A few months ago, I was speaking to one of my very good friends when I told her that J and I were going to Singapore in April and her immediate response was :

“Are you guys getting married?!?”

To her, being another Asian living in the UK, she’s cooped up in her parent’s house under strict Indian family rules. She would never dare mention anything about a boyfriend or whoever she’s seeing to them because she knows the next thing they would say is: “So…when’s the wedding?”

You see, coming from an Indian family, there is no such thing as dating. No such thing as breaking up and moving on to someone else. If you introduce him to your parents, they assume he’s The One. At the back of their minds, they will be inspecting him to imagine what kind of husband he would be, how their grandkids will look like, how smart and ambitious he is…the whole nine yards.

But I’m not marrying J…not now…not for a very long time. But I refuse to be with someone for years and not have my parents know just because I’m afraid of the constant pestering of marriage afterwards.

And if we ever do decide to get hitched, whenever that may be, it would be solely our decision.I’ve lived the first 20 years of my life living up to my parents expectations and doing everything right so that they would be happy.

I’m determined to do something for myself for the next twenty…