rather than change in the specimen later on.

An ideal choice would be long lasting in the Deal Breaker satisfaction, i.e., the chosen would remain the same or better in this criterion of choice over time.... and stay within an acceptable range in other major criteria.

Typical deal-breakers, usually easily seen (or found out) could be:
1. not enough lucre., prospects for lucre are not so good.
2. ugly [ in whatever manifestations ]
3. not clever enough[imbecility? ... avoid "Piled high and Deep" characters]

Girls also get more sophisticated in their criteria, and better nuanced in their selection as they become older, know more of the possibilities, and get wiser. There is likely some graph that plots a girl's age (abscissa) vs. the number of available gents with a spider diagram inputs (ordinate) on the internet somewhere. At some range of what is "marriage'able age" girls would reach the maximum in the number of candidates she could get to winnow down to a short list. This is the time for Aunties/Parents to work on the girl to point out the various pros/cons of reaching a decision.

 

I was 26 years when my parents decided that it is the age for me to settle down. Growing up in a nuclear family, and the only witnessed relationship is grandparents/ and parents, with no positive talk of relationship/ marriage. But with a lot of negative connotation towards love marriage, problems of aunt's marriage life, hushed gossip of being in a relationship. Had built the strong walls of the unknown after marriage.

I still remember being such a nervous wreck when my in-laws came to see me, my mother in law held my hand, as I was so tensed I had clutched it. I remember the softness of my mils hand rub my hands and the warm smile she gave me. She is a good woman and so is her son. I was very nervous about my MIL and SIL- (family stories of how these women can/ would make my life hell)

I wanted to share that I had a very deep non-trusting attitude towards the unknown-

My preference to select the guy was
1. should talk the same language,
2. Should have done MS.
3. Should be working in the US ( I was in the US too)
4. Really did not think or care about GC then. Who knew, it will be 9 years of wait.
5. I wanted a guy- who is ready to meet my needs/ understand - halfway.
6. Someone who is genuine and means what they say.
7. I was also looking for a guy- who is taller. Like taller than 5.8 I am not a tall person, I just like tall men.
8. More than physical appearance- I wanted the guy to carry himself well.
9. Did not think too much about in-laws. Luckily, I have a good bond with them and with my SIL too.


I met my husband online on a matrimony website- we dated for 5 months and I went back to India and met his parents and stayed in India until I got married.
I was a nervous wreck on my wedding day- I remember being so overwhelmed with emotions, the struggle not to displease anyone, to be on the best behavior. I had the worst fever after the wedding and couldn't enjoy anything until I came to the US.

Every one is different- I was just brought up in a very nuclear family setting, which affected a lot of my thoughts. I was never given confidence from parents that I would be able to overcome any problem. Instead, told that I should do all sort of preventative controls before you sense a problem.

 

All the reasons I got married for , turned out to be 'good from afar '. Nothing was as I believed it to be before marriage.
FYI, I had chosen the guy myself ( not an arranged match),was super sure about him.
Turned out we are poles apart and incompatible.If only I could go back, I would tell my naive self - don't have your head full of fantasies , be practical in every sense of the word and most importantly , don't ignore any red flags , even if rest of the world says otherwise.

 

No Himalayas, men just pop-up in Christmas party wearing Moose-themed sweaters.




I feel stagnant and wearied in a relationship when the man does not provoke me with tactical and worldly insights. Like, we could be eating and talking when the man thoughtfully cites: 'But that travel documentary you watched sounds much like Edward Hoagland'. I give a phoney nod through a mouthful of spaghetti. That night, I would return home and pore over ...who the heck is this Hagland or Hogland. The next day I would pretentiously and abruptly while eating tandoori chicken exclaim: 'I want to eat this chicken to my Heart's Desire like that book of Edward Hoagland'.

The man knowingly tips his head (aha: I know what she did last night) while the Bridget Jones in me puffs up at her day-old and minuscule knowledge of this Mark Darcy's Hoggaland. I like that pyggy (Pygmalion) and hoggish delight between my man and me. This is what keeps the relationship playfully going for me, and to think of, even to embark on one. This Pygmalion-Padawan aspect is defining for me to sustain a relationship with a man.