Knotty times ahead

Boy meets girl
They fall in love
They get married
They live happily ever after

If only love stories were so simple and straight forward. Hmmm. But then, if they were so sasf (that's short for simple and straight forward) I am sure we wouldn't have had works like 'Romeo and Juliet' or 'Devdas'. Nor would we have had movies like 'Titanic' or 'Romeo and Juliet'. Or for that matter, the Indian mainstream motion picture industry in its entirety.

As per my experience, personal and second-hand included, the real life love story goes more like this:

Boy meets girls... Ok, before the self proclaimed feminist brigade raises an objection or a hue 'n' cry (whichever is easier) let me clarify that it could very well be Girl meets Boys but for the sake of brevity and lack of experience in terms of presenting that particular perspective, I shall stick to my gender as the main protagonist of the story. With that disclaimer out of the way, let me start again.

The real life love story. in general, goes more like this:

Boy meets girls before he finally meets THE girl

Usually this is because the ones before THE girl don't think he is close to being their purrfect guy. To use a cliched phrase - our boy is "not even in the same postal code". That is, till he meets THE girl.

They fall in love

That she actually falls for someone rejected by so many before her might make you wonder if the girl has really low standards. What really happened was that he just moved into the right postal code!!!

They fall out of love

Essentially because one of them wakes up to realize that the other is not, after all, all that purrfect.

Now repeat steps 1 thru 3 and after a few iterations, for reasons unknown, they progress to step 4 which is when

They tell their families about their intention to get married

This could lead to a varied set of reactions from said families like stunned disbelief, shock-induced heart attacks and character assassination, bracketed on one end by silent acceptance and 'Great -Wall -of-China'esque opposition on the other.

This is where the real life love story ends because at this point, the 'Getting Married' and 'Living happily ever after' steps might or might not follow and hence can't be listed down with any degree of certainty. Before anyone asks, this sudden interest in love stories is because mine happens to be one of those which has managed to reach the 'Getting Married' stage. And, once again before anyone asks, my story did follow the steps above but not in the exact manner (No iterations!! To say otherwise would end up netting me a couple of black eyes, courtesy the girlfriend)