Questions we never thought we would raise

The other day, my childhood friend Y and I had one of our marathon discussions. We realized that there are certain things about turning twenty-five that we just can't ignore, like many things that we turn our backs upon if it seems to disturb our constructed equilibrium.
We have also had a sort of snobbish pride about being liberated women- brandishing with the snide weapon of feminism with all our might. It's like when we used to think it was our right to walk across Bangalore city in the middle of the night, defiantly challenging the world. It was later that i realized that one had to (at times) settle for the conformity of things whether we liked it or not. No more dangerous night walks without a 'valiant' man to protect us and all that jazz!

One thing that i never expected would affect me was this whole concept of settling down and marrying. Recently I've come to realize that people (whom i never expected) have decided to throw caution to the winds and settle down- the thing that was dreaded back when we were in college didn't seem that unimaginable anymore.

So, anyway, as I was telling Y- there I was the other day, feeling emotionally raw about my relationship status and all that, when boom, right on cue my (extended) family stepped in to try and convince me to be open to the idea of 'looking around'. As my aunt and cousin brother put it, "Twenty-five is not young age anymore. If you don't get to it you'll miss the boat and won't get the best of the litter'!!!!  And for few moments (after having a laughing fit in my head) my aunts' words actually began seeping into my mind and a tiny voice somewhere started agreeing with her! I was shocked and horrified at my self for falling for their rehearsed speeches, and for a day I went around with a heavy feeling in my stomach and feeling old and vulnerable.
The next day ol' feminism was back with a familiar tone. Of course, women always get the wrong end of the stick. They are expected to get married earlier where as men have the liberty to wait and 'choose'. I was furious at the attack on the system of my equilibrium-ed life. It seemed like the big bad patriarchal system had finally come knocking or my door. I looked around and realized there were others with the same duvidha - "Oh so this is not only my thing. Phew!"

Then Y made a point that was equally alarming. Maybe the idea of settling down wasn't all that bad as we had always made it seem.I kept insisting that I didn't want to, but a few doubts kept creeping into my mind; No, I didn't want to end up all alone and no, it wasn't wrong that people around me were choosing to settle down. But I felt people had begun to change their attitudes; And I felt a pressure- that pressure that I was being left behind while people were moving in another direction.

I told Y that I felt that our liberal backgrounds and education sometimes ended up working against us in a sense- what if we were raised to believe that marriage was the be all and end all of everything- and that it was the mans duty to financially secure the house- then maybe life would have been simpler.
Theses confusions about wanting to explore would never have arisen; we would never have felt spoiled for choice!