So you’re a doc, a foreign cuisine, heading thirties and Corona happened (Dilemmas) ;)

‘So you aren’t marrying any time soon?‘, one of my aunts asked quite perplexed. Studying my face closely for answers, trying to decipher any hidden secrets my expressions might give away that she was sure I was not telling her. ‘I will. Eventually. Don’t think I am in right position to marry yet. And quite frankly don’t think I have met a person to make a husband.’ Her eyes became huge as if they would pop out soon and she said, ‘You are a doctor in UK! You make 4 lakh a month on your salary. You are getting old. Of course you are in the position to marry. What? What are you saying? There are but men everywhere to be married. Look at you. Who will say no to you?‘. ‘Aunty. Stop it’, I replied laughing, a little shy, but feeling somewhat boosted in my ego. ‘We will find a handsome Nepalese man for you. Within our ethnicity. Khas(Native Nepalese) speakers don’t understand value of our families and communities’. ‘There we go again’, I said in my head, ‘the same thing I talk with my Mom over and over’. Its good enough I am agreeing to marry Nepalese, why go hunting deeper into a pond of only few available eligible choices right? 😉

I have many cousins and friends travelling to Nepal to marry into their ethnicities. Surprisingly most that I know, brought up and raised in UK also married within the same or similar characteristics. Primary reasoning factor being, trust therefore the security it came with but also they felt, partnership was much better built on foundation where they both knew what there backgrounds were. Aunts and cousins play big role being matchmakers in asian communities. Love stories are great, but modern arrange marriages are topping the competitions for fulfilling marriages; thanks to them! Bless my aunts they are keen but here is glitch, I have a british citizenship.

Let me explain. Undoubtedly there is a big hype of wanting to live in the western developed nations in Asia. There is a myth that as soon as you enter the country, you become rich! Of course there is conversion factor of pound to Nepalese equivalent that plays a role. And ‘yes’ UK is better in infrastructure, and facilities but the mindset of Nepalese community is such that, they put these countries at high pedestal. And only goals most of youngsters and working population of our generation is focused is on finding a gate away from there. So I can’t be sure if a guy I am choosing to be with is, with me because of my merits or because he wants the citizenship? If he is compatible, honourable, trustworthy, hardworking that is fine. As his partner I will help him learn the ways, but I have heard stories from my cousins or cousin’s friends (you know how it goes) that some of these men they married were lazy, egoistic and refused to work when their bachelor’s degree on specific fields were not recognised by the UK. Stating they will not be working minimum wage job and it was humiliating for them; whilst boasting to his friends back home his wife owns a house in the UK. He selectively chooses not to believe there is mortgage she is paying and will be paying for 19/20 years. Meanwhile he doesn’t mind depending on her fully to support him. Worst story I have heard so far was, a woman falling in love with this amazing guy with a great personality who was always well dressed with smart attire, full shirt and full pants. Only to realise after marriage, he was an IV drug user with needle marks everywhere who eventually died of heroin overdose, here. Mom has had enough of these stories of men. For someone who is insisting, I am running out of my choices, she seemed glad to see me in one person with no one’s arm around me, following my trip to Nepal.

Similar story was other way around. Although to much lesser extent in numbers. With wives of my related cousins and friends. Women were being brainwashed by sudden exposure to these huge influences on medias, all sorts of information overload; eventually causing them to break away from her family & personal commitments and leaving their partner with children, eloping with their lovers. For some reason, my mom seems super conscious of the inevitabilty of the second one , therefore is actively looking for a suitable Nepalese woman ‘here’ in UK for arrange marriage for both of my brothers. Good luck finding that! I guess it is a hard pill to swallow, if you think about it. When you actively seek the person, travel overseas to bring them to you, to make them a part of your life and then to feel betrayed.

There have been worse circumstances including kidnapping, forgery and scamming people to obtain the blue pass. Some so traumatic that I am unable to write the detail here. It would baffle anyone with a good heart to know, people will go to any length to take advantage of others. So yes, in a way holding the british citizenship makes me eligible and ineligible at the same time in the community overseas. Don’t get me wrong, there are men and women out there more qualified than me, good individuals who are also looking for right life partners. But one needs to be aware of these situations, than to regret later. Our concerns comes from situations that has happened to our own.

My mother used to say, in some villages, in her times, women would trap the gurkha men in the room with themselves in purpose to later claim they have been violated therefore he needs to marry her. The events happened in masses when the men came back to their homes for holidays. And some women didnot care that they were already married or had children. It was sort of ‘a mad hype’ as mom stated, as gurkha men were considered very eligible bachelors and, most of theses women wanted their way out to the west. On finishing her tale, mom looked at us and said, ‘You are tickets out for some men out there. Be careful’.

I did introduce my Italian ex to my parents. Yes I’d say 5-6 months was too soon. But he was certainly cheeky with it, got me in a position where I had to breech the topic of me dating him. And second, after my previous relationship, I felt, maybe I did take too long time to introduce Joey. I have now broken up with him but when one of my parents asks ‘how is he doing?‘. I can’t help but to reply ‘Yeah. All good’. They wouldn’t believe if I said, ‘we have moved on’. ‘That’s what we talked about dating men of the west’ mom would have said and rolled her eyes at me.

I don’t know if it is really a thing, but I have picked up on social medias that men in USA and European countries now are going to asian countries to bring back home a wife/partner from those countries. I guess in asian communities, we were raised in a very closely knitted family values so ultimately, culturally and socially we are programmed to choose men who have that readiness and values we are looking for to have our own starts. Asian men we know in most instances came from those setups. When western men show up and express those commitment in genuine ways, it wouldn’t be surprise for women to accept them as potential suitors as well. I don’t know what the verdict on it is, but having seen the both ends, I will tell you this, ‘an asian woman, especially her friends and family, will have lot of reservations and resistance to just pick a bag, leave a country and marry a man of the west. Until and unless of course she knows him a lot better and is willing to take a chance. A big chance‘. You could be a trafficker, for god sake! Take for instance, my friends absolutely admired Joey. He was amazing person but on every chance they get, being the family they are to me, with 100% good intention they would still always ask me ‘are you sure?’. And we were together for 3 years! As much as I believe, world is a free ticket and you are allowed to marry where you find love. Please do not forget you need to be a man or woman of high value yourself to expect a man or woman of high value. I won’t lie to you. ‘Yes’ the perception is ‘because they could not find the right partners in their countries’. Same for me, when I am choosing to go back and be arranged in Nepal. People will have perceptions of all sorts. It may sound negative but it is true to an extent. It doesn’t mean there are no high values partners in the west, maybe you haven’t met one. You felt there are more chances and you took the chances, you did the right thing for you. Only thing to suggest is, do evaluate, spend some time, find out ‘does your potential partner have the virtues you are looking for or have they got more ulterior motives?’ before you fly them over across the continent. God bless, you have found your right match and a wholesome partner for life.

One of my Nepalese colleague from a different department approached me at my work one time and asked, ‘You are still single right doctor?’ . ‘No. I am seeing someone’. ‘Nepalese?’ she then asked. ‘English‘.I answered. ‘Married?’she questioned. ‘No’, I replied. ‘Great!’, she suddenly then gleamed excitedly and said to me, ‘Would you be interested in my brother. I will give you his number’. ‘But I am already on a relationship’, I stuttered. ‘Yes. But he is white. It won’t last’.

I wonder, if my Asian mom and friends have been watching too much of James Bond movies? Candy eyes and a player. And they think all men in the west or any other countries apart from ours are like that. Or whether there is a secret message, they want me to decipher without having to tell me. My parents were fine with my ex, I would go as far as to say, they like him enough to ask about him. But looking at how chill Mom has been, all about it, I have been wondering whether she believes she knows the eventual outcome, which is ‘it really doesn’t matter?’. It is hard enough to be judged in a stereotypical way, ‘you are asian, why are you not choosing our kind?’. But to be met with a silent stare and tight pursed lips that shouts, ‘I told you so,’ is again whole another thing. Honestly, there is no winning. Welcome to life on single immigrant woman in thirties!

