Alright boys and girls, here’s a short story for you all. A long time ago, way before you were born, some uncles and aunties got together and decided that marriages are too important to be left to chance (some of them had their hands burnt playing Monopoly). They took one short look at the collective dance abilities of our young men and knew peacocking was out of the question as a method of attracting a partner.
So, during breaks from accusing each other of cheating at Ludo, they agreed the best way forward was for them to take control of the matter. No longer would the youth have to awkwardly approach each other and use a good pickup line. After all, how can you expect the land of Khalil Ur Rehman to know what good lines are anyway? No sir!
Instead they could sit with all the elders watching and discuss their future there and then. Commodify the girl and the boy. Take the emotions out of it. Practicality at its best. So here we are, years later.
One day one of you will return to your home and be ‘pleasantly’ surprised to find your future in-laws and spouse sitting, waiting for you in your own living room. It’s like the time you were looking for your glasses only to find them sitting on top of your head along with the manufacturer hovering around too. The same exact feeling.
You will still need to put in some work. Lucky for you, I’ve got it narrowed down to 3 key things to help you through this process.
The 3 Tips!
- Install nanny cams : Poof! Surprise gone! If the potential partner is not to your liking just rearrange your clothes and hair to say ‘baby I’m as much marriage material as daal chawal is attractive to someone on the lookout for biryani’. Plus you’ll have stored footage of the people who came over. Bit of facial recognition tech know-how and you’ll be able to pull up the dirt on these guys. Extra points for not using the data until after marriage when you need to put your spouse in place. Oooh they will never see that coming. Unless they’ve also read this blog in which case you are both sitting on lots of juicy footage of each other which might make for some great reality TV. Happy cashing in!
- Parental Control: While you are at it, collect some major shit on your parents. And don’t tell me there isn’t any. Every human being has some weakness. Find it! Because they are sending you into the unknown people. Girls in particular, you all need to understand that when things go south, they will not be able to stand up for you because of societal pressure. If I had saved money how our people like to save face, I’d not be wasting my time writing blogs for people like you who can’t even be bothered to share this. I mean what does it take! But I didn’t so let’s get back to making YOUR life better. Heres’ the thing – you gotta be in a position of strength. Your parents will be forced to help you out if your spouse turns out to be a cuckoo or your in-laws want to treat you like how you treated your netflix shows – never appreciating how much it was there for you. By holding all the cards you can walk away to safety. Unless the cards are old credit cards that have long been cancelled. What are you doing holding on to those? Also work on your Poker face! In short, collect evidence for your own safety.
- Take acting classes : Look, even with the nanny cam and the backup evidence, chances are you will be cornered into bad setups. You take one look at the potential partner and you feel something called ‘wishing for death’. But you can’t run, you can’t hide in that moment. And you feel bad for the other person. Rejection never feels nice but you also don’t want to end up in marriage because you wanted to be nice. Cue acting classes. Feign a terrible accent. Pretend to have a tick – my favorite is twitching your neck everytime they say ‘I. Ask them who their favorite TV character is and mimic the character badly. Subtle little acts that send a signal to the other person that you might be the worst choice in the world. Acting classes will give you that confidence.
There you go my young people. Let me know which of these worked best for you. For those who have experienced this process, what was your favorite way of getting away.