Having been single for a while, I can relate to this NYT article on the perils and social awkwardness of two straight men meeting one on one for dinner as much of it translates equally well for women.
Breakups are known trigger "Let's get together for dinner this Friday" phone calls between girls. We seek a confidante with a sense of humor. That may be the only time when it does not feel awkward to be all dressed up to meet another girl for dinner. We pique curiosity, people expect two men to show up at the table and wonder why they don't. I haven't felt pressures of presumed of homosexuality but then I have not watched too close.
Hitting the salad bar down the road during lunch hour is wholly stress free. No one gives you a second look, no quartet is expected to form magically. Something about a nice dinner on a weekend and two well dressed women calls out to their non-existent love life. We most often don't enjoy flaunting that.
An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t
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2) non-existent love life!!
I can tell you are clearly a lot younger than me or my girl-freinds. By when you come of this age you'll see what I'm saying. Hanging out with girlfrieds was fun for me to but from too long ago :-)
that makes me ask.. did you ever go out for dinners all by yourself.. at a fancy restaurant.. all dressed up..
that sure does get some attention.. esp since one has the time to sit and pay back attention to all that..
you write nicely though.. doesnt matter if I agree with the content or no..
I thought it gets better with age? non?