It's time to grow up bub

I think my first experiences of a British Indian guy dating was probably watching sketches on Goodness Gracious Me.
It really was an introduction to the idea Indians, like me, could date and find someone on their own. Now you may ask how does a second generation British Indian guy not know this, but growing up the only Indian I had known were family members who went through the traditional non-forced, but totally arranged, route.
I guess I took it for wrote that somehow, through spooky voodoo magic, or more likely my mother, would pimp me out to some suitable family. It's what happened to my parents, and so what's good for the sautéed chilli paneer is also good for the papdi chaat.

So by now the theme of Indian is pretty strong. Along with that I'm a guy, mid-20s, and clearly not what my parents were expecting. Gay? It may have been easier if I were, or so the rumours go.
Have I dated? Sure, but it was nothing serious. I grew up in an almost 95% white area, with the other 5% coming from oddball settled adopted Britons and transient immigrants. As such I've never dated an Indian girl.
Growing up, seeing my extended families at various religious/blood-tied events, I quietly mocked my cousins for having to grow up in Hounslow, Wembley and anywhere else north of W1. I didn't have to suffer the sub-standard education establishments, the ghettoisation of Indian neighbourhoods, or indeed have to suffer the infernal noise my cousins called 'street' music. For me Rap peaked with Notorious BIG, Public Enemy and NWA.
Finding a girl through dating was something white people did while off their heads on cheap alcohol while screaming over bad acid house. Indians, I thought, were supposed to do it better, do it right, do it more formally.
My uncles, who aren't too much older than I, did of course date, and I guess quite wildly, although I was mostly insulated from their western ways. That's not to say my parents are cane-wielding Himachali hicks who demand I marry a girl back from the village. They are, mostly, reconstructed modernists, but like many first generation freshies, they have that very real experience of arranged marriages.
I had never really thought much about the girl I would commit to. I always assumed she would be brown, because who marries white people for keeps?
On my 18th birthday, the birthday before I left for university, my grandmother sat me down and had a very serious conversation. This wasn't really something we did a lot of as she is usually cooking and feeding me all my favourite food, while I am enjoying her company, and eating.
She sat me down, and between mouthfuls of halwa, explained me that university was the perfect place to hook a prized catch. She didn't use fishing metaphors for love, I don't think she knows any.
She said that at university I should find a good Indian girl. Now I didn't need to declare my undying Bollywood love for her on the first day, but that I should at least be friends with her and cultivate that into something meaningful. I laughed it off, enjoyed more food and celebrated my birthday.
She was probably right, but when you go to a university where the majority of brown girls were Muslim, you can't blame me for not snagging someone.
It's a good couple of years after university and it's all starting to look quite horrifying. One by one my friends have been taken down like antelope failing to escape the clutches of a pride of lionesses. 
When my first friend succumbed it wasn't a big deal. She had been with her boyfriend since before university, and getting married a year or so out of graduating was no big deal. She was as good as done anyway, so having to buy a good suit for the occasion was a nice change of pace.
It was when the next lot of friends found happiness and committed that I started to get edgy. Again it was natural I guess. I was happy for them. In very single case I actually quite liked the people they married.
It was the latest marriage that really threw me off. It was announced with quite a lot of surprise involved on all parts. No one knew he had been looking for almost a year. No one had guessed he was close to tying a clove hitch. Yet he had and he did, and I was dumbfounded.
Again I was happy. Why wouldn't I be?
One of my very closest of friends finding someone he could stare at each morning, even those dark stormy mornings where nothing is looking good and all you have is what's next to you. It's romantic, I guess.
When he announced it I was all at sea. I called up everyone in our circle gauging opinions. Unfortunately for me I was the last one single, standing, throwing up. Everyone else was ensconced within some sort of mutually beneficial co-dependent arrangement, and so could only be happy.
I suddenly felt so very alone.
He was my fail-safe. I'll be big enough to admit I thought I'd find someone first, not that I was trying, I just thought I would. Why wouldn't I?
Things which were regular events now were poorly attended. Meals, theatre, trips away, it was all melting away. I was suddenly going to things on my own. Previously when I had put the call out for people to get together, I was guaranteed RSVPs. Now I would be lucky to even be acknowledged.
Something had gone seriously wrong here and I had let it happen.

I was no stranger to going to things on my own. My music tastes were never the same as my friends growing up. They listened to Linkin Park, I listened to Mudhoney. They watched Hollyoaks, I preferred Farscape.
It is said the friends you make at university are those you keep for life. I'm not even into my late 20's and I've already lost most of them.
My fail-safe had failed. I was starring at the very real prospect of being so painfully alone that even my tears would find someone more agreeable.
I met with a friend of mine a couple of months ago. We have known each other for years through our families but had only really been meeting up socially over the last year or two.  
I had concocted a reason to have dinner one night to talk to her about this very specific thing.
Don't worry, this entry doesn't end with her bursting into laughter after, out of desperation, I ask her to marry me. I'm not that big of a dick, she is actually quite lovely and could do a whole lot better than me.
At the end of our meal, before the waitress could pull away our plates, I asked her how her quest to find someone was going.
I have known that she has been looking for a guy for some time, I had just not scratched that subject.
So I explained. I explained that well I was starting to think about this whole crazy marriage concept and needed some insider info.
What was she doing? What's the dating scene like? Are they all nut jobs and Barbies?
She explained she was going the traditional route. Her parents, family and family friends were trying to make matches and she was meeting the better prospects.
This wasn't what I wanted to hear. I had half-heartedly told my mum I was ready to look. She dismissed that as me pissing around, again, and she was busy trying to find someone to take my sister off our hands.
My friend suggested I get my name on various singles lists temples and other Indian associations keep to keep the race going.
This really doesn't appeal to me for one major reason. My sister is doing this. She has her name on several lists and the guys she has met on these are tragic. If these guys represent British Indians then I don't know why British Indian girls date us.
They are a mixture of losers, charmless dweebs, high-powered cum-stained City types, and gays looking for beards.
That's the kicker, the amount of Indian gays desperate to please their mums and so hope to trap a poor girl into being their thick luscious beard.
This isn't to say these lists are littered with lesbians looking for mirkins.
My sister's experience, so far, fills me with quite loud dread. I wonder how these Indian parents live in such denial. It's not a river in Egypt.
I called another friend of mine. She's the same age and is struggling to find a decent guy. She is also doing the traditional thing of meeting up on arranged dates. And she too isn't finding much success.
So while my family do not take me seriously about trying to find someone, I need to do this quite alone.
I've browsed single websites in my more curious states. I find the prospect of trawling through Shaadi.com soul-destroying. Sure there are success stories, but what's the percentage? For the hundreds of thousands who sign on, how many really do find meaningful relationships?
It's not just that site. It's all of them. You know their names, free and paid.
I'm quite painfully shy at the best of times. It's probably why I prefer sitting in dark rooms surrounded by people I cannot talk to while we all, in unison, enjoy the performing monkeys on stage. 
Yet going to 'singles' events seems infinitely more fun. Sure I'll strike out 10 times out of 10. At least I'll be doing it face to face. Or face to hair-flick.
Isn't personal rejection far more fulfilling than the photshopped picture not responding to your DM?
I've not necessarily set a goal for 2014.
I'm not expecting to be engaged before Thursday 1 January 2015. I'm not even expecting to have met The One. 2014 though will be a serious endeavour. I'm going to give it a real crack.
If you have any advice or would like to share your own humiliations leave a comment below or hit me up on Twitter @BlindSideDater