Smart women are doomed to be single. Myth or reality?

Let's be fair. I'm 37. Single. The hardest thing for me to say aloud without being poked, prodded, prejudiced against or preached at, is that I want to be with a man. Why? Isn't the latest version of feminism supposed to rely on soul searing honest admissions? Saying it as it is. Not holding back. And yet, why is it always so tough to own up to our own truth? Mine being that I'd like to settle down just as much as any other single woman, have babies while I'm in the "still producing good eggs" age bracket, have a home of my own, still be able to write freely, decorate my kitchen with pale blue tiles with soft brown edges, buy a whole lot of fuchsia and off-white saris, travel around the world, every bit a gypsy. Find a man after my own heart. That I'm tired of waiting for the proverbial Mr Right (read Mr Right Now), believing in well-meaning friends (most of whom are married obviously and self righteously smug) who tell you there is someone just for you, waiting for you, out there. That the universe will conspire to make you meet your dream partner, if you align your thoughts with its reverberations. (Wonder if the same logic applies to women and men wanting to have sex on a regular basis). That I've tried out every damn regressive marriage portal there is. Met all the single men my parents could manage to fix me up with – weddings, family vacations, funerals, friends' of aging, deaf uncles back home, tiny newspaper ads (we usually prefer the Cosmopolitan section), telephone calls to and from parents of the prospective, where if I may declare today, I've often acted as my own mother. My own, staring blankly in my direction, one part of her heart-breaking, the other plain thankful it's not her. Again. Answering inane questions like what time does your daughter get back at night (the most common query when I was a journalist)? How is her father a south Indian, if your surname says Kundu? Is he from the Northeast? What does erotica mean (recently)? Sex? What? You actually used the word sex! So, what's wrong with me?

Nothing apparently. Except that I may be too opinioned, qualified and independent for my own good. Or so I am repeatedly told. My parents now refer to me in public circles, when asked why they are not getting me married, as being "too choosy". I almost sound like I've made a career of it!

Cousins gently nudge me saying I shall soon be 40 and if I don't lower my standards, I may end up alone. "And you don't even have siblings," being the clincher on most such occasions.

"Do you know intelligent women are more likely to be single. Successful men date less successful women not because they want women to be dumb," but rather because they want "someone who prioritises their life in a way that's compatible with how you prioritise yours," a girlfriend said today during a late afternoon phone conversation. Her daughter bawling from the bathroom. Her maid watching TV at full blast. "A beautiful, attractive female isn't desirable for her mind, and those with strong characters are seen as threatening, masculine and undesirable. A study conducted with 121 British participants reported findings that females with high intelligence in male/female relationships were seen as "problematic". Their intelligence was predicted to cause problems in the relationships, whereas, high intelligence in the male partner was not seen as desirable…," she yawned. Sounding genuinely weary.

"Bull f**king shit," I interrupted, telling her to stop reading out verbatim from an internet piece, that I had been tagged on Facebook, and that even came with the headline, read threat-line: "Ladies, The Smarter You Are, The More Likely You Are To Be Single."

"But, it's true, look at all my single friends. So successful and yet you can't seem to find a husband to settle down with, not even a single man to match your expectations – both emotionally and financially," she tried defending the article. That article that was just as sexist and stereotypically chauvinistic as a prospective suitor once asking me if I was virgin (again back when I was a journalist).

The study's findings sounds like a prophecy of doom for every woman achiever who was inevitably fated to "marry down" just so that she could remove the life-long social and psychological stigma of being a spinster, in a country that has turned marriage into a multi-crore entertainment industry with just about everyone from high-end couturists, their fake cousins in Sarojini Market and Linking Road, swish wedding planners, luxury parlours and spas, wedding magazines, movie-makers led by KJo, mehendiwalas, tentwalas, flower vendors, greeting card companies, photographers, online wedding sites, sex toys and lingerie selling outfits, expensive jewellery shops, shows on lifestyle channels such as Band Baajaa Bride, a part of this moving giant circus. That involved relatives, neighbours, maids, dhobis, dogs, and tattoo artists, photographs of dead people. Basically anyone who ever asked you or your family – "when are you getting your daughter settled?" or "beti, shaadi bahut zaroori hain aurat ke liye," or "ladka nahin dhund rahen hain iss ke liye?" or my personal favourite, "Aap ke beti ki umar kya huyi ji?" At which point, the age of every woman is automatically slashed by a year or two – somewhat proportionate to her sense of dignity. Just the way we haggle with street-side vendors.

