Fears of commitment

I am at a very crucial stage in my life and to put it mildly the way I feel everyday, I have to say I am scared shit less. The reason: I am 27 and my dad is anxious to get me married ASAP and I don't want to. The reasons for why I don't want to is something I tried to explain to my dad only to find that it is an impossible task to make him or for that matter anybody else understand what I feel about such things. So, I have been trying hard to put my feelings on paper .. let's see how it goes..

1) What about feelings, emotions??
We take several decisions in life and we reach the final decision by considering all the rational possibilities of pros and cons. However, when it comes to things like who we want to get married, love and make our friends, I always thought we don't take a conscious decision by weighing the pros and cons of the person but it just happens and your heart tells you what to do. For instance, we don't ask what caste a person is and what their family background and social status is before making anybody our friend. We know that is very cruel and that is the whole point why I detest the very idea of an arranged marriage. The marriage broker has a checklist of things (caste, jobs, family background, educational background) and person who has passed all these checks, per our parents and society, is a deserving candidate. So, two people who have same qualifications and who draw the same salary and are from the same caste, they are then equally qualified to be somebody's bride? Doesn't something sound really wrong??

I say this because most of my friends and me are very similar when you compare our qualifications and yet each one of us is a world apart when it comes to ideas/feelings/personalities/emotions etc. Aren't these the criteria that you look for when you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody and we know that it is not the case when you actually think about it in a scenario of a typical arranged marriage. You hardly get to know the person before you tie the knot and anybody who thinks otherwise is fooling themselves. A couple of phone calls cannot make you understand a person.

The whole idea and process that goes behind an arranged wedding kills the romance between a man and a woman and marriage, to me ,is the final nail in the coffin to it.

Recently, I was asked to say Yes or no to marry a girl who is from our family but who I never interacted with. My dad's logic that since she is from the same family and brought up the same way that I was, we should be a perfect match for each other. That sounded outright stupid to me and I convinced myself that since my dad is a little old school and considering his view of the world and his generation's ideas, it is not really surprising that he thinks that way. What really irritates me is when people of my age group talk this way. I cannot control my seething anger in situations like those. Of course, I said No but I was left very disappointed and every day since then, I feel dejected about the fact that I could not make my father understand why I really rejected that match.

2) Security & Expectations
Just as I am typing this, a colleague stopped by my desk and he is worried about the all hands meeting that is scheduled for next week. Rumor is that our company will be laying off several employees and many people here are a little scared. Honestly, I am a little worried about it too but not nearly as much when compared to the others. Not because I am a brave person (which I am not) but because of the fact that I am not liable to anybody but myself if I don't have a job and if don't make enough money. I was indeed planning on spending 2 weeks just chilling out if we ever get laid off and then start looking for the next project. But till that happens, I am not a least bit worried about it. But will it be the same, if I was in a relationship, worse an "arranged relationship"?

What if your spouse expects that you always have a well paying job and not be lazy sitting around watching movies ? People say that you should really love people for what they really are, but what if your spouse is not that person? They don't really care for this criteria when checking off the list of things you need in your spouse, do they??

3) Being Strangers:

Probably I have been just ranting over and over with some petty issues which stems from my fear of commitment but the most scary thing for me in a marriage is that I could be a complete stranger to my spouse even after living together for decades. I see this happening in many families and this could be the biggest tragedy.

Roger Ebert, a favorite film critic of mine, in one of reviews said, "Don't ever marry a person who does not share the same tastes in movies as you." I think he was pretty serious when he said it. Though it sounds funny, I think it is true. I find many people with whom I cannot discuss certain movies, books and ideas. Not that I am belittling anybody's emotional ranges but it's just that you cannot connect with some people no matter how long you know or live with them. For instance, out of thousands of acquaintances and friends I made through out my life, there are only two people with whom I can really have a discussions when I am really sad or happy. I think it is true for most of the people as well. Each of us have very very friends with whom you can share your deepest fears and feelings. So, I wonder what the possibility of finding such a person is. This is my greatest fear.