That in the days of yore how a woman roasted pappad was all it took to tell what kind of wife she would. The very notion of seems bizarre today. Yet such folk wisdom was all it took for marriages in the past to happen and remain glued. It may be argued that women were not independent, they lacked the options they have today but that may only be part of why those marriages worked. In a time of trademarked and patented matchmaking systems involving twenty five dimensions of human personality, the trusty pappad would no doubt have to crumble and bite dust.
Today, incumbent relationships suffer from wanting to peel off layers of the partner's personality in twenty five dimensions and more until all is laid bare. The premise being you can never tell and what's more never trust until you get to that point.
That seems a fairly shaky foundation to begin a potentially life long relationship with. With the burgeoning online match-making services turning increasingly sophisticated that seems to be the choice of millions on their quest for happiness and companionship. There is no longer such a thing as following your gut and surrendering to predestination.
Our approach to relationships is like that of an informed consumer. We are cognizant of our choices and will not get into something without making sure there is not a bigger better deal out there. We will bide our time until the "prefect" connection happens. Settling for anything less than perfect is short changing ourselves.
After all is said and done and the "click" finally happens, the initial euphoria of connecting with the soul-mate does not take too long to be replaced by ennui. The spark of life in a relationship is the slow process of discovery, together with measures of shock and surprise.
We succeed in talking all of that to death even before we get to being one. So where grandma and grandpa at ninety even and odd enjoyed being silent together, our generation wearies too soon of having nothing left to talk about.
o what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive - first in believing what makes us happy is inherently different from what makes most other people happy and then in believing we will know the whole truth about our partner when we don't know it about ourselves.
When compatibility is reduced to science it opens up the possibility of many possible partners instead of the one pre-destined one. In consciously making our final choice, we exclude all other possibilities. What is to say that "the one" was not lost in our misguided exercise of free will ?
Comments
However we reach there - the one if you will, is pre-destined. Our forefathers had a simpler algorithm than we do. I think in that they were lucky.