So why do we do this then? Tell ourselves that being "smart" is a bad thing, when for all practical purposes, the whole theory can be just a myth, a subversive gender bias that inhibits us, women, from being treated as equals. Limiting our ambition and achievement to just landing ourselves a good husband (read: cash rich, good-looking, well read, well travelled, good in bed, non-vegetarian). Oops, sorry wasn't me!

And, just who defines this "good man"? I mean aren't most of our married friends telling us, in hushed tones, how they envy our freedom of choices. The way we can be out for as long as we want to. Travel solo or get our navels pierced.

The way we don't have to pander to the whims and fancies of a sasural or rear screeching kids, compromising our personal needs to fit the schedule of a corporate, jetsetter husband, maybe.

How every time our kid flunks or is criticised by his teachers, a finger is automatically pointed at the mother. "Stop all these Zumba sessions every evening, and start looking into his homework. After all, at this rate, he'll never make it to IIT. You know my grandfather also studied engineering there...," you hear the words. The same patriarchal, misogynistic jargon. That comes no matter what. Limiting your world. Telling you who and what you are intended to being.

So much so that on long, lonely afternoons you think of the one man who loved you enough to set you free. Your first boyfriend, back in high school. A poet. A drop-out. A rebel. You close your eyes, aching to be touched. Unabashedly, sans conditions. The way you knew love to be. That wasn't exactly this regime. This rehearsed rhetoric. This postcard of perfect lies and slow pain. Back in another time. When it didn't matter so much. How perfect your marriage invitation should appear. To everyone already mentioned. Above.

Telling women that being fearless and footloose limits their marital prospects is nothing but a well constructed lie. A joke that we make of ourselves. Before others do it to us. Akin to PMSing. Except here, our self respect bleeds.

I'll give you an example. My first boyfriend was a psycho. An abuser who was insecure, and a compulsive liar. The second, well, a commitment phobe. The third, a weirdo who never even kissed me. The fourth…. the fifth…honestly, I can't even remember their exact oddities. But, if this same principle were to be applied backwards, would we be meaning that women deserve to be in unfulfilled, incomplete, emotionally depleting experiences if they have been good people, done the right thing, walked out of fractured relationships, chosen to live on their own, not compromising.

What was wrong with me to have attracted this negative energy in the first place? Men who never valued or saw me in my totality?

So a smart chick can't find a man who is her equal. What does that make women who are already invested in relationships? Must all these romantic liaisons end up dysfunctional? Is every man a spineless wimp? A mama's boy? A sex maniac? A control freak? How does a woman ever trust again? Herself, and her gut instincts, if at all points, we must refer to this disclaimer of how different we must be. Also, what's with this constant men versus women, who's smarter debate? Turning every interaction between the sexes into a closely scrutinised sexual rights battle.

"Do you think I intimidate men? I mean do I come across as too demanding? Expecting them to text me…at least once daily," another girlfriend asks, after her ninth break-up. After bitching her heart out about her widowed mother spending a fortune on a premium matrimonial service called Elite Matrimony. "I thought CEOs will have a greater mental compatibility. You know, be mature. Know how to treat a woman right, but I meet the same retards. Maybe, that damn article is true after all," she adds.

I take a deep breath. This is the moment of reckoning. The same war fought under a different team. A justification of who we have become. And what is it that we want going forward. A rationale that must have been intended to make single women feel better, and more intellectually elevated, and smirk in winning postulating, when it's in fact degenerated into a hard, underlying bitterness about our own identity.

The truth more than a bitter pill – a cheap tactic to explain why we are superior as a sex, while belittling our innate supremacy – the intelligence we are born with.

The way we now like to be in the driver's seat. Pay for our own drinks. Order an Ipill over the counter, or a condom. Book a hotel suite. Watch porn online. Invest in an apartment. Opt for the abortion of an unwanted pregnancy. Adopt a pet instead of a child. Dump a guy... Be attracted to a woman; if that's where my sexual orientation falls. Buy sperm. Become a surrogate or hire one. Freeze my eggs. Invest in a whopping diamond ring. Go sky-diving. Stare at myself naked.

Decide to be single.

Not because you're smart. Smarter. Or, the smartest. Necessarily.

But because you will not be "dumbed down" anymore, no matter what.

Because the sexes are equals.

And because it must begin here… Amidst the age-old uncertainty…