Do you know what is expected of you?

Ok this has been pending for far too long. Many months back, I took a survey with a lot of anonymously willing participants about what they expect from dating and relationships. Questions involved items that put people off in the short as well as long term and how they reacted to cheating.

And....(drum roll)........here are the results!!!
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Q: What do u think a man/woman should not tell/ask/do on the first 3 dates?

50% of men surveyed did not want their salary or wealth to be discussed while they've just started dating a woman.
58% of men did not want women to talk about anybody's exes on the first 3 dates.

For the women, results were varied, with a mix of no naughty language, no talking about exes, no showing off, not being rude, etc. Surprisingly, only one woman did not want to talk about her age and another surprising 43% did not want to talk about their salary / wealth either!

(Btw...hence proved, men are predictable and women are complicated!)
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So when asked what people had learned from their past dating experiences, the men were obviously all around the place!

Q: What have u learnt from ur past dates....what should u avoid saying to the girl/guy?


Interesting answers from the men were:

• Do not give advice
• Do not say I love you
• Do not ask for marriage (!!!!)
• Do not compare her with others
• Do not give her professional criticism
• Avoid tactless jokes
• Do not talk to her about something she is not interested in

My favourite response, though, has to be one that was given to me by 2 guys - DO NOT get her drunk!!! Haha. I see that some people have had problems with drunk dates quite a bit!

Women on the other hand, knew exactly what men did not want to hear in the first three dates. Almost everybody knew that talking about salary and exes was a big no-no!
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Q: What do u think your man/woman should not do ever in the relationship?

42% men did not want their women to compare them with other men, while other popular answers were no hurting ego, no lying and no demeaning friends and family.

For women, the expectations of what a long term partner should not do were exactly the opposite. All participants but one did not want their partner to physically or verbally abuse them. So no belittling, hitting or being rude. Simple! Everything else can be dealt with.
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Q: Is cheating once ok? Provided he/she is truly apologetic later?

This was really interesting. 92% of all men said that their partner cheating was absolutely not okay. This, compared to only 57% of women saying the same thing. After a lot of prodding, 25% men said they would forgive their woman if she was truly apologetic (and other best case scenarios). Which meant a change of mind for 17% men. For women, the number didn't change much.


ANALYSIS!!

Honestly, I don't know how men and women live with each other with such a difference in expectations. While women have a multitude of no-nos while they are choosing a man, once they have committed to a relationship, there's not much that will break it for them. However, for men it's the other way round. While they have very low expectations from a woman they are dating, they want a lot from the woman they are looking at from a long term perspective.

Of course, this study is limited by scope. All survey participants were urban men and women between 25 to 28 years of age, earning approximately between 5 to 15 lakhs a year.

Why we need new bags

So why is it that when I look around, people my age are either married or complicated? Or, well, going to be married. There has to be some correlation with age and not wanting to make things work! The older you get, the more rigid you become, the more expectations you have, the lesser you wanna compromise and the more ready you are to look at other options.


Thy name be Rigid
He has to be intelligent
He has to be agnostic or atheist
He has to be non-vegetarian
Preferably not in the same field of work
Preferably large shoulders

He has to be somebody who makes me feel “This is the one!”
He has to be somebody my parents will like
He has to be experimental in bed
He has to make tons of money
Preferably cute boyish looks

He has to be someone I liked the instant I saw him
He has to be someone every other girl wants to have
Preferably plays the guitar


Me, compromise?
Use your laptop. This is mine!
I want to go for that chick flick whether you like it or not! And you will bloody well come!
If you’re not feeling well, I’ll go out with someone else
Cheating is okay if you’re not giving me any candy
We do it when I want, where I want

Opt-in, opt-out
Learnt this way back in 2004 for a subject called customer relationship management. To opt-in is to explicitly select an option among many options. To opt-out is to explicitly unselect an option among many pre-selected options. When I was 18, I was in the opting in stage. Now, I keep opting out.

Something good may come out of this (it better!). With higher standards than what I had at 18, when I find the right person, it’ll be better than who I would’ve chosen at 18. And yeah, looking back I see how progressive my choices were over the years! The downside is that I don’t know how long it will take. And I don’t like it when there’s no plan. Well, there is no plan. There is hope, but no plan. And being the non-religious types, I’m quite impatient with hope.

Me and my unmarried girl friends are all of 26 now. Everyone is complicated relationship-wise. A guy friend says we just like to make it complicated when it actually isn’t. It’s either on or not on. This guy friend is married. Easy for him to say. At 26, there’s pressure – parental, peer, u name it! And the peer pressure sucks the most. People start getting married and doing their own couple things. You end up looking for a group with more single people. We recently got an old friend back after everyone in his current group was married and he became single. He needed to hang out with single people like us. He told me he thinks it’s the right time to get married because otherwise everyone will get married and he’ll regret not looking for a partner when the time was right! You see the pressure!

No, I don’t want to get married. I’m not ready for it yet. But I miss some things that come with a relationship. Some things that dating doesn’t do for me. It’s a feeling of comfort. Of special moments. Of things that only remind you of that significant other. Of wanting to bring back something special from a trip for that special somebody. Of sharing a stupid thought you had, without the other person judging your intelligence because they know you long enough to know it was just an aberration. Of simply sleeping with your head on somebody’s shoulder at night. And that somebody can’t just be anybody. When u think of that shoulder, most of you will picture a face on it.

And that, fellow people, is known as baggage.