Only words (So you’re a doc, a foreign cuisine and Corona happened)

‘Don’t forget to wish your friend birthday today’, my ex Rhyri used to text me, to remind me to wish my friend, not his, my friend, on her special day. How out of ordinary was that?

I was never good at it. I mean with remembering dates. The number of times I have forgotten important dates for events, occasions and celebrations of families and friends surrounding me is insane. It is kind of remarkable how I have still managed to cling on to them despite all that though. They have been forgiving.

I remember that one particular day like it was just yesterday, when I really felt the pain Joey had in his eyes as he waited for minutes and more so, for me to guess a 3rd time to tell for certain what his birth date was. We had been through this many times in the past. Surely I must have cared enough to memorise. Especially since it was also our anniversary date. Here is the thing; on back of my mind there are hundreds of random things queued up to just jump out and scream surprise. I have excellent memory for most ridiculous things that I cannot seem to erase away even if I tried to, but these, the most important details I need to have ready on tip of my tongue to shoot like a bullet and with 100% accuracy, for reasons that still baffles me, I could never register.

‘Don’t do that. Hang up on the phone abruptly. It doesn’t have to be awkward’. Rhyri’s voice is still crystal clear in my head.

It took me 3 years of good practice to reply promptly every time my phone blinked then and over time to be the first one to message. To learn reciprocity of caring and commitment values. To appreciate importance of good communication. To understand that when one is mad at one’s person for any reason, one just doesn’t shut the phone down and disappear for 3 days. He had tracked every one of my friends and managed to pin down my location that time. Who does that in today’s day and age? Especially past our 20s. We have lost that patience to accept dramas and tantrum fits. We now expect perfection from our partners. Constantly pressed for our times outside working clocks we only value absolute fits to the checklist, the creme de la creme. So please, if you have that somebody willing to accept you for your flaws and put that effort on you, treat them well. Value them. I will tell you, they are very rare. Those moments are rare too. The days when you loved whole heartedly without any hesitation, were loved back without any boundaries, when the world was less cruel and no-one knew what heartbreak was.

Stepping on my thirties, I realise most of us now come to the door with baggages of our own. I, now, understand what Ted was talking about in ‘how i met your mother’. Our minds are mature and more open but our hearts are still a bit reluctant. It might scoot over the border for a time testing the field, anxiously, to be certain it is safe; but at the signal of one wrong thing, the siren goes off. It is then like stepping in the minefield. We are out of there so fast, you’ll never know we were even there on the first place.

‘If we ever break up. The next guy better be very thankful to me because he has no idea how much of work I had to put on you’, Rhyri used to say. It has been so long we have separated our ways, thankfully though we have still managed to stay friends. He chose some other parts of the world, I chose UK. He had responsibilities and I had mine. Of course we said things, did some things to hurt each other but we forgave and we moved on. We accepted our eventualities, honesty and respected each-others decisions.

The saddest part about walking away from a couple relationship for me, is losing that amazing friend you found in your partner. You can even cope with losing the romantic aspects- flowers, sex and dates, but its losing a friend that is the most difficult part. A friend you shared your happy days with, sad days with, confided your fears with, dreamt a future together with. For me, I am what I am today of my associations with them, of my environment that they were major part of and of the energies, the investments, time, love, care, patience and so much more they have given to me. As an introvert personality type, you can imagine how precious my circle of friendship is for me. I can count them on my fingers but for each one of them my loyalty is absolute.

I don’t understand why do I have to walk away from that friendship to start something new? Is there a possibility that this newness can be something entirely separate and beautiful beginning on its own? Why does everything have to disappear now that we no longer have those romantic commitments with them?

