Love in the Air

The NYT Weddings/Celebrations section makes me sigh in romantic bliss every time I read it.

It is only interesting because of the couples they pick- a lesbian one (both women looking very pretty.... if all gay men are incredibly good looking, are all lesbians very beautiful?), an Indian-Chinese pair (huh?! Not possible ANYwhere else in the world, but the US. What would they cook for dinner? Probably pasta), two Rabbis (I had no idea Jewish women, or Jewesses, as Sir Walter Scott might say, could become rabbis. And they were married by two other rabbis. That article, 365 words long, had the word "rabbi" 17 times in it... As an aside, I read "rabbi" as "rabbit", and so was very intrigued by the line "Two rabbits fall in love, although they didn't want to"), and an old white couple who had been together for nearly 40 years before deciding to get married. Wow. And they said the reason they finally did get married was financial- so they could take care of each other. Hmmm... very sweet, I suppose.

Do you know why I can guarantee that the NYT Weddings section would be a bust if they chose other conventional couples? Try reading the testimonials on a matrimonial site, like Shaadi.com or Bharat Matrimony. B-O-R-I-N-G!! Always accompanied by the picture the couple must have taken for the purposes of the marriage registration (passport size picture of groom in blue shirt and garland, bride in full wedding regalia also with garland, both looking serious, like they know what they are getting into), the text reads invariably as, "And so, since the horoscopes matched, my uncle got in touch with his father and the families met. We talked in the balcony for a full half an hour and after that, we both agreed. We have been married one week now and I think that he is my soul mate"

Or worse, "It felt like we were destined to meet and get married"

One can only take so much of this stuff.

Anyway, here's the link to the section: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/fashion/weddings/index.html

Oh, and as a joke, here's a link to Bharat Matrimony: http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/
Scroll down and click on Success Stories (they have changed this since the last time I was here, which, before you think that I regularly check this stuff, was about 4 years ago... before RK and I decided to get engaged, and when my mom still had my details up. Embarrassing to admit, but I am honest like that)

I wonder how the process of finding mates will change in the next 20 years. Perhaps we will have holograms that we can project of ourselves and which can interact with the holograms of our potential partners.