Published: Verve Magazine, September 2012

12 brides who give 12 reasons to stay single

1. I Hate What He Wears If my fiancé hasn’t got the right haircut, or won’t wear that skinny Canali tie with Ferragamo shoes, I have every right to turn away from the big day. The only allowance will be made for wearing last season’s shoes picked up on sale, just because he still doesn’t get it.

2. I Am Set In My Ways When you are young and suggestible, you may succumb to finding your version of marital bliss. Come the 30s, it’s more about do I need a man? Do I need this man?

3. Girl’s Nights Waning Pyjama parties and comfort food. . A far cry from hosting formal dos as a couple, finding the right chic dress, organising the caterer, the help and the finger foods. So antiquated and pati-vrata.

4. No More Flavours It’s also about variety. Imagine the many, many types open to a woman in the prime of her youth. And now to think about picking one man, and settling down with him…seriously? What if he becomes a crazy patriarchal monster post-marriage? Shudder.

5. The Dead-End Chase I can never disrespect the chase. When I’m single and wanted, every guy will be desperate to woo me into his life. You play hard-to-get. You attempt to thwart unnecessary advances, but the attention is flattering. And then, when you settle down, it’s all over.

6. The Dull Relationship Dates are fun! Waiting with a sense of expectation, for something different, well-thought-out, all that creative attention. The banal life of a married couple…without the mystery, the excitement, the fantasy, the effort. He stops caring about caring.

8. The Food Once the talk was about delicate course meals, fresh watering holes, popping open a new label of wine. Now married-girl conversations are about managing food – and the dreaded word of domesticity… tiffins.

9. The moolah When you are dating, it’s all very well to be a hot-shot executive making pot-loads of money. It makes you rather eligible – in that Demi-Moore-power-woman-way. But the moment you are married, it becomes an ego thing. “So if you earn so much, buy your fancy stuff yourself.” Or “Why do you need to work so much?” Less demi and more moored.

10. The In-laws Your home is your home. And however much your in-laws love you, can it ever be the same? Can I ever just throw a few tantrums coz I feel like it, or demand my favourite comfort food made just so or basically, be the kid that every woman needs to be occasionally? I need to constantly prove that I am the perfect daughter-in-law. And I don’t think I am.

11. The next generation It’s like a girl is born to be a mother. I mean, relax. If I do tie the knot, am I expected to produce the brood immediately? And then be nothing more than a cow to be milked? Gross. I think the longer I wait to get married, the less I have to worry about the kid thing.

12. The Arguments When you are dating, you live in different homes. You can have timeouts and just hang up or choose to talk on your time or take up from where you left off. When you live with that person, where do you go? The fight gets implanted in your relationship, swirls around with the morning coffee and grows into a monumental blown-out-of-proportion pressure cooker situation that never gets a chance to blow off steam. Boom. End of the road. Even the make-up sex isn’t as good when you are married. I’ve heard.