My mom called last week with news.
Not about me. Of course not about me. About my dad's old friend's daughter. Her marriage got fixed. The guy is a software engineer in the UK. Remote. Good salary. Stable life. The kind of match every parent dreams of for their daughter.
"Beta, it's a great match. He's settled. He has a future."
I nodded. Said it in a fun way. How nice. Will ask him for any kind of internship in his company.
But something cracked inside me that I couldn't name immediately. It took a few hours to surface - sitting alone in my room, staring at my laptop screen, looking at the 90% built salon ERP that I've been pouring my soul into.
*The crack said: That should be you. *
Not the marriage part. But the being settled part. The part where someone looks at you and sees a future worth committing to. A salary. A home. A car. A body that doesn't look like you gave up on yourself.
I have none of those things.
And for the first time, I let myself sit with the full weight of what that means.
The Checklist I Can't Check
I've heard enough conversations to know what the market demands.
- A decent-paying salary
- Your own home (or at least proof you're working toward one)
- A car (preferably a good one)
- A good body (visible discipline)
- A peaceful mind (no visible damage)
That's the arranged marriage checklist. Nobody says it out loud, but everybody checks it.
I am 21 - turning 22 on September 23rd - and I don't qualify for a single item on that list.
Not one.
I'm a final-year engineering student with an education loan sitting on my chest like furniture I didn't ask for. I build things - AI-powered salon ERPs, side projects, scripts that automate someone else's business - but none of it translates to the kind of stability that families look for when they're screening potential grooms.
And the worst part is: they're not wrong.
What parent would look at me and say "yes, this boy is ready for marriage"? I'm not ready. I know I'm not ready. But knowing it doesn't stop the shame of being measured and found lacking by a standard I didn't choose.
22 at 23 Sept
There's something about turning 22 in your last year of college.
It's the age where the world stops treating you like a student with potential and starts treating you like an adult who should already have arrived. The gap between what you're expected to be and what you actually are feels wider than ever - like standing on one side of a canyon and being told to jump.
I've thought about what happens after graduation. Two paths. Both clear.
Path one: I somehow find someone who loves me - the kind people call "the love of their life." The girlfriend they talk about for hours, the one they stay up all night texting, the one who makes all the struggle worthwhile.
But I don't qualify to be anyone's boyfriend.
Not because I'm ugly or cruel or incapable of love. I know I can love. I've written enough about it. I've felt it. I've walked away from it because I knew I couldn't offer anything but chaos and loan EMIs.
What girl would choose that?
Not out of cruelty. Out of basic survival instinct. You don't sign up for a ship that's still taking on water, no matter how much you like the captain. And I wouldn't ask anyone to. That would be selfish.
Path two: The girl of their choice. Family's choice. Arranged marriage.
But even that - even the path that's supposed to be guaranteed - feels impossible with my current reality. I can't imagine standing in front of a girl's family, shaking their hands, looking them in the eye, while carrying all this. The debt. The instability. The body I've let go of. The mind that doesn't sleep peacefully because 2027 is always waiting at the end of every thought.
They would smell the struggle on me. You can't hide that kind of thing.
So where does that leave me?
Nowhere. Floating. Still building my ERP. Still hoping. Still not knowing how to square the circle of being a man who wants a future but can't afford the entry fee.
The Girlfriend I Never Had
Let me be honest about something.
I think about what it would be like to have someone. Not even the romanticized version - the candlelight dinners and sunset walks. Just someone who texts me good morning. Someone who asks how my day was and actually wants to know. Someone who sees me trying and says "I see you trying."
But then the math kicks in.
Education loan: 15 lakhs.
Monthly income: Zero. (Unless you count the clients who promise to pay and then disappear.)
Stress level: Permanent.
Mental state: Fragile but functional - like a phone that works but has been on 5% battery for four months.
Who would sign up for that?
I wouldn't. If I were a girl looking at a profile with those stats, I'd swipe left so fast it would make my head spin. That's not self-pity. That's just reading the room.
And I've seen what happens when someone starts to care about me. I've felt it. Earlier this year, there was someone. Different religion. Different world. We talked. We connected. And I stepped away.
Because caring about someone while carrying this weight isn't noble. It's dangerous. You end up making them carry it too, whether you mean to or not - the worry, the instability, the long nights where you can't promise them anything except "I'm trying."
Trying isn't enough. Not for marriage. Not for love. Not for any of it.
So I stay alone. Not because I want to. Because it's the only honest choice I have.
The Multiple Attempts Theory
There's a pattern in my life that I've started to notice.
Nothing works on the first try.
- My US F1 visa: 2 attempts. Still refused.
- Engineering Math 3 and Math 4: 7 attempts combined. Seven. Just to clear two subjects.
