Some time ago, when the idea of moving to India was just a possibility, I told myself,  "If I'm 35 and not married, I'm going to take the plunge. I will agree to an arranged marriage." Finding a guy who wanted to spend the rest of his life in India wasn't exactly proving easy...

...but finding a guy in India didn't work out so well, either! So, when my (American) friend Kathy told me, "If you want to get married in India, you have to do it properly. Do you want me to ask Sumi to look for someone?"... well, I'm not yet 35, but I am planning on "settling" in India. I thought, "May as well give it a try."

It didn't work out quite like I expected. I figured by the next weekend Sumi would be calling me with prospects and we would be sorting through marriage proposals and bio-data. Instead, even after I sent my own bio-data and picture, she only came up with one prospect. He was shorter than me, and darker than my family would expect, so I said no. Perhaps I might have said differently if I'd known that months later, still no word.

Just when I thought they'd given up, and months from my returning to the US for a while, Kathy and I were chatting. She mentioned a new friend and her single son, a year older than I am... and kept mentioning the son. I wasn't about to be so desperate as to ask, but when I remained quiet, she said, "So I think you should meet his mom. See how things go. He'll be in town in a few weeks, and if she likes you,  you could meet him then."

All of this was too much to contain, so I mentioned it to another friend. I told her the mother's name and mentioned where he was working. "Oh my God!" she said. "Is his name____!?" I didn't even know his name, but with what little I could give her, she soon knew exactly who it was. In fact, his family and hers had been friends for generations. She was young when he moved, but she is still in on all the good gossip (and ex-girlfriends that his mother would certainly never tell me about).

So, soon, I am going to meet his mother. They are wealthy, high-class business people while I am from small town America. And without even having seen a picture, suddenly I am curious and intrigued and worrying, "What if they don't like me!?" Can you have a crush on a guy you have never even met?

And why am I posting this here? Because I'm not supposed to talk about it! He doesn't even know I exist, and I now have his whole family history. And because in a week, his mom will decide she doesn't like me, the answer will be "no", and I'll be waiting another six months for the next possibility. So I may as well be excited and giggly and nervous while it lasts.