\u201cIs this the best dress you have?\u201d he asked me on our first date with embarrassment at being seen in public with me. That was my first date ever, and I had put a lot of effort into getting ready for the evening. My friend had helped me get dressed with the best she had for my size. I remember my relationship with that guy: how conscious I used to be about what I wore every time I met him. There was always a pressure to look desirable within moral codes of respectability, especially when we would meet his friends. The pressure is still there, and not just from romantic partners. But I am navigating around them in my own ways.<\/p>\n
I come from a family that considers any one of its members\u2019 regularly spending on themselves lavish living. I, on the other hand, tend to feel differently from them about certain things, monetary and otherwise. And I choose to earn to support those differences rather than place the burden of my choices on my family. The part-time work I do gives me a sense of pride and responsibility towards myself and towards my parents, too, to a certain extent. More importantly, I don\u2019t have to answer to anyone about how I spend my money.<\/p>\n
This way, I have largely been able to manage my share of expenditure on dates and other outings. However, there have been times when some bills have turned out to be too much of a shock to my budget, and I have wished that my date could make it all better by just footing the entire thing. But, bound by pride and principles, I rarely ask for the favour. The times when my date has casually taken care of the expenses, I have felt cared for without feeling less of an \u2018independent\u2019 person.<\/p>\n
The thought of going out with people to places I\u2019ll never be able to pay at scares me. Not just with dating, I also find it difficult to be around friends who are more well-to-do than I am. I sometimes fail to see myself as \u2018sufficient\u2019 or \u2018complete\u2019 around them when I see them having things I don\u2019t. What follows are my attempts to either make peace with the feeling of not having, or to buy things to make up for the feeling of lack.<\/p>\n
I remember the first time I went to a lounge in Delhi\u2019s trendy Hauz Khas Village with a group of friends. These get-togethers at expensive nightclubs have always been a matter of worry for me, not because of the sense of futility I feel about them, but because they remind me that this is a kind of lifestyle I don\u2019t have access to, and that I come from an orthodox family where women are not exposed to such cosmopolitan spaces and cultures of recreation.<\/p>\n
Deciding what to wear suddenly becomes too much of a task to bear, primarily out of a pressure to look \u2018modern\u2019 and aspiring-to-be-upper-class. And the struggle doesn\u2019t stop there; once the clothes are decided, I suddenly realise that I do not have \u2018suitable\u2019 footwear to go with them. And then there has to be accessorising in just the right amount \u2013 a calculation I have never been able to master, since too much of it apparently might make me seem like a \u2018wannabe\u2019.<\/p>\n
The entire \u2018getting ready\u2019 process consumes me with thoughts such as: Should I wear some stockings if the dress is \u2018too short\u2019? That way, I can easily move out of the house without much interference, and I won\u2019t look \u2018slutty\u2019. But then, I also want to show off my body. I want to see what it is to not cover parts of my body in public. But then there is this whole fuss about \u2018carrying off\u2019 what you wear and \u2018pulling it off\u2019. What does that even mean? Is wearing something different from \u2018carrying it off\u2019?<\/p>\n
My experiences of sharing intimate spaces with female friends have evoked in me the need for self-grooming and using cosmetic products. In the clear difference between their \u2018getting ready\u2019 and mine, I could not help but look up to them, in which of course my limited exposure to popular culture also has its role to play. I would sometimes resort to just \u2018being myself\u2019 and see things as different approaches to life. However, occasional mocking at my \u2018un-femininity\u2019, my friends\u2019 efforts in dressing me up (which I have seen as gestures of \u2018care\u2019 and \u2018concern\u2019 on their part), and the fact that they were seen and approached by more men than I was, changed my notions of beauty and desirability.<\/p>\n
The kind of dating proposals I get are mostly from guys who I have tended to categorise as \u2018unattractive\u2019. For a very long time my notions of attractiveness have been around stereotypes of fair skin, a toned body, and charming ways of holding conversations. Though I have always believed in prioritising personhood over looks (to a large extent, I do believe that the two should be seen separately), this prioritising itself sometimes seems to me to be a cover-up of my own feelings of undesirability. There are rushes of adrenaline at the thought of \u2018hooking up\u2019 with conventionally sexy and attractive men, which I believe also comes from wanting what one hasn\u2019t had. So, I end up spending a large part of my income in living up to these notions of femininity that I see around me, trying to be more desirable.<\/p>\n
From my experience of being at the receiving end of this snap judgment of desirability, and seeing what a loss it is of getting to know people as persons instead of cardboard images, I realise how unjust this approach is towards seeking companions (which doesn\u2019t necessarily mean romantic partners). This is not how I would want to be seen. I have been missing out on a lot of sexual, emotional and intellectual stimulation by reducing a person\u2019s attractiveness to these notions.<\/p>\n
Also, my ideas have changed with the exposure I have got through cinema and books to different ways of living and thinking. I no longer go by popular notions of physical attractiveness when I seek partners. Allowing for abstraction and subjectivity around ideas of beauty and desirability gives me space and openness to explore what I personally see as beautiful, desirable, sexy and attractive, thereby also facilitating my explorations of my sexuality.<\/p>\n
There are occasions when I deliberately choose to dress up in a particular manner for some people and occasions. We have our own ways of showing excitement, affection and importance, and \u2018dressing up\u2019 for people is one of them. There are also times when I swing between anxiety and reassurance around why I invest in relationships in ways that are essentially self-evaluating and materialistic. Nonetheless, this is what the journey is all about \u2013 our journeys of knowing and accepting ourselves, standing by our beliefs and principles, and also questioning them through introspection.<\/p>\n