No Country for Single Men

As all of my readers know by now, that I am a single guy. That should not be confused with a lonely guy Iam far from lonely. Single yes, lonely no.

I am OK with my marital status. I do not have, nor have I ever had a biological clock ticking inside me. Hell as a matter of fact, I am not even obsessed with watches like most of the people I know.

I have nothing against the institution of marriage. I would get married if the right girl came along, or if she posted a marriage proposal on my blog – but in the mean time I enjoy leading the life of a single guy. In fact, even in my ‘aadhar card’ application. Next to the word “single” that I had checked under marital status, I wanted to write “hell yes”. Alas! These Govt people I tell you, expecting them to have a sense of humour is like expecting Sunny Deol to win a dance show (but Nandan you too? I expected better).

Let me put it straight, I absolutely enjoy all of the luxuries and perks that come with being single.  

Alas!  The tragedy is, “being single” is looked down upon as not just taboo but an unpardonable sin in this country:

1.    As they say charity begins at home, so too the torture subjected to a single guy. Everybody who is any way related to you, will in every possible way impress upon you the importance of getting married.

2.    Any achievement. Car, House, New Job will always be followed with a caveat “ab toh shaadi ka time aa gaya’. Oh! God is it crime to celebrate your achievement as a single guy???

3.    You will be subjected to innumerable hours of lecture on how not getting married at the right time in your life will ruin your future forever.

4.    People, who celebrate the birth of a male child with fervor and mourn at girl’s birth, will start giving you a long sermon on how very few good girls will be left for you as you get older.

5.    Oh! Don’t even ask about elderly people in your know-how. They will start saying things like “Son I am just waiting for you to get married so that I can close my eyes and embrace the eternal bliss of heavenly sleep”. Seriously??? Err!  Correct me if I am wrong. In that case isn’t my act of getting married, abetment to suicide? #justasking

6.    Oh! Another thing. You will be continuously subjected to offensive homophobic insinuations. Forget about how insulting it is for a heterosexual being, but imagine how deeply insensitive & regressive it is towards the LGBT community which is already fighting against this stereotypical prejudice. If a single working woman, who has crossed the marriageable age, is labeled as modern, ambitious, promiscuous, haughty, cheap and someone having a loose character.  We males suffer no less. We are seen as potential molesters, eve teasers, rapists, pedophiles, gays and in some cases psychos, YES!!! This how we are looked upon. You see most guys get married and even those who have been divorced or widowed are remarried in a year or two, hence single males are rare to find. Media has portrayed all single men in the forms that I have mentioned before. Why can’t people understand that we are law abiding citizens who have just chosen to stay single by choice and are not a threat to anyone? Staying single creates an aura of mystery around us, as we pursue our interests and live a happy life we are bound to raise the curiosity of our neighbors. Especially jobless good for nothing retired senior citizens who have no other work are found wiling away their time in the compound of the building gossiping about god knows what. And our very sight adds fuel to their gossip, some sentences can be commonly overheard are “What is wrong with him, such a nice person and staying single”, “There must be some problem with him, some sexual problem or maybe he is gay”,”kya Zammana aa gaya hai, kalyug hai”. 

7.    At work we bear the brunt and become the beasts of burden, we are asked to stay back for longer times, work on holidays and take other people’s workload. Why???? Well you are single, what are you going to do by staying at home?? Better come to the office and work?? Others have families and children so they need to attend to them!!! My Question is, that don’t we have any life of our own?? Don’t we have any interests or hobbies that we want to pursue after work hours?? Have our married colleagues done some sort of obligation on the Society by getting married and producing children??? PATHETIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is what I can say.

8.    As a single guy everybody assumes that you can spend uninhibitedly, after all who else do you have to spend on? If you are a single guy irrespective of whatever your choice or taste is, you will always be considered an automatic choice any guys group “Thailand” plan.  Also generally in every group you will have a group member who has painstakingly, fighting all odds placed before him by the society and law built up a fantastic porn collection. But come marriage time, he will dump his treasure on his single friend like how we dump deleted files from the computer into the “recycle bin”. Which in itself is not worst thing that can ever happen :p

9. They say that British have left our country about 66 years back, but the prejudices & discrimination's they perpetrated are alive even today. You don't believe me? Here is an e.g. Apparently British used to put a board at some exclusive places which said "Indians & Dogs not allowed" (in a sense they were equating the indigenous populace with canines). This is still very much evident, just go to any nightclub as single male (the glorified title is "stag") & you will experience mistreatment of the worst kind. Most places wont admit you, if they do they will charge an exorbitant entry fee (@ 1 club in Goa they were charging a 1000 Rs for a couple & 8000 Rs for a single guy), at other places they might allow you to enter but a row of brutish bouncers create an impenetrable "Laxman Rekha" between the Haves(couples) and the stags. In fact this has reached such absurd levels that a Virat Kohli asking Tammanna's number in the Celkon phone's ad is almost branded as an attempted sexual harassment act by some feminists

A simple message to all the members of the society is that please treat us as Human Beings and not unsocial animals. We are law abiding citizens who have chosen to walk a different path in our life. We are not a threat to your women be it your wives, sisters and daughters. I understand that such creatures do exist but their habitat is in Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. We are not desperate, being single has taught us how to control our carnal desires. No, we are not gay and queer, just because we are not married or maybe don’t intend to do so. We certainly don’t suffer from impotence or erectile dysfunction as some of you think and certainly we are not some lonely psychos who have become mentally depressed and are brooding and crying in their rooms. Our life is filled with activities, hobbies, passions and interests that give us immense joy.

And now to tell you why we chose to stay single. You see, choice and destiny are combined together.

Some of us come from dysfunctional or broken families, having seen so many emotional problems in our childhood, we have given up on marriage, some of us are once bitten and hundred times shy, we loved someone deeply but that person broke our heart and left us and now we don't have any strength to love someone else and the rest are career oriented who are not willing to give up their passion and get married. If Woman can choose to stay single in order to pursue their career interests, can’t we men do the same??

So for god’s sake let us live our lives, PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!