‘If you had what I had, may be you’d understand.’ I monologue in my head, listening to him and listening to my friends. Its not about the counts, the numbers of partners one has had that the men and the women these days parade as though they were their victories. Body over bodies, soul over souls and to still walk alone as though you are hunting lives to feel a little bit alive yourself? That does-not appeal to me. You should have seen us, we were trumpeter swans, mates for life, living in our own secluded world, alive, perpetual in a loop, lost to each other in that time frame. That is what I want.

‘No‘, I said. ‘I cannot cut them off my life’.

‘You are hoarding people like you are hoarding things. You need to let go off things that you no longer need’. One of my best friends said sitting next to me, explaining to me, why she thought what my current date was asking, was reasonable.

‘But you don’t know. He doesn’t know, how important they are in my life’. I protested.

‘But they are gone. And now he should be the most important part in your life. Look’. She put her hand on her chest and slowly spoke, ‘you still keep them here, but they don’t have to know, no one has to know. You keep them there and move on. If you don’t let them go, you’ll never move on’.

There is some hurt, some sourness, some crude exchange of glances, gestures and words when couples breakup. Sometimes the agony lasts for days, sometimes months, occasionally years. Various reasons to part different ways. But ex’s are not necessarily bad people and just because we broke up doesn’t necessarily mean, it was a bad relationship or a traumatic one. I feel the word breakup is unnecessarily demonised. We learn from each moments and each people we come across with. Often in life, we have to let go off amazing people whom had we met in different time and space, we would have never let go. People discover themselves in relationships. To be able to give someone a priority over your own, is an amazing thing. That is the most selfish and unselfish thing one can do for oneself at the same time. I wish I could explain the reason why I said that, but it is.

My opinion might be different from someone else’s or everyone. But that was my experience. I would be lying if I say, I didn’t appreciate and live every moment of it, with them. Even the rough days. So, I am adamant to keep them in my life. Yes there is a question if one is unable to unhinge friendship from previous romantic afflictions, but we are all adults. That is where trust and loyalty comes. Keeping them in life doesn’t mean I’ll see them everyday or cheat on my partner. ‘Would you please look at yourself? Why would I ever do anything stupid to lose you?’. I just don’t want to be 70 or 80 and be wondering whatever happened to them, like they were some strangers I never gave a damn about.

If I ever chose to completely cut off ties with them for any reason. I hope they know that I fought to keep them in my life. And I hope, they would too. I hope, if the conversation ever popped up even after decades about our relationship, they have some good words to say. Because, if for any reason my world ended tomorrow and I was to die without having a chance to say goodbyes, I would want them to come to my funeral and bid me farewell. I would want them to hold my hands one last time. Goodbyes are only words. It won’t mean a thing unless I am down on my last breath. It won’t ever mean a thing.

A friendship in a relationship is a best thing to have. Look for that, search for that. I hope, when stars align we’ll all find love, all that and more we are looking in our one partner. Like trumpeter swans, we will be mates for life then.

Beautiful, precious and together. Oh’ even the thought of it makes me smile. Trust me, at the end, it would be all worth it.

Right person, wrong time. (So you’re a doc, a foreign cuisine and Corona happened)

‘Right girl, wrong time’ he said looking at me. 

I couldn’t say anything but smile at him. It must have been one of the most painful smiles I have had to give to anyone after my  last breakup with Joey. ‘I am fine, I am fine’, I was telling everyone and I really was. Why wouldn’t I be? We were still good friends and we ended up on good terms. No-one cheated. No-one lied. Until… until this stranger looked at me and said that. 

The feeling was mutual. I liked this stranger. And strangely enough, he goes by the same name. Joe. Subconsciously I must have picked up the exact name from the dating profile. It is a very common name. So perhaps, I shouldn’t think too much into it. ‘At least this way, I will be up and about. It’s not healthy for me staying cooped up like this,’ I had thought. But walking there by the garden and the pathways with him, through a familiar road that I had walked many times before, I couldn’t recall any directions. I had hit my mental block for some reason. Without saying, he realised we were lost. And in minutes, my insecurities started slowly surfacing. Still trying to sew together torn out flesh of wounds that is fresh, bleeding and sore; what was I even doing there?

