{"id":2538,"date":"2016-04-18T11:34:29","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T06:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=2538"},"modified":"2016-04-18T11:34:29","modified_gmt":"2016-04-18T06:04:29","slug":"modern-dating-third-wheeling-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=2538","title":{"rendered":"How to Date a Married Man: Lessons in Infidelity from My Aunt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\u00a0\n

T<\/span>he third wheel is as ubiquitous a part of modern dating as it is a part of every Mumbai autorickshaw. I never thought I\u2019d become the <\/p>\u201cother\u201d person<\/span><\/a> in an ongoing relationship, which the woman whom I was briefly in love with, called \u201cfunctional\u201d. This meant the guy she was seeing would enjoy himself at long <\/span>weekend brunches<\/span><\/a>, while I was relegated to the occasional, \u201cDo you wanna come over after work?\u201d texts. <\/span>\n\nI would be off like a rocket, with my boner pointing to its true north, for a few hours of dispassionate, millennial, kaam-chalau coitus that came with caveats such as minimal kissing with no tongue, hand and mouth stuff with prior approval only, and no cuddling or intimate contact later. What started off with just the two of us keeping it \u201clow key\u201d had resulted in me feeling pretty low myself. <\/span>\n\nI moped, I bitched, I whined. I looked at it through the lens of the <\/span>jilted lover<\/span><\/a>, which took me down a path of introspection set to Atif Aslam songs; through the lens of angry male entitlement, set to Eminem\u2019s \u201cSuperman\u201d. How could she not see me for the catch I was? Her loss, except not really. <\/span>\n

She was a single, independent, middle-class woman in the early \u201990s who\u2019d give Kavita Singh\u2019s character in Udaan a run for her money when it came to being #YASSKWEEN.<\/blockquote>\nOn one of these YouTube binges, I came across the Bee Gees\u2019 subdued \u201cIslands In The Stream\u201d. Now, no one should be listening to the Bee Gees in 2018, but something from that song stuck to the inside of my lovesick brain. By the time the chorus kicked in, I knew what it was. My aunt Astrid liked that song. <\/span>\n\nAunty Astrid, God bless her soul, was the youngest of my mom\u2019s seven siblings, which made her by default, my cool maasi. She was a <\/span>single<\/span><\/a>, independent, middle-class woman in the early \u201990s who\u2019d give Kavita Singh\u2019s character in <\/span>Udaan <\/span><\/i>a run for her money when it came to being #YASSKWEEN. She was a stand-in mum to my cousins and me, five screaming brats in total, and was the go-to adult whenever the minor shit we did as a kid hit the fan. <\/span>\n\nShe also had a decade-long stint as the <\/span>\u201cother woman\u201d<\/span><\/a>, stuck between two lovers and the truth. <\/span>\n\nHer paramour was a married man named Shamsher: A \u201990s\u2019 Adonis dressed in aviators, tracksuits, a gold Rado watch, and a 555 perpetually wedged between his lips. He\u2019d cruise along in his jet black Fiat Padmini, belting out Nazia Hassan and Altaf Raja tunes. The same Padmini that took us on many drives to Juhu Beach. <\/span>\n\nEntrusting my eldest cousin with some cash, they\u2019d leave us occupied with golas or some such so that they could sneak off for walks on the beach. Of course, we\u2019d always interrupt these private moments, to become the haddis in their love kebab. To their credit, they\u2019d display saintly levels of patience with us. On those days, aunty Astrid would walk around, a big smile on her face, humming some \u201970s disco tune (usually Donna Summer\u2019s \u201cI Feel Love\u201d). <\/span>\n\nWe couldn\u2019t tell why, but the other adults seemed to resent Uncle Shamsher and Aunt Astrid spending time together, to which her response usually was, \u201cFuck off, madarchod!\u201d Who Astrid slept with was her own business; after all she made enough middle-class \u201cfuck you\u201d money from her job as a supervisor in a pharmaceutical company.<\/span>\n\nWe didn\u2019t fully understand this kerfuffle, until we started getting older, and <\/span>shows<\/span><\/a> like <\/span>Just Mohabbat <\/span><\/i>put ideas in our heads. And I saw my aunt weep for the first time after a final shouting match with Uncle Shamsher. \u201cIt\u2019s not all his fault. I knew what I was getting into,\u201d she said. <\/span>\n\nShamsher, like all <\/span>good Indian men<\/span><\/a>, loved his wife, but both aunty and he enjoyed \u00a0spending time together. Eventually, however, he chose his wife. Aunty Astrid was always aware that it would come to this. \u201cThis was like putting your legs in two different boats, you get your balls smashed when both the boats get close to one another,\u201d she said. With that flippant line, she walked away, