This week’s newsletter is about a show I watched last week, what it made me realise about why I chose my partner, and a looming question around if it’s really that simple.
My husband and I are very different individuals with hardly any shared interests. We don’t enjoy eating the same things or reading the same things or watching the same things. So, it’s very easy to remember the few things we’ve enjoyed watching together - Ganeshana Madhuve, LOTR, Masterchef Australia and Weekend with Ramesh.
We caught a fancy for Weekend with Ramesh when we lived together in Barcelona. We’d stream it using VPN - oh the sick pleasure of doing things that you’re not supposed to do. So, last week, when we found new seasons of Weekend with Ramesh that we hadn’t watched earlier, we got damn excited.
We happened to watch the episodes with Infosys’ Narayan Murthy and Sudha Murthy. Sudha spoke about her life during school, college and work, which was very relatable - growing up in a Brahmin household in Karnataka, never being treated differently at home because of gender, being the only girl in a sea of men at work and so on.
Then she spoke about meeting Narayan Murthy, and their married life. She said one thing about why she married Narayan Murthy, which was so simple, yet so profound. She said she chose him because she really enjoyed his company.
Good Company
It made me think about my first date with my husband. We’d “known” each other for two years before our first date. We walked and talked for hours. We spoke about mail vans, Vishnuvardhan, baby names and other inconsequential things. At the end of the evening, both of us knew that we really enjoyed each other’s company enough to want the evening to last longer. May be that was enough to get married? I don’t know. We still talk about very many inconsequential things, and really enjoy each other’s company enough to want to stay married, at least until now.
Sometimes, we tend to over complicate decisions as it allows us to defer making decisions that seem irreversible. When in doubt, postpone, right? Men call it lack of spark, women call it non-negotiable. If you think about why we look for a partner, it’s really only for companionship. Then, why do we let the logistics distract us so much?
For instance, on Dinner Club, some people had very enjoyable conversations during their first dates. Yet some people didn’t opt to go on a second date for various reasons - distance, intentions, looks and so on. How often do we find ourselves in good company, one that is mutually enjoyable, let alone wanting to wake up to each other every single day for the rest of our lives?
A lot of single people don’t realise this - but good company is very rare.
It’s one thing to have not found good company, but it’s really another to have let that go because you aren’t prepared to make a decision yet. The fundamental premise with which I do what I do is that if you’re prepared to make this decision, you are more likely to discover good company, and not let that pass when it comes around.
How do you even prepare to make this decision?
Firstly, I don’t think you can ever be 100% prepared to welcome a new person in your life - be it a spouse or a child. There is a lot to be learnt on the go, so at best you can be ready to allow for personal growth. This is closely related to being vulnerable.
Most people by 30 feel like they’ve more or less settled into a certain personality, and there’s little room for growth, personality-wise. They’re fiercely open to growing professionally, but trying telling them that they’ve a long way to becoming a full person, you’ll know what I mean. I am not in any way beyond this myself.
Most of the time I am busy telling myself that I love myself the way I am, and if anything, the world has to love me for who I am because I’ve spent my whole life trying. This includes my spouse too. Sounds familiar? But do we really know who we are? Do we really think we’re everything we could ever be? Do we really think we’re everything we ever want to be?
Allowing yourself the chance to find out is the first step in allowing someone else to find you. Now, lots of people who find love don’t need to go through these deliberate exercises of figuring out who they are or who they want to be. It just happens. That’s also because in general, they’re open to possibilities, and luck (or chance, or whatever you want to call it) happens to favour them too.
If that’s not the case with you, you may have to start by asking yourself if you’re ready to lose a bit of yourself and discover new bits of you in the process of accommodating another person in your life.
Sneak peak into what I’m reading/ watching/ listening to:
Masaba Masaba: Binge-watched this show on Netflix. I am still recovering from what’s been my busiest month this year, so needed something mindless.
Embracing the pandemic: Dating right now can be painfully slow, and sometimes its hard to really figure out where your relationship is headed. But it’s okay.
Filipino movies: I just discovered this, thanks to Netflix. I am yet to find something worth recommending, but it’s great time pass. Looks like this guy is the Shah Rukh Khan of Filipino movies. No?