Fourth Way

Unless you are a woman all of whose girlfriends are married, chances are that you often find yourself listening to someone who is going through relationship problems and wants to share their woes with you. Over the years, the common theme I have seen come from these outpourings is one of feeling extreme emotional vulnerability. This state of mind is particularly confusing to a woman who views herself as liberated, open-minded and a free agent doing as she pleases without being beholden to societal expectations of her gender.

Fifteen to twenty years ago in India, it was not commonplace for women to be in a physically intimate relationship before marriage. That has since changed. Those who moved west at the time were able to bring such change into their lives even earlier. "Empowerment" to live freely came to both only at different times in their lives.

Up to this point, it all sounds good. The girls no longer feel like their net worth in the marriage market is dependent entirely on the possession of an unruptured hymen. Sadly, other problems have taken their place. In the brave new world, desi women are willing and able to enter into a physically intimate relationship without having a wedding date calendared. However, to alleviate the feelings of guilt associated with being in such a state, they allow (indeed require) love to lead them there.

So when men turn out not to have any serious intent or are simply not prepared to take on the responsibility of marriage but want to continue in a friends plus benefits arrangement, women start to become progressively unhappy. They are no longer sure, if what they have going on is what they really want. The happiness of unbridled freedom is soured by a gnawing sense of doubt often tinged with hopelessness. Then there are all the complications that come into play with the man morphing suddenly into Mama's boy who allows his family to find him a bride and pretends the relationship did not even exist. Often, that's where a girlfriend such as yours truly is called and gets to be the much needed damp shoulder.

As much as I want to be helpful to my sisters in times of distress, I can't but help point out the fatal flaw in their ways. I don't say this from any kind of moral high ground at all. I have told several of them that they need to recalibrate a little and things will improve dramatically. If they feel the need for intimacy they can just have that and leave. There is simply no need to perpetuate a very temporal thing into an unnecessary relationship in order to feel less immoral about it. It is not enough to merely shed physical inhibition (which clearly they have done), it is far more important to rise above the cultural conditioning and shed the moral ones - a far more subtle and therefore insidious impediment to their desire to be free.

It's fair to tell a man that's what it's going to be - a short duration liaison with no end game and they can go their separate ways after that. It is important to end things definitively and not leave them unresolved and therefore the door open for emotional entanglement  - something I notice girls don't do so well. If someone looks like serious marriage material then this would clearly not be the way to proceed. One woman said "That's like using and throwing them". I agreed that may be a way of looking at it except when the rules of engagement are made clear from the start, the word "use" does not apply any more.

Being that men generally like women to be emotionally involved while in a "relationship", intimacy without that connection is often quite meaningless to them. Many will never agree to be part of such an arrangement. Having enjoyed the privilege of being the party that decides when and how to end things, it may be quite painful not being able to do so.

Alternately, I suggest they could go through the motions of being deeply in love with the man and keep themselves emotionally detached. So when the end comes, there will not be any broken pieces to be picked up. The man gets to have a well satiated ego and she is truly free. It seems to be a win-win situation (unless you count the inability to trust or become be the kind of person someone else cannot trust) even if based on deception.

If neither works then they have no choice but to become like me - a non-participating bystander watching the dating gaming shenanigans and providing acerbic though not necessarily astute commentary. It is fairly entertaining but provides little else besides. "Isn't there a fourth way ? Like two people starting as friends, being in committed relationship and then getting married" a woman asked me recently.

That is entirely in the realm of possible but the more I hear form my girlfriends about what they go through in the process of trying to find (and keep) love, the more the "fourth way" sounds like a modern day Cinderella story. The only difference being these women don't wait for their prince to show up with the glass slipper. They have taken matters into their own hands and are willing to kiss many frogs along the way to finding their man. Somewhere in that muddle of mixed metaphors of fairy tale references, the frogs end up remaining frogs, kisses notwithstanding and the other slipper goes missing along with the prince who was supposed to find them.