We kissed. 

Don’t know what happened. I had never touched hand of a person let alone kiss someone on a first date. But there I was, holding hands with a total stranger and trembling, but refusing to let myself off his lips. 

‘ Here. Look at the view. And calm down. Just look there’. He said. Holding my hands and whispering in my ear from behind. ‘Why do you do that?’ he asked, when I reflexively took a step backward as he moved forward. I didn’t realise I was doing that. It’s a sad thing to acknowledge it, that you didn’t know, you weren’t capable of accepting love with open arms. That you didn’t know, the discovery of the effects of past relation is only uncovering now slowly. And you really don’t know the effects it has left on you, and what consequences it may carry moving ahead. He might be the one. But, you might miss this chance. Because, ‘right person, wrong time’.

He has beautiful hands. The palms though, felt quite heavy to my senses on my fingers. Rough, a lot of creases. A lot. ‘What do you expect?’ he replied. ‘I was in the marine’. 

How do you go from someone who refused to give you anything for 3years to someone who wants to give you everything on a 2nd/3rd date? On a silver platter, to be spoon fed? Someone who said you ‘I love you everyday?’ and never made you feel so sure about it to someone who you have only just met, and wants you to devote him your complete trust? Two entirely complete opposite individuals. 

‘Are you sure you want to move in with me? Now?’ I texted him again, today.

‘Yeah’, he says. The day before was only our 3rd date!

‘What’s on your mind?’ He asks that question a lot. ‘Are you logged on Facebook all the time?’ I question back. ‘Facebook status has that question’.

You tell me, what should be on my mind. To be honest, a lot of things, that I don’t want to process right now. It’s like having nothing one second to having everything the next minute. The shock of it obviously throws off everyone. How much of it is real? I don’t know. Is it still my rebound feelings? Am I refusing to detox so I’m catching my flight to next high already? Or what I feel is really true? I feel like a teenager again at 30! Carefree, careless. It’s intimidating to even think, I might have met my match. Like at this age? 

We are so similar. Our likes, our views in life, our thoughts. ‘I want a candle, not a firecracker’ I said to him very cautiously. ‘I am thousands of firecrackers’, he replied, laughing it away. 

I thought, I always knew what I was looking in a relationship. But when the stranger questioned, ‘What do you want? You need to have a plan by now, for when you are going to meet the right man, have babies etc etc’. I lost the flow of our conversation. I remember, every word he said making sense but it’s strange I couldn’t capture any it. I remember the way he said it, the way he looked at me when he said it, the way I felt at the time when he said while we were sat outside a bar on a wooden table… With people  passing by us constantly, horns of cars beeping loudly, the deliveroo scooter guy still stuck on traffic…

The moment I realised, I fell in love.  

Shoot me here, because it hurts. To fall in love again. To pick up your bruised self and to try to stand strong. To want to appear confident, beautiful and to showcase the best version of me, of what I can offer;  because honestly, I am a good catch, I have no doubt. But does he know that? Will he know that? When he sees me lost, vulnerable like this? Trying my best not to cry, because he has read my mind. Found all the flaws out and dissected out what I am trying to hide. 

‘Right person. Wrong time.’

‘Amore mio’, he smiles, his eyes dancing with reflection of light, but his lips still refusing to give away a full smile. ‘Take a chance’.

‘Red flag!’, my sister interrupts me, disliking the idea of me even entertaining the thought in 1st one and half week of having met the guy . ‘You know nothing about him! Too soon’. She rasps.