- Clients who actually pay: Still waiting for that first one.
- My own discipline: I start, I fall off, I start again.
I used to think this was a sign that I wasn't good enough. That the universe was trying to tell me something by making everything so hard. That other people got things on their first try because they deserved it, and I kept failing because I didn't.
But I've started to wonder if maybe that's just my path.
Maybe I'm not meant to get things easily. Maybe I'm meant to work for them - longer, harder, more painfully than most. Maybe the 7 attempts for math weren't a mark of shame, but proof that I don't quit. Even when quitting would be easier. Even when everyone around me has moved on. Even when I'm the last one still trying.
I kept showing up.
I processed the math results not with celebration, but with a quiet, exhausted relief. Finally. It took 7 attempts, but I got through. That has to count for something.
My life will take longer than other people's.
I've accepted that now. The things that come easily to others - jobs, relationships, stability - will come to me after multiple attempts, after rejection, after failure, after wanting to give up. And I will take them anyway. Because I will still be here.
That's not optimism. That's data.
The Transactional Nature of Everything
These past four months have taught me something uncomfortable.
If I don't make money, if I get fat again, even my own family won't see me as part of their - not mentioning friends.
I used to think relationships were built on love. Or at least on shared history. But I've learned that for most people - maybe for everyone, to some degree - value is transactional. You are worth what you can offer.
When I was helping people build things for free, I had messages. I had people checking in. I had "friends."
When the free work stopped, so did the messages.
I don't say this with bitterness. I understand it now. People are busy. They have their own lives. If all I bring to the table is my need, why would anyone stay? What am I offering?
I'm not saying I have no one. I'm saying I understand the terms now.
There is no one I truly consider a friend. Not in the way people mean when they say "my best friend." There are people I know. People who help me. People I help. Transactional. Clean. No illusions.
My family loves me - I know that. But even love gets strained when you watch someone you raised struggle. I see the worry in my mother's eyes. The unspoken questions. When will you be okay? When will we stop worrying about you?
I don't have an answer for her. I just keep building.
But I'm Still Here
This is the part where the article is supposed to turn around. Where I find the lesson and wrap it in a bow.
But that's not how it works. I'm not okay. I'm not settled. I'm not marriage material. I don't have a job or a car or a six-pack or a peaceful mind.
But I am still here.
Still building glavishglow. Still writing. Still sending emails into the void. Still believing that the plot twist is coming - even if it takes longer than it should.
I've stopped comparing my timeline to other people's. That was killing me. Every Instagram story of someone getting placed, every LinkedIn post of someone's new job, every WhatsApp forward about someone's engagement - it all felt like proof that I was falling behind.
But you can't fall behind if you're on your own path.
My path requires multiple attempts. My path requires patience. My path requires me to sit in the discomfort of not having arrived yet and keep working anyway.
And I can do that.
I've cleared math after 7 attempts. I've survived 4 months of isolation. I've built things for people who never paid me and kept building anyway. I've watched everyone around me move forward and stayed in place - and still woke up the next day to try again.
That's not nothing.
What I Know at 21, Almost 22
I know that I won't be ready for marriage when I graduate.
I know that I won't have a girlfriend who fights for me, or a family who presents me as a catch.
I know that I will sit through the next few years watching others get engaged, get married, get settled, while I'm still figuring out how to make a living.
And I know that I'll be okay with it.
Not because I don't want those things - I do. Desperately (not marriage-part). But because I've learned that wanting something and being ready for it are two different things. And I'd rather arrive late and ready than on time and broken.
I will turn 22 on September 23rd. I will finish my last year of college. I will graduate into uncertainty, into debt, into a body I need to rebuild and a mind I need to heal.
And I will be excited about it.
Because the only way out is through. And I've already proven that I can go through anything - as long as I keep going.
A Note to My Future Self, Again
If you're reading this at 25, or 28, or 30:
Did you make it?
Did you find the girl who didn't care about the checklist? Did you build the life that made the struggle worth it? Did the plot twist finally arrive?
I don't know. I'm writing this sitting in a room that feels too small for all the dreams I'm carrying, wondering if any of this will work.
But I'm writing it. That has to count for something.
Even if the answer is "not yet" - even if you're still waiting, still building, still not arrived - I hope you remember this version of me. The one who knew he wasn't marriage material. The one who accepted it. The one who kept going anyway.
Because that's the version that made it possible.
The boy who couldn't check a single box on the checklist. The boy who nobody would choose. The boy who chose himself anyway.
I'm still here. Still trying. Still believing that 22 is not the end - it's just the part where the story gets hard before it gets good. Maybe I need to sleep now.
And Be positive about the good is coming. I can feel it.