I am wasting away.
If there was any way I could get a job without having to give a single job interview, I’d go for it; even if it involved hanging a whiteboard around my neck with the words “hire me!” I hate job interviews. I suck at them. There’s a thin line between being confident and being obnoxiously arrogant and either I consistently overstep it, or completely ignore it and traipse into “Oh my Gawd!! Oh my Gawd! That’s the boss! HIDE!” mode.
Add to this the fact that I’m not particularly presentable and what you have is a tally of 4 job interviews and 0 job offers.
Now SSS has been kind enough to say that I don’t really need a job (I think he’s sick of hearing me whine about how I can’t find one) and that I can leech on him for the rest of my life, but I love my fiancé and the last thing I want is for him to dive into the parasitic relationship that is the usual Pakistani marriage. Plus, deep down inside me there is a little bit of pride left. Why should I leech on him? Why is he the only one doing the paying? I can take care of myself, can’t I?
I’ve always believed that the sexes are equal. And by that I mean that women have to take the good with the bad side of feminism. If we’re to be treated equal that means we fix our own flat tires, and open our own car doors and pay for our own meals. It’s sick that we expect the same opportunities but prove ourselves incapable of walking step by step with men. Marriage, to me, has always been about two separate people wanting to live their individual lives together.You Tarzan, me Xena (or Buffy). Not you Tarzan, me Mary Jane Watson.I need to respect myself first, before I can expect SSS to respect me, and I can’t do that if I feel I’m just an added responsibility.
You see, it’s all about balance. What you’re giving in return and what you’re getting. Other than the blackmail-worthy argument of “I- left-my-family-and-home-for-you”, women of the upper middle, and upper class don’t have much to give to a relationship other than some heavy credit card usage and children. Most women of that class don’t cook, or sew, or do much of the housework; preferring to tyrranically preside over a stream of servants their husband procures for them (how’s THAT for alliteration?). And considering their daily activities are little more than dropping their kids to and from school, going shopping, and socializing, while the more civic minded may start an NGO; I wonder why they bother to keep on existing. Is the purpose of our existence strictly getting married? After all… what do we contribute? Honest to goodness, what good are we?
My grandmother keeps saying a woman should not work because then she’ll start imagining herself equal to her husband. I don’t know, but I always felt there was something very very wrong with that statement.