I’m in my late twenties, and it’s past time I settled down by getting married. Or so my parents want me to. Most of my friends are married, with some of them welcoming baby number two. And I’m still single, with no good prospects in sight. When I say ‘good prospects,’ it means any guy in the marriageable age bracket, who is well-educated, preferably with a masters degree, a good job with good career prospects, from a well-to-do, educated, and cultured family. Oh, and he should be from the same religion and community.

So you see, agreeing to an arranged marriage has considerably shrunk my pool of potential suitors. Not to mention, if you apply all of the above filters that I’ve mentioned, it further shrinks.

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But I don’t want just a man who has all of the above ‘qualities.’ At least, not just those.

I want someone who is passionate about something in his life, or of life itself.

I want someone who is driven, with a drive to leave a mark on this world, in whatever capacity – however small or big.

I want someone who will be by my side during good times and the bad, to share the happy moments as much as to share the sad ones.

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Suggested read: I would have loved you… if you’d only let me

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I want someone to not tell me that everything would be okay because he doesn’t know what might happen in the next moment. I want him to just be there.

I want someone to laugh with me when we watch FRIENDS’ rerun for the twentieth time.

I want someone to share my joy when one of the characters from my romance novels gets the girl in the end.

I want someone to tell me that the main character in the second novel I’m working on is a huge jerk, and that he needs to get an attitude makeover.

I want someone to hold me tight when I’m feeling weepy and vulnerable when I’m PMSing.

I want someone to wash the dishes with me and dry them, as we talk about what needs to be done for the next day.

I want someone to share my joy of traveling to exotic places and soak in the culture and food and experiences that the place has to offer.

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I want someone who can be adventurous enough for the both of us, so that he can take me out of my comfort zone every once in a while.

I want someone to lie down next to me and hold my hand while we look for all kinds of stuff in the clouds.

I want someone to kiss me better when I’ve had a tiff with my mother.

I want someone to tease me about my laziness and the perpetual ‘next week’ excuse I throw out when I’ll be starting to work out and get the body I’ve always wanted.

I want someone who’ll treat me as a partner, in the truest sense of the word.

I want us to be happy and content with each other.

And in turn, I promise to be by his side when he wants to go for that next big promotion at work.

I promise to be by his side, come what may.

I promise to tell him that everything would work out, and that everything happens for a reason, even if we can’t see that reason in that moment.

I promise to watch every episode of How To Get Away With Murder with him, even though it’s incredibly dark and twisted, just because he’s obsessed with the show.

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I promise to Netflix and chill when he’s too tired to take me out for dinner like he’d promised.

I promise to not go ninja on him when he disdains the romance novels I read, and not call him out on the fact that he reads them when I’m asleep.

I promise to take his suggestions and opinions on my manuscript.

I promise to be as reasonable as possible for a PMSing woman to be, so I won’t take it out on him.

I promise to appreciate his non-existent cooking and cleaning skills, and think about the thought behind the gesture.

I promise to share his love of extreme sports, even though I’m not an adrenaline junkie.

I promise to be thankful for his efforts to drag me out of my comfort zone and get me to do stuff that I would never do, all the while cursing him nine ways to Sunday in my head.

I promise to correct any grammatical errors he made during our night out, only when we’re alone.

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I promise to listen to him when he’s advising me about what to do about the tiff I had with my mother, even though I might not do it his way.

I promise not to cuss him out when he drags me out for a walk so I could get some fresh air, and also get some much-needed exercise.

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Suggested read: An open letter to all the men I have loved before

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I promise to be a true partner to him, in every way possible.

I promise to try to be as happy and content as I could be.

Well, it’s not too much to ask for, is it?

I found that I couldn’t settle for anything less, when all my life I’ve wanted to be loved as a woman is loved by a man.

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I think I started thinking so deeply about all of this after watching the movie, Shall We Dance, starring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, and Jennifer Lopez. There’s this one scene, in which Susan Sarandon explains why a couple gets married at all. She says that on this vast planet, with over seven billion other people, a husband and wife are witnesses to each other’s lives. That they are both there, no matter what. She also says that if there’s nobody in your life, how will your life have mattered? How will anyone know what you did with your life and how you lived it?

I think this is what I’m looking for – a man to witness my life, while I promise to witness his. To promise to each other that we’ll be there and present, every second of every minute of every day of every year that we spend together, which will not go unnoticed by either of us.

That I’m here, in your life, as your partner.

Is it too much to ask for, I wonder.

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