2011 note – like I have said about other older posts, this was authentic me and how I felt at that time.  I cannot say that my reaction would be any different now (I still would not respond very well to someone asking this at a first meeting – or prior to it – regardless of whether it’s online or in person), but again, I feel like a completely different person one year later.
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I met up with a girlfriend of mine for coffee the other day, and she told me about a recent correspondence she had with someone (a supposed “Serious Looker”) that went something like this… after seeing each other’s profiles, my friend (who we’ll call “G” for girl) and this guy (“B””) were mutually interested in each other and there was a common friend (“F”) who was helping to facilitate the connection.  B passes an e-mail along to F to make an inquiry to G… “Would you be willing to learn Gujarati?”  When she told me this, I lol’d and said “Omg, we need to go non-desi.”

2018 Relaunch 9-years-after-this-post edit: At this juncture in my life (& I have no crystal ball to tell you about the future), I have no desire to be dating/in a relationship/with a life partner/married or have kids. For the first time (& after 20+ years of caring so much about this as the “end-all-be-all” life goal), I don’t care at all and am fully engaged in a relationship with myself. I love my own company, feel no lack, and – accordingly – feel complete and whole on my own; it is an absolutely revolutionary feeling and I wish I could have known it in my 20’s. More on that later…

This blog topic is partly inspired by Vijay Uncle’s most recent status:  “Casual relationships are like placebos when you really need life saving medicine. It may not have harmful side effects but the time they eat up are harmful enough.” More from Vijay Uncle’s post later… This blog is also inspired by a recent commenter who referenced many examples of some of the most gorgeous and successful women in the world who were in relationships where they were abused, cheated on, etc. Although they are seemingly unrelated topics, I still believe they are inter-connected…

In no way is this blog meant to be a male-bashing; like every blog, I am writing so that we ALL look back at our past experiences and make sure we’ve learned something from them as well as reflect on what kind of results our current actions are getting and evolve as necessary… For starters, let me be clear that I think in every relationship, both parties have a part in how the relationship transpires and no one is completely innocent or a true 100% victim. I know I have certainly felt like a victim in previous serious relationships, but – had I listened to my gut – I would have either not gotten into those relationships in the first place or when I saw certain “red flag” signals along the way, I at least could have made like Forrest Gump and RAN.

For those of you who’ve been following the blog or who possibly saw the last “text vs. calling” posting that caused quite a stir, you may have also seen the large slew of comments.  Sure, a lot of them were from yours truly trying to address various posters’ comments, but there were 2 things that came up several times about desi women (and since I am grouped into the whole lot of “us” I thought they needed to be addressed):
1)  An apparent air of desperation we all seem to have, and
2)  Our supposed expansive list of “check mark criteria” that we are unwilling to compromise on which ultimately makes us pass up potential guys.

MY THOUGHTS ON THIS BLOG ONE YEAR LATER… I distinctly remember this time in my life, and this post was me being my authentic self at that time based on the experiences that my single girlfriends & I were having, but it is remarkable how much I feel like a completely different person exactly one year later… so much so that this was almost painful to read. For the sake of the length of this, I have pared down my original post, which is really absurd b/c it is still so flipping long!   Side note & something I found interesting after the fact… the results from my Dating Survey (which I am thinking of opening up again so haven’t posted here yet) lined up for the most part with what I was feeling… the majority of women prefer a phone call, then a text & least preferable is FB and they also would hope to hear from the guy within 1-3 days…
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Getting her (my) number, but not calling it… that could be the theme of my dating world in the past year plus & that of many of my girlfriends as well.