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We Indians are a nosy bunch. It does not matter where you are – school, college, family function, railway station, security check, maybe even public toilets, people are bound to ask personal question. Very often, intimate questions are asked as if they are a conversation starter, and there is genuine surprise if you take offense at it.
Even with close relatives and family, the questions never stop. Are you single, why aren’t you dating, why aren’t you married, why no kids, why only one, why three kids, why no pets, why dog, why cat, why divorced, why together. There is nothing that cannot be questioned, and no stage in life that one can be perfectly conforming to some mythical standard of life. A guy friend who looks like he is somewhere in that indeterminable age bracket of 25 to 40 given his looks and how he carries himself, often finds himself being asked, “Do you have any kids?” It really annoys him. It was one thing for the neighbourhood uncles and aunties to ask when he is out buying vegetables from the street vendor and they are also there. He could excuse it thinking they are trying to see if they can pass on their kids to his home for play dates and give themselves a free hour or two. It is quite another when random people come to him in the gym or in the metro and ask, as if it is a filtering criterion for making friends. Of late, he has been answering such queries with, “None that I know of,” or “Why, has anybody been claiming they are my child?” and other such responses, finding that by having a sense of humour for himself atleast he gets a laugh out of it. The ability to make a joke out of this and just laugh one’s way out of it is not easy and is certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. When you are dependent or in a socially difficult position, or in some other way vulnerable, these questions can be really scary. It can be hard for someone with nothing to report, and equally scary for someone whose love is different, for example, someone in love with a person say eighteen years older and/ or from a different community or any of the other dozen odd parameters, questions can be really scary and causing one to hold their love secret even when you know that it is a perfectly consensual, adult relationship. Keeping something as powerful and as personal as love a secret is never easy. We are social creatures after all, and want to share, want to be visible with our love, want to celebrate it and live the relationship with a sense of being accepted if not encouraged. So, what do you do if the questions keep coming and you don’t want to answer them at all? The simple answer is: Don’t answer them. Learn to say No in the way appropriate for you in your social situation. As published in: :http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2017/sep/22/are-you-married-dating-any-kids-when-do-the-questions-stop-1661256.html The question of ‘type’ comes up every now and then. Mostly on lazy Sunday brunches with friends or late night after-parties. Some people are very clear about their type, and others claim they have no type at all and that they are quite versatile when it comes to their choices of who they might be with.
When there is a lot of time to kill and enough goodwill, the latter usually finds themselves the target of a whole lot of ‘What about X person’ questions, starting with celebrities and public figures, and narrowing slowly to inner circles, waiting for tell-tale blushes, stutters, throat clearings and other giveaways which can then lead to some proper ribbing of the ‘ A and B, sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G’ types, till finally some sort of confessional emerges or people just get bored and move on to the next entertainment. Thing is: Do people really have a certain ‘type’? What is this ‘type’ anyway? It is about looks? Age? Social life? Culture? Fitness? All of these? What one is attracted to is often so unpredictable till it happen, and when it happens over and over or you find that attraction sticky and it refuses to go away, there you go – you have a type. It would be simple enough if we could just have that ‘A Ha’ moment and go on merrily with our lives, meeting our types and just having a good old time. It is never that simple, is it. Somehow, social norms develop around what ‘types’ go with what. In sitcom language, the jocks go with the cheerleaders, the nerds stick together, the brainiacs do their thing. There are laws in the jungle, so to say. It is all nice and easy when the types all fall right in line, but that is so often not the case. The exceptions to the norm are so many that one questions if there is even any real ‘normal.’ If you find yourself different from your general peer group in the ‘types’ that you are into, it can lead to some serious heartache. You might hesitate to introduce one to the other, keep things secretive and private as much as possible till inevitably the worlds collide and you have no option but to be out with it, or suffer for eternity. Negotiating your social circles when you have an unexpectedly different love interest can get tricky. It can be met with curiosity, humour to downright discrimination and hostility. It can really test you – are you really committed to this person and the lifestyle it means? Can you bear with social differences and awkwardness till people get used to it? Can you help those around you understand and accept your particular choice, and treat you and your love with respect? It does take some effort, and the only thing that makes it easier is the ability to first be quite comfortable with your own type. If you aren’t, well, you got some work to do on yourself. As written for: http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2017/sep/16/do-sitcoms-have-a-say-in-what-your-type-in-relationships-is-1657966.html |
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