Fools Rush In

And how! Remember the movie by the same name starring Mathew Perry & Salma Hayek? I watched a rerun of the movie on TV recently. He, a New Yorker, & she, a Mexican fall in love, get married & she becomes pregnant. That’s when they realize the differences between them are deeper & wider than the Great Canyon. Their backgrounds, food choices, the way they were raised, lifestyle, religious leanings are as disparate as chalk & cheese. But in the end, in the movie, love conquers all & they live happily ever after.

Why the mention of the movie? Well, because I so relate to it. I am a fool too & I rush in! Always have & most probably, always will! I’m the kind of woman who, when wonderfully wooed & relentlessly pursued, falls head over heels in love with the person & would head straight to the altar. The fact that I rushed into my marriage with Sathya is proof enough. Three months of courtship is no time to turn the man inside out, study him & have him all figured out. Using logic in matters of the heart is alien to me. Luckily, my life has turned out pretty ok by all counts & I still have not come to a stage of seriously regretting the marriage. Touch wood.

But today, in this post, I speak not as a woman in love or as a wife but only as a been-there done-that, wise-by-age parent. Not taking the time to know & understand each other’s outlook on money, children, values, priorities, & ambition is no way to approach an important institution like marriage. It’s better to be wise & safe, than in love & sorry.

Parents often say their oh-so-worn out dialogue, “Theek se socho beta. Yeh tumhari zindagi ka sawaal hai.” You know why? Because they are protective & it would kill them to know that the man/woman you chose in haste has brought tears to your eyes. They wish for you a stable life minus all heartaches. It can truly become a case of “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.” No wonder, parents wish the young ones to be level-headed & not rush into love or marriage. They ask you to consider the other’s education, family background, stability, & character - all with good reason. Calmly listen to one’s head rather than foolishly to one’s heart. Do a SWOT analysis if you want, draw up columns for the pros & cons (seen the film “Along Came Polly?” Ben Stiller does exactly that!), weigh the things on a scale, do what you may but make an informed choice. All this to ensure the relationship is insured against turbulent times ahead.

Alas! This is so contrary to what I wrote in the post “How I Met Your Father” in March of this year! I am surprised too by the irony of it all. Looks like I’ve matured, grown wiser & smarter & realized my crazy romanticism may not be a good thing to pass on to my daughter after all. And the possibility that I might have done just that is unsettling! The world is better off without romantic fools like me. I maybe an interesting woman but I’m most definitely a boring, old-fashioned mother.

Inspiration for this post: Sunita Kurup’s post “Love is for Real”