The first date... or maybe not!

As contributed by EssEss!

I may not have been born to write. But was I born to meet the weirdest species on this earth??! Oh hell yes!!!? Guess not! And so here I am, attempting to write on this blog.

The matrimony weirdos….have met all varieties…tall, short, fat, thin. The corporate ones. The mamas' boys. “I m the NRI” MCPs. The “How have I lived without you” types.

This special one however takes the cake. It’s difficult to wash my memories of this particular event; no matter how much soap I use.

It was my first time.

Just fresh out of college my parents decided that we should start while I was young and look out for 'a suitable boy'! Not knowing any better I complied.

There's always a first time, people say. I knew this was the first time and I had no expectations from it. My parents were probably more eager. First time lucky they must've thought. So when the proposal came along, we were all willing to meet the boy. All except the boy!

He wanted it to be a date. A one to one conversation so to speak. Let's get to know each other. Let's meet without the pressure types. Well, alright, we debated. Maybe that's the norm. What were we newbies to know!

So, I met this tall, fat, curly-haired "I am the NRI" category at a coffee shop of a renowned 5 star hotel. The conversation steered from reasons for his return from UK to the new surprise bungalow bought by him in Juhu scheme. Why?! Go figure! Then the questioning started. Almost an interview. Almost an interrogation (But heck! That's another story, oops, blog post!) As I tried to take in what he was asking me and trying to answer his (kind of) weird queries without being dishonest or impolite I suddenly started feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

I knew we had decided to meet on our own so that right from the first meeting we could talk openly without the concern of two sets of potential in-laws watching us. And in all fairness I had agreed.
But suddenly our table of two had turned to a virtually table of four!

First dates are full of expectations. First time meetings in an arranged setting is even more so. At teh same time you go with your head on your shoulders knowing what is likely to happen. You know you will be sized up, looked up and down and stared at quite a bit.
But this was downright rude!

My sense of discomfort stemmed from the fact that two more people had unceremoniously joined us at the table close to us, with all eyes on me. I quickly figured out our neighbouring table, too close for comfort, was occupied by his parents! They had seated themselves there a few minutes after us and (in all probability) were taking mental notes to my answers without taking their eyes off me for a minute.

With all the prep I had done for this I had not bargained for this 5-star treatment of being stared down by potential relatives at the next table!
I squirmed, made hasty excuses, gave them one final withering look and ended this dishonest set up as quickly as possible.

(As for the questioning that happened before this, watch out for the next part of this story!)

Till then gurlz, stay cool, stay single!