We all have had our own bunch of girl friends at some point of our lives. They are the ones who we shared our notes and secrets with. In school, the frequently discussed topics used to be anything from 'who could fail in which subject' to 'who is getting what on their birthdays' to 'who has a teeny-weeny crush on which boy in the class'. In college, the points of discussion remained more or less the same except that some of our friends had a boy friend or a fiancé. That usually marked the beginning of an end of the precious girl gang as slowly each of us drifted apart. Some of us got married and had kids, while some others moved to a different city or country in search of a dream career. In my case, the latter holds true. On the other hand, most of my girl friends got married over a span of ~10 years. Interestingly, I am almost the only one from my old girl gang who is still in the process of enjoying singledom and in return gets subjected to queries, free advises, and sometimes, even sympathy from my old pals.
One night when I had nothing else to do, I sat down and made some notes. Then I drew a timeline with points like 'just engaged', 'just got married', 'just had a baby' and so on. I then listed some of the interesting queries and advises received from my girl friends against the particular data point that marked the friend's position on the above timeline. The findings are depicted below:
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Data point
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Query/comment/advice
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Just got engaged
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"I wish you also find someone soon. I am sure you will…just keep
looking."
|
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Just got married
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"Getting married was the best decision I made. I think you should also
think about it…I think you are being too picky and choosy."
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Just had a baby
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"You have no idea what you are missing in your life. This is the best
thing to happen to a woman…being a mother. And you know that you cannot have
babies when you are 40. Be open to the idea of marriage. Get married…have a
family. If you don’t, your life will be incomplete, forever."
|
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Married for 5-10 years
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"I am so happy for you and sometimes I envy you. You are financially
independent, leading life on your own terms. You have time for your hobbies, you pick up
the newest bestseller and finish reading it in a day, and you choose your
travel destination and go globetrotting. I wish I could take out time for myself and
do all this."
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Married for >10 years
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(They just stopped commenting/inquiring about marriage and kids.
Occasionally they acknowledge that getting married or staying single doesn't
define how happy or content you could be in your life.)
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This entire analysis showed that the perception of married women towards their single friends change with their location at the above timeline. I would like to send a message to all my well-wishing friends to try to take a leap and arrive at the last mentioned data point on the timeline and understand that a state of happiness or contentment is unrelated to the marital status of a person.
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