My "Family Boy"

I am marrying a “Family Boy”

I love this term, it makes me laugh.

You see back in India there is a little village, and guess what? My man and I can both be traced back to that exact village.

In fact, we are actually kind of related on my Dad’s Mother’s side of the family.

It makes me feel weird when I think about it, because he is like a distant cousin or something, but then I realize that all Muslims are related because they have been doing these weird business transactions for eons.

You know what I mean? The whole, I marry your daughter to my son because its good for business.

Thankfully society has evolved somewhat since then, and majority of people marry for love. Like my parents. Who still love each other very much till today.

When I met my Fiancé, I had no idea that he was a “Family Boy”. I just looked at him and thought, hmmm, nice lips. And those eyes, oh my word!

It wasn’t all lust, he was also nice to talk to and easy to get along with, even if he did lie and tell me that he likes sushi when he so doesn’t!

On our first date I just knew I was going to marry him. It’s one of those things that you cannot explain to anyone. You just know, and for the first time in my life I had no doubts that this was it.

I am not saying that he is perfect or our relationship is perfect, it’s just a case of I am willing to go through the tough times with him.

But maybe luck was on my side because he was also the type of guy that I should have been marrying anyway.

When we found out with this weird relationship between our families that spans many decades, we laughed.

It was highly ironic. Me. The girl that so far removed from conforming to any ideal had in fact done something that people wanted me to do anyway.

This pissed the Gossip Mongers off further. Because I was never “Marriage Material”, so how did I get so lucky?

And all I have to say is: “Get over yourself!”

I would marry this man even if he was a Chinese pheasant who couldn’t even grow a good crop of rice.

Because, who his family is does not define who he is.

We both have values and beliefs that are our own. And we are connected by these values and beliefs.

The lead up to the Engagement

The reason that I had to mention Ring Choosing Day and what it meant to me is because the next few weeks were really tough.

The planning of the engagement had commenced.

I gave my mum the freedom to do as she pleases. Because I trust mum and I know that she has great taste.

However it seems that everyone wanted to be involved suddenly and I let it be. I mean, I don’t mind that people want to get involved.

It was just that I so use to it being just me and my mum. Whenever there was any event at our house, we did it together.

It was overwhelming how excited everyone was about me getting engaged.

All this made me realize that no matter how I felt about things, or how I viewed life, or even what I stood for.

To the community I came from this was the biggest moment of my life, and they all wanted to be apart of it.

It’s strange but everyone wants a piece of the excitement.

I also know that I upset certain individuals. I mean how dare I ruin their favourite piece of gossip????

You see, I was 27 years old. And in Indian terms I was no longer even on the shelf. I was in the expiry bin!

And to add to it, I travel around the country with men! Alone!

I even stayed on my own for a while.

In other words, I was not the good muslim girl that decent boys marry.

And here I go and marry a guy from a good family. Who is also oh so handsome (Well to me anyway)

This was definitely a case of them getting egg on their face.

The sad truth was that I couldn’t even enjoy this tiny victory. The reason being that I just found it all so sad.

I don’t even find myself that interesting! And here I was the new topic of conversation and suddenly everyone wanted to know all the details of how we met etc

And here I was wondering how a simple conversation one Sunday night could cause so much to happen.

I suddenly understand why some people elope