Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Study of Indian Cishet-Men Based on Dating Apps


1. Inference One: Undiagnosed Problem with Alcohol & Gymming
Men posing with boot-shaped beer mugs
Men posing with 2 boot-shaped beer mugs
Men posing with boot-shaped beer mugs against a backdrop of a boot-shaped-beer-mug neon sign.
Men posing with muscles (their own & others')
Men posing with sweat

1. Inference Two: Aspirational Poachers
Men posing with tiger on leash
Men posing with white tiger on leash
Men posing with dead tiger on wall
Men posing with one leg on dead-tiger carpet

2. Inference Three: Good Morning Afficionados
Posters of red roses and 'Good Morning'
Posters of yellow roses and 'Good Morning'
Posters of 'Good Morning Life Is Too Short For *fill in the blanks*'

3. Inference Four: Lovers of Simplicity
Men who desire 'simplicity'
Men who want 'non-judgemental' partners
Men who want 'transparency'
Men who use Hritik Roshan's face as profile pictures

4. Inference Five: Seekers of Domestic Bliss
Men who pose with unidentified children
Men who pose with their own children
Men who pose with their wife and children


5. Inference Six: Highest Education
Men from IIMs want clean nails
Men from MIT want to fight misandry
Men from IIT

Ritual 2020 (Late edition)

So 12 and something years ago, I decided this would be how I would live: https://aquaticstatic.blogspot.com/2009/12/ritual.html and then I forgot about it. Or, I went about living my life with this tucked away in the back of my mind, not really invoking it as life began to nudge me, tongue-in-cheek, into uncomfortable spaces rife with fun shit like crossroads and existential dilemmas.


On my 43rd birthday this year, as wishes poured in, a dear friend called me courageous. In the last couple of years, I’ve been hearing versions of this characterisation and it’s left me confused. Because for much of my early life the word most used for me was ‘nice’. A safe and bland word said when people didn’t know how else to describe me. General decency and a compliant nature was what people associated me most with. Woohoo. What a legacy. She was….nice.


Bravery of any kind is not what I’ve ever felt on the inside. I am, if anything, an encyclopaedia of fears seen & unseen. Every worst case scenario is my reality. Everyday I make decisions to not pick them as I get ready to go out into the world. If that makes one brave, then ok, the Decade of No Fear did its job.


I’m 3 years late to the next decade - or at least blogging about it - but hey, the last one turned out alright so do I dare paint a dream for the next one? I’m 43 and the downhill express is picking up momentum. They make you fill up with hope for 40 and to be honest, if you’ve lived a relatively healthy life, it feels like anything is possible. At 43 shit gets real. The body slows, you’re working with people 20 years younger and no you cannot keep up with them. Or dream like them. Dreams change when you’re 43.


Dare I make this a Decade of Love? Of loving and being loved? The core work remains the same as it did when I turned 30. To trust. I feel like I've let more and more people and ideas into my circles of trust recently and now just the last fence remains - the one around the most intimate parts of my heart, where I am my most woman, my most child, my most sacred and pristine. If I don’t do the work or delay things, this part will wither and rust. Nothing I do then, will be able to protect it. New awareness is beginning to flood me - I can’t protect this place by hiding it away. It just doesn’t work anymore. I have to dismantle the fence. Or else, whatever it protects will die. 


Just like when I started the Decade of No Fear, I honestly don’t know how to make the Decade of Love work. I have no roadmap. I’m riddled with uncertainty and the wounds of the last many years loving people who didn’t love me back. Maybe I start with honouring all the love that comes at me. Maybe I start with not measuring love but allowing it to exist. I meet children & people everyday who make my heart burst with unbearable joy just by the mere fact of their existence. Maybe I start with believing that I can do that for someone too.

Maybe.

Let’s see.



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