How I Was “Finally” Registered On A Wedding Portal At 30 After Staying Single By Choice

A hilarious account of how the ‘forces of society’ finally led to this ‘single by choice’ 30 year old woman to get registered on a wedding portal.

As another year was added to all the years that had piled up to the 29 years of my existence, I realized I had quite unknowingly become a very new senior member of an epidemic thronging our country. The numbers of Single Women hanging on the very fine line between being within ‘marriageable age’ and the ones beyond who could no longer be prime specimens in the ‘marriage market’.

Being 30 and being single in India means that you now have to prepare yourself for the following.

A Groom…

…who as per your mom, in all likeliness, will be almost bald with his belt wrinkled by the strain to hold his protruding belly together for him.

The Aunty Exam

Prepare yourself not to be found alone in any social gathering (especially marriages), else you might risk being thronged by aunties who care more about you being single and running out of time, than anything else!

The question & answer round(s)

Prepare yourself a good answer to the question “Arey shadi kyu nahi karni tumhe?” (Why do you not want to get married?) A warning here, when faced with such questions you can’t answer that you don’t feel you are ready yet (because you are thirty, how can you not be ready?) or that you are still trying to get settled in your career.

Pat shall come another question, ”Beta shadi ke bina bhi koi kabhi settle hua hai bhala?” (Has anyone ever been ‘settled’ without getting married?)

The Fault in your Stars

If this wasn’t enough, you ought to prepare yourself for regular visits to some ‘jyotish’ (astrologer) or ‘Baba’ who shall make it all right for you. Maybe there is a fault in your stars and no one but he can make it right for you. All your fingers shall soon be covered with stones influencing cosmic powers, fighting all the negative influences and thoughts, which are not letting you walk down the road to the ‘mandap’ (wedding hall).

Be a social recluse

Start preparing to expect constant pings on Facebook and Whatsapp, of your married friends posting pictures of their latest trips to the most exotic places on the planet with their spouses, with their couple friends, with their smiles extending from ear to ear, while you were busy with work, or just busy. All you do is sulk.

FoMO (Fear of Missing Out)

Start preparing to see your friends in a new avatar. Friends who made promises of not getting married, of enjoying single-dom till their last breaths, all of a sudden think that getting married is like adding another feather to your hat. So how can their dear friend be deprived of it?

No matter how hard one tries it’s difficult to ignore this pressure and slowly and steadily it becomes a part of your system. You become a pro at answering all the nonsensical questions being shot at you from all directions.

So after all this, one begins to think maybe you are on the wrong. Maybe what the entire world is saying has some weight to it. After all we have to give some merit to the age old wisdom of the aunties and uncles, to your philanthropist friends who have recently joined the cult and are desperate to share their happiness with you.

So when even your friends are standing on the other end of the rope, when even your dreams are telling you about the dejected lonely life that you have chosen for yourself, what does one resort to?

• Declare Celibacy- “Mai aur meri tanhai” (Me and my solitude)
• Start reminding your other unmarried friends about the long made pact, ”Agar 30 tak koi nahi mila toh tu hoga na mere dost?” (If we’re single still by 30, you’ll be there for me, right?)
• Register oneself on a wedding portal.

So such was the case and such my dilemma, and it all led me to register on a wedding portal, with a little hesitation and zero enthusiasm, but with a certain degree of curiosity about what followed next.

Header image is still from the movie Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham

Katyayni Bhandari

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