Wedding Warrants

Well, with the arrival of Yahoo and Google groups we are almost always reachable through internet to most of our school and college mates. Fortunately, folks from my college and school are pretty much minding their own business without wasting electrons over World Wide Web. But occasionally they feel a need for reassurance. Such occasions arise when they decide to marry someone and want to be reassured that their taste at this given point of time is good enough to be sustained for rest of their lives. Most of us, who understand that the sustenance of any such romantic taste is just a matter of how much dopamine is released out of our hypothalamus, move on to the next junk mail in our inbox. Needless to say, some folks do indulge in the superficially helpful but utterly useless gestures like wishing and blessing. And they almost always do that with a reply to all. I do not mind because electronic storage is not a premium anymore. But a new troubling phenomenon seems to be gaining momentum nowadays.

My hypothesis of this phenomenon is as follows. The subject who sends out the invite will have an unreasonably long bout of post purchase rationalization syndrome after the wedding. This is the phase during which married subjects will have an obsessive compulsion to persuade themselves that their choice isn’t as bad as others think. In that process, some of them may delude themselves into believing that they have the right to question anyone who weren’t seen in the wedding. The email that triggered this post is an artifact of such a condition and is quoted below with the language molestations intact.

“I know vijay isn’t in here… what heppened to you? You were in Chennai only”

Well, the poor chap who was questioned above, has the right to live his life peacefully without being forced into any social gatherings. A wedding invite is nothing but a privilege bestowed upon us to be part of a social gathering hosted by the invitee. And it does not mean our Sunday mornings should be sacrificed. Most of us are totally ignorant of this right to stay at home and do things that would be more meaningful to us than watching a random chaotic sequence of meaningless events in the name of wedding ceremony. The poor chap, I am rooting for, actually apologized (of course with a reply to all).

But if you ever receive an invite from me, you can be assured of the following,

1. I don’t just call it an invite. I mean it. It is not a warrant and you have every right to decline my invite and spend time in ways more meaningful to you and your family. 2. Though I will be excited to see you in a social gathering hosted by me, your decision to attend or not, will not have any bearing on my respect or regard for you. 3. Also, your decision to accept or decline my invite will not have any bearing on my future decisions to attend your parties. 4. I do not necessarily regard those who attend my parties to be more worthy of my respect than those who choose not to attend.