He is my first date since last 3 years I was in a relationship. It is intimidating. One fall and god knows till when I might be Alice in wonderland again. My intention was to find a friend and then search a partner on that friend when I joined the dating world this time. Why would I wait? And why should I have waited? I did-not wrong my partner, we both knew where it was heading along, a year ago. We just did-not have the guts to walk away then. I called him you know, after one month of breaking up asking if he would change his mind. He told me ‘I don’t know’. It is a little sad to know, where exactly he gets that feeling from. I was never perfect. I blame myself, but you’d have thought a person you loved would be little less cruel than answering, ‘I don’t know’.

Now, I have closed the app already after first date, even if this is a red flag honestly I will take my chances. It feels right and it feels like a lesson I should learn. My gut tells me, I should follow it, maybe one knows more about a person in 3 dates than one would know in years.

‘Right person, wrong time’. He said. I don’t want to be that woman.

Queens of the thrones (So you’re a doc, a foreign cuisine and Corona happened)

I guess it was expected that Joey and I would eventually part our ways. We tried so hard to make it work but when both of you want two different things in life and in a couple; you are two individuals rather than a team there is only so much one could have pushed for. We were fundamentally very different people, I suppose we turned a blind eye to that fact, which now I realise is the main pillar for building any relationships. ‘Compatibility.’ Common interest, common theme to make it easy. Because there are going to be days when you won’t want to work so hard, it might be job/might be friends/ you just feel like not being 100% that day… but the moment you do so, the castle walls shake and they threaten to fall. Compatibility gives momentum, the inertia for a relationship to keep going.

It is hard to be a foreign graduate in training. I want to continue training in a place where I get good support throughout like I do now. I still have at least 5 or 6 years to come out of the other end. And by this point, I have put too much effort to even think about  jeopardizing my career. I agree, I am taking baby steps but I know the direction I am heading to and my end goal. The tortoise won the race, remember? Without right support, all these accomplishments I have achieved for these many years will be valueless. Instead of being stepping stones they’d start becoming just another point on my CV that the judge panel won’t even consider worth a second to cast an eye. 

I don’t want to do a long distance relationship  for that many years. If Joey feels secure and feels his life belongs there in the crib he grew up on, he is right to do so. We all know what the call of a home feels like. For me, it is too far away. The idea of spending my youth days in isolation eats me. I have been trying to push myself to go out and do more things these many years. I worry, if I move to a place to that distance from a phone signal from my friends and my family; sleeping on my anxiety on the days the internet connection has failed again, I will feel trapped. Especially because I don’t know how to drive yet. Don’t ask me why? I don’t know yet. I stress on the word ‘Yet’. I will fail to appreciate the comfort his house has to offer, the peace and the breath-taking view it is blessed with. Then what is the point? 

Still, I contemplated moving there with him after I became a consultant. I would have to look for a part time job near or on a driving distance from the area. Now its at least 3 hours driving one way on a good day. Maybe it will be easy, once I control the wheels. It’s not like I don’t love the place, I adore it. But, he didn’t give me any options. He was fixated on his decision of being there all his life. He showed no effort, to think of any other ways. All my life, I had been afraid to be a frog in a bucket. I didn’t know, some people choose to be that way. The comfort of it was too valuable to lose. I couldn’t offer him my long term plan. I didn’t say any word.

There is compromise and there is sacrifice. To those who don’t understand it, you have to know ‘it is a big difference’. On the surface, it sounds like I made a career choice which is partly true. I was going to be a middle aged woman living with a man in a pretty house underneath a green hill where his backyard extended to, with an abundance of space where horses could run and a firewood stove burning through the night not like what my mom used to have but like the houses in stories. Open sky, thousands of stars, skylight in the bedroom. Being chauffeured in a fancy car to the town. This was some girl’s fairy tale. That girl may have been me. But, I have come so far to settle at this stage of my life, to not be offered an option and to only be a companion to someone else’s loneliness. To be kept under oblivion about the future and to not receive back all the energy I have invested . My guts told me ‘not to’. If I did, I had nothing for me. I would have lost it all. 

