Simmer First Boil Later

　　“My mother always said that getting into a relationship is like heating water: First simmer, then boil. The only way to be sure is to marry first and wait for love to come later. Americans have it backward—you expect the water to come to a boil first. When the relationship cools down, you’re disappointed, and you break it off.”

　　This bit of metaphorical wisdom gave me a pause. I was relived when the Subway delivery boy arrived with our sandwiches. We sank onto cushions on the living room floor to eat, and I was silent for a while, thinking over what she'd said. When I first moved to India, I'd felt a classic American revulsion for arranged marriage. The lack of choice made it seem loveless; the emphasis on the caste and dowry seemed crass and monetary; the classified marriage ads on the Sunday papers read like a spooky, parent-sanctioned meat market. I couldn't fathom the idea of my mother picking my mate for me. and it seemed fundamentally unfair that the girl had to abandon her independence and her past to enter the next stage of life./

　　A couple of years in India had soften my views. For one thing, I'd realized that India is scarcely alone in its interest in aligning the backgrounds of married couples. Statistic about U.S. marriage show that the vast majority of people choose a mate whose income, group, race, and education match their own. When I thought about it, most of my boyfriends had mirrored my race and socioeconomics status. I'd been raised to think　I should find a partner whose experience and tastes matched my own, so that I wouldn't have to compromise my essential self.

　　"What will you do if he wants to watch sports all the time and you want to listen to jazz?" I remember my mother saying. "You'll have to spend your life in different rooms. How awful."

　　I'd focused my efforts on searching for someone whose beliefs lined up with my own, and I'd chosen men who were, in fact, too much like me. If Benjamin was emotionally distant and independent to an extreme, he was no more so than I. We were perfect example of the "boil first simmer later" model. I think I must have read too much of John Keats's poetry as a teenager, because I seriously believed that a romanticized idea of love was the highest pinnacle of human relationships. Issues such as timing, life goals, and even monogamy all seemed pedestrian.

　　Talking to Geeta made me wonder whether I might have something to learn from Indian marriage after all. She'd grown up believing that it wouldn't matter if she and her husband had different likes and dislikes; it was in any case a wife's duty to adjust to her husband's preferences and fit in with his family. Although that sounded a bit much, I had to acknowledge that there was something to be said for compromise. If my boyfriend was openhearted and caring, it might not matter whether his political views or taste in clothing perfectly matched my own. Maybe a little simmering wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Sideways on A Scooter, Life and Love in India, P139~140
Miranda Kennedy
ISBN 978-1-4000-6786-2