What is a date?

What is a date?, My mother asks me, after checking a comment by my friend on my facebook profile. I tell her, it's a meeting over food between two people who want to know each other. like a man and a women for example. She immediately asks me not go on dates. And that I should just go alone and eat. I told her that I need no instructions and lessons and that I know what to do and what not to do. And shut her off. It was painful for me. I'm sure it was for her because I was little rude in my tone. But that's how it is between many people I know from my generation and their parents.

Traditional Indian society goes by the traditional way of letting two young people meet in their parents' presence, most often, to know each other from one meeting and decide if they want to get married. So it's ridiculous. No less than any kind of stupidity. This is just the tip of an iceberg.

I get a call from a friend and she tells me how their parents want her to immediately get married to this boy they know. She feels utterly helpless. Lost many battles trying to make them understand that she has no agency in choosing a boy and even to make a decision on whether she wants marriage, in the first place.

Another friend of mine tells me how their parents can't understand or are not ready to understand that he can't marry a girl and that he's gay and would like to see a boy. It's super hard.

These are my friends living one day at a time in helplessness and sometimes depression.

I personally wish that I'm not forced to think that I need to get married. And that I need to not go on dates or casual meetings or hangout with girls. Not forced just not by my parents but also by anyone around me. Not just forced verbally but also indirectly with their actions and signs and in any which way.

A message loud and clear that I want every parent, who reads this, is to understand that you have no agency over what your kid should do when they are adults. You cannot think and do anything that coerces you kid to follow what you think is rightfully the right thing to do. If you are not able to defend your kid or yourself in your circles, that's your problem. Get help from your own kid rather than turning tables around and fighting. In the name of pride, heritage, respect, religion, faith, caste, community and other bullshit, don't bring upon misery on your own kids. Remember you've have raised them with pain out of love, but that doesn't mean you have right over your kids' lives.

Read this message again and again to understand. And if you need help, talk to your kid. Or talk to me. I'll try helping. Happily.