We respect each other’s decision. I only regret one thing. Of never asking him on the first date ‘What was he looking for in a relationship? Did he want to be married in the future and have kids?  What was he willing to do for us?’.

‘I feel like he didn’t have a sense of us. It felt like this is your and it is mine’.  I vented to my friend after we broke up.

‘Exactly. I felt the same way’. She replied, having been in a relationship with an Englishman for 2 years and eventually broken up. 

Maybe there were cultural influences too, the subtle ones that were playing us in the background that we didn’t know of. 

‘Emotional growth and becoming emotionally an adult is eventually learning to face the hard truths and the hard realities, not running away from the inevitable undesired outcome and making the tough decisions even though it may hurt for a while. Having the courage to be emotionally mature hurts but not forever. It hurts only for some time and when you recover you would have become wiser, become more self aware about things you previously did not know about yourself, from lessons learnt from those experiences and you’ll grow emotionally.’ My other friend said, word for word. 

I have a group of such emotionally mature intelligent friends who are willing to understand, empathise and analyse both the sides of the story. Like me, they are respectful of his decision too. He had to stand up for what he wanted too. We have to be selfish, it is important to love yourself first to give love to the other. The decision was right. For him and for me. Now, I have more sky over my head to roam about than on the field where horses could run. 

Was this musing anywhere talking about women in career or decisions in relationships a modern woman today chooses? I don’t know. Standing up for job, personal and family life sounds like one. Doesn’t it? 16 years olds are getting married and settling down. Why can’t I? Why can’t we? Just get to agree, or agree with your partner right? Is it wrong to be not 18 or 20 anymore and be a passionate individual looking for a soul mate but wanting to lead an independent life with a uterus? 

The problems don’t  end there. My colleague tells me, at the airport she was stopped by the officials asking her to show the documents that her children were hers and she was not kidnapping them. ‘Because they have their father’s surname’, she said. ‘And it’s especially hard if it’s interracial children because I look very different to them’. 

‘What will you do?’ My friend queried me recently on a similar subject, ‘With your surname? Are you going to change it?’

‘I don’t want to’, was my reply. ‘I went through all that, through the medical school to put a Doctor on my title and my parents/ my family put up with me for all these years and now, when I am finally  established I have to give it away?’

‘You could use your family name to practice medicine  and adopt your husband’s on others? Double barrelled names are weird and too long. It’s a torture for kids. Unless your last name is Dick. Imagine being a urologist and the nurse announces Dr Dick will be here shortly to see you. Then you can change you last name as soon as you get married’.

‘Modern day women’ are difficult to keep up with. And we don’t deny that. We think of us, our future, our needs too in a relationship. If that is not acceptable and not something you thought you might have to compromise for, you ‘sir’ are not for us. Its easy to say, easy to promise, hard to action. Those 16 years old didn’t have much to consider at that age than what we have to consider now. 

I read a quote once on the internet.  ‘You can choose your husband. But your kids can’t choose their father’.

Our decisions are not from the heat of the moment but from intuition, premonition and thousands of years of natural evolution. They shaped from choosing the biggest and powerful alpha males of the clan with their sturdy appearance and ability to fight;  to also the artists, musicians, philosophers and dancers with petite slender bones over time. Our needs of physical security evolved with less threats of the wild animals and the calamities to present day where emotional securities have become more important. It is grinded in us, in our chromosomes and in our instincts. And as simple as men may think it is, it actually is not.

And as much as it breaks heart, it is one life and a big decision, to not think objectively. Here is me being honest, if a woman left you for someone else despite saying she loves you, I don’t doubt it. I don’t doubt that she was honest. But she had to choose to make you a chapter and not a whole book. I don’t doubt it was a very difficult decision for her but ‘there is a difference between a compromise and a sacrifice’. A Queen only sacrifices her crown for a king. A vision for a vision, a devotion for a devotion. It’s all or none. Castles are filled with jokers. She knows, Jokers will come and go, what are you?