[30M] I almost got convinced into an arranged marriage, until….! [M4F]

I’m 30 years old.

Until recently, I had almost convinced myself that maybe an arranged marriage was the only realistic option left for me.

I come from a financially comfortable, upper-middle-class family. I also come from a socially dominant caste, and since childhood, I’ve been surrounded by relatives involved in politics or holding political positions.

As a child, I was pretty innocent. I genuinely believed the world was a good and fair place. I didn’t really understand caste or gender discrimination. I didn’t even understand why people talked about the “left” and “right” so much. I thought the world was mostly fine.

Then one day, I saw one of my friends get beaten up because he was in love with a girl from another caste.

That was probably the first time reality hit me.

Casteism wasn’t something I had only read about. It existed around me.

That experience changed the way I looked at things. I started believing strongly in individual choice, free will, personal liberty and human rights.

I carried those beliefs into my relationships as well.

My first serious relationship was with a childhood friend. Eventually, she cheated on me, and it completely broke my heart.

What hurt even more was the way she used my own beliefs against me.

Her argument was essentially: If you believe people should be free to make their own choices, then you should be okay with your partner sleeping with whoever she wants.

That experience forced me to confront something I hadn’t really understood before:

Believing in someone’s freedom doesn’t mean you have to accept every choice they make within a relationship.

Freedom and commitment aren’t necessarily opposites.

Since then, I’ve been looking for someone who understands that distinction and, more importantly, understands the way I see the world.

I also have political aspirations of my own. I want to eventually contribute to changing things in India—casteism, healthcare, education and several other issues that I believe need serious reform.

I have a few friends who share similar aspirations, and we’ve talked about and worked towards some of these ideas together.

I’ve also previously run Facebook pages around feminism and atheism.

So, yes, I probably don’t fit neatly into the traditional “guy looking for a wife” category.

For years, I’ve tried to find someone I genuinely connect with.

Eventually, I almost gave up.

Then something happened recently that changed my perspective again.

One of my neighbours had fallen in love with a guy from another caste a few years ago.

Her family strongly opposed the relationship. Her mother threatened suicide, and they physically assaulted her. They forced her to end the relationship.

They even made her file a complaint against the guy, claiming that he was harassing her.

Four years later, she was getting married.

Interestingly, the guy she was marrying happened to be a colleague of one of my friends. So I casually asked him what he was like.

He told me something that really stayed with me.

He said he was casteist. He had apparently liked another woman from their office but rejected the possibility of a marriage because of caste. He also described him as somewhat manipulative.

But then he said:

“Apart from that, he’s a very good guy. He might be a very good husband.”

I didn’t think too much about it at first.

Then came the wedding.

I’m not someone who understands traditional wedding customs very well. I’ve never been particularly interested in them. Usually, I go to weddings, eat some food, take a few photos and leave.

When I came back from gym to my home after the day of the wedding, I noticed that the entire floor smelled of jasmine flowers.

At first, I had absolutely no idea why.

The bride’s brother who is also a good friend of mine asked me if I could take my car to market. I agreed, and we went out.

While we were there, he bought some more flowers.
I asked him what they were for.

He said something along the lines of, “They need to sleep there tonight.”

And then it hit me.

Oh. It’s their suhagrat.

And suddenly the whole situation felt incredibly strange to me.

This was the same family that had once forced their daughter to give up the person she actually loved.

The same family that had opposed her choosing her own partner because of caste.

The same family that had gone as far as threatening her, beating her and forcing her to file a complaint against the person she loved.

And now, only a few years later, they had arranged her marriage to someone she barely knew.

And they expected her to be completely comfortable being intimate with him that very night.

Not only that, they were decorating the room with flowers and creating an environment specifically for that intimacy to happen.

I know that for many people, this is completely normal. It’s a traditional part of marriage, and I’m not saying everyone who has an arranged marriage feels like they’re sleeping with a stranger.

But for me, seeing this particular situation made something click.

I couldn’t imagine doing this myself.

Until that point, I had been considering an arranged marriage largely because my parents wanted me to. I was beginning to think that maybe I should simply accept it, meet someone through the traditional process, get married and build a life together.

But that night made me realize what I actually wanted.

I don’t want to meet someone for the first time, get married because our families think we’re compatible, and then expect love, trust and intimacy to magically appear.

I want to know someone.

I want to fall in love with her.

I want her to know me—the good parts, the weird parts, the political ambitions, the failures, the things I believe in and the things I don’t.

I want us to choose each other.

And then, when we eventually decide to build a life together, I want that decision to come from both of us—not simply because our families think we would make a good match.

That was the day I decided I wasn’t going to give up.
I’m going back into the dating market.

I’m looking for a woman with whom I can genuinely share a life—not just a house.

Someone with whom there is love, friendship, attraction, trust, disagreement, growth and a life that actually feels like ours.

I’m currently looking for a job as well, after leaving my previous job because the work culture had become toxic. I have interviews lined up and hopefully I’ll be working again soon.

But this time, I also want to put some effort into finding the person I actually want to spend my life with.
This is Part 1.

I can’t possibly explain everything about myself in a single post, so I’ll be writing two more posts over the coming days about who I am, what I believe, what I’m looking for, and probably some of the things that make me a difficult person to date as well.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “This guy has way too many opinions,”—you’re probably right.

But if you’re still curious, you can dm or or comment to ask questions or wait for Part 2.