It was back in the year 2006. I was 23, single and happy. Most of my friends were either engaged or married. A close friend advised me to resort to the matrimonial sites to find my soul-mate. To be honest, I don't believe in the concept of meeting soul-mate via a Web site; you will know eventually, why. As a matter of fact, the secondary purpose of this blog is to warn people about the risks associated with such sites. If you, however, found your soul-mate via such a site and you're happily married as yet, consider yourself lucky.
So, after two-days, my profile with a beautiful picture was flashing on the home page of a famous matrimonial site. In a couple of days, proposals from potential candidates (decent, or so I assumed, and educated) started flowing in.
The first one was an ex-army officer, working with one of the biggest steel plants of the country. I requested for a detailed biodata along with a couple of photographs. What I forgot to mention was recent photographs. In a day's time, photographs of a handsome young man in army uniform were parked in my Inbox. He met the basic criteria of 'educated-working-handsome young man'. Since the base was all set, I decided to take a step ahead, and we started conversing. After a month of chatting and talking, I discovered that he was a male chauvinist and quite regressive in his ideas. I assumed that he was so because he stayed away from civilization for a while. I wanted to give it a chance so called for a vis-à-vis conversation on the nearing Friday.
On the day, I saw him from a distance. To my dismay, it turned out that he looked way too older than the photographs, around 35, with a paunch belly. I had a strong urge to leave without meeting him. I immediately called up my friend and asked her to phone me in exact 10 minutes so that I could leave early. I asked him the reason for difference in the photographs and the real he. He shamelessly blurted out that the photographs were about 6-7 years old. WTF%$^%&%$. We were sitting in Pizza Hut but he wasnt feeling comfortable so he suggested if we could go to some park nearby. Disgusting is what I grumbled out of reflex. If you are from a metro city, you will know that usually lovebirds sit in a park under a tree for embarrassing PDAs. I was stumped, totally. In 10 minutes, I received the premeditated call. I pretended urgency and left hurriedly without any intentions of connecting with him again.
After resting for two-days, I was still not over the weird incident and deigned to go back to the site. But something better was waiting for me. Watch out for the next story.