The Rhetoric Question Exasperation

There are Questions, and then there are QUESTIONS, the ones you wished to avoid, the ones you wish you would never hear, but the ones your are most likely to be asked, no matter how hard you try. Questions that serve no purpose, other than fodder for gossip, ammunition to get those tongues wagging, opportunity to throw shade. More often than not they have an answer in themselves. They are often made to sound like a matter or life and death, a matter that the nation wants to know (well not quite the nation but some idle, gossipy aunties do want to know), people that are always curious for an answer, but didn’t they hear that curiosity killed the cat, not that I want them killed (a stray thought does find itself rising to the conscious of an irritated mind), but hey they just want to be shady queens.

So you have the bane of every person who happens to find themselves single, an easy target for these questions. Sometimes you wonder if it’s their life’s mission to get everyone married off. Is it envy or is it shade (more likely the later) that make them ask it again and again, till they pummel a poor soul into submission, after all why should married people suffer alone.

So every time someone asks me “So when are you getting married?” or “Why aren’t you getting married?” makes me want to quip “that’s because you are not doing a good job in trying to find a suitable spouse/ partner for me” (God forbid if they actually start looking for you), “So when are you giving us good news,” makes me itch to retort “I am not pregnant, I’ll give good news when men start giving birth.” Procreation is not my sole purpose in life, and I have no intention of sowing my oats.

Sometimes I wonder if they can ever take a hint. I am nearing 40s (shudder) and not unmarried, which could only mean that I either don’t believe in the union of holy matrimony or marriage isn’t meant for me, isn’t my cup of tea. So I wished they just take the hint and let me be and not get jealous of my bachelorhood, after all getting hitched ain’t everything.

And then there’s question of weight, a very touchy subject for us men too (or I could say for me). So the question “have you put on weight?” lends itself to the answer, the question itself is the answer. If I look like I have put on weight, no amount of denying can take away this fact, but we  still try and deny it. So if seeing is believing, and what you see is I am carrying some extra weight, being fat lazy bum, then you needn’t doubt your eyes, or try to rub it in, unless you wish to change the way you view the world.

These questions seem to follow us everywhere, refusing to let go of us, refusing to leave our side. Everywhere we go the curiosity keeps peaking up by our very presence, refusing to settle down. In fact these questions have one thing in common with marriage, they’ll never leave our side, no matter what, in fact they will remain with us till death do us apart.