Is this Indian conservative society making one lead parallel lives in a single?

Mom Calling: Hey! how are you? What plans for the evening?

Me: Nothing much. Just going out with my office friends.

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Time: 21:30pm

Mom Calling .....

Me: Rushing to a quite place (mostly the toilet area of the mall)

Mom: Hello, are you back home?

Me: Yes! yes! long back!

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But all this while, I was out with my 'DATE'.

Meanwhile, my parents were doing this:

My dreaded situation?

Let's say I have finally hit it off with this guy I had found through an online dating site. All has been going good for the last 2 months when I get this set of profiles to choose from, from my parents. Being respectful of their attempts and to tag along with the 'societal norms', I pick one of the profiles for I had already dodged their last 5 attempts. Then suddenly the chosen profile side had also agreed to mine! O M G! What do I do now? Do I see both of them? Do I continue with my guy, tell him of my situation, and as well go on a date with this guy through my parents' attempts?? Additionally, do I tell this other guy of the guy I found? How am I going to live these 'two dating lives' !!!!!!!! *Panic*!!

The why can't I?

Of course I cannot inform my parents of the guy I had found. For, we are just getting to know each other. There is still a long way to go before I could let my parents know.

Then why did I seek one by myself, and not settle for my parents' find? Well, many reasons of which one of them being, the guys who I meet through their find end up being douchebags. Not that my judgements are sound. But at least my attempts are not as evaluative as arranged. And my ways DO NOT HAVE A BIG BROTHER WATCHING OVER BY DATE PROCEEDINGS! (meaning, mine and his parents' constant enquiries about how is it going!).

The why can't it be

On the other hand, as much as I want to tell my parents of the reality, I can't. For, these practices are way too unfamiliar for them to process and comprehend (thanks to our so called 'perceived' societal norms!). Well, not that they oppose love marriage (as long as the boy is within the same caste community creed kinds), but that they do not comprehend the effort and the temporal growth of such a relationship. You see a guy today, they want an answer in 2 days, or at the max they can wait for a month, and I can push it for 2 months. After that, whether we (me & the guy) want to or not, it might reach the dum dum dum phase.

The what can be done about this?

I am sorry parents, this is on you. Yes you have to adapt. Or at least attempt to, by having full trust on the kid, 'your' kid, who, after all is a product of your nurture!

There was a time when you parents were scared to trust online interactions, and even taught us to be cautious with our online involvements. But when it came to searching a partner for your kid, some how all your apprehensions about online platforms vanished, and you plunged into action with full throttle. Have you ever thought about that? Didn't we as a society approach this spouse finding process by word of mouth in those days? Why not follow the same now? Of course it is difficult because, as a society we are no more close-knit communities. It is a globalized economy we are living in, with people seeking opportunities beyond national horizons. Hence, the reach of your search also needs to expand. And how else can you manage that reach other than through breakthrough developments in the field of communications? So yes, you are rightly adapting. But in a similar fashion, why is it difficult for you to adapt to the changing social norms? Belief and acceptance being at loggerheads is but natural. But, try tho karo! (at least try!). You have been given a brain with good plasticity that welcome new ideologies and has the potential to change and adapt! Don't give up on it too soon! If you haven't, well then, good, let me help you with some notions:

With primitive infrastructural footing, close-knit communities that worked under patriarchal authority limited human networking and individual growth. But the last two decades have seen rapid growth in transportation and communication. Neither one can control such developments, nor one can control the incoming new information through those developments. This therefore lead us to educate ourselves with better information. Once we process this incoming information (which essentially makes us think), our perceptions change, we adapt and evolve as individuals. This is natural. While this phenomenon seems adaptable when you make lifestyle choices, why then are you parents not accommodating of this when it comes to the process of choosing partners? What is this obsession with age limitations and marriage? Gone are the days when the sole pursuit of the human race was to expand the species. We are living in the age of peak capitalism, where everyone needs to earn to be able to survive and support self and family life. And this 'earning period' TAKES TIME. So what is wrong in a woman being career oriented? She is exploiting her education to her full potential. For what else did you educate her? Leave all she has gained and move to where her man is? What is in store for her life and her skills, other than being a wife & mother? Ever thought about it? Also, there has been a drastic change in lifestyle and dietary practices between yours and current generation. This has lead to the maximum affordable age for a healthy woman to give birth, rise up to 35. The scare around the need to carry before 30 are passe, if that's what worries you most and wanting the marriage initiation early on. Any which way, like mentioned before, gone are the days when the sole pursuit was transfer of genes. Nowadays the choice between nurture and nature is more prevalent, and what is wrong in that? The world is anyways overflowing with people, and there are living many who are in dire need of a family to nurture! Even today, as it is it needs a good, generous heart to make that choice to nurture. If your kid chooses that, you should be proud of him/her, rather than being condescending and worrying about societal injunctions!

If you re-read now, the start of this blog post, do you realize that unbeknownst to you, you are actually putting your kid through the ordeal of having to live two different lives in parallel, just for the sake your (lack of) acceptance? The so called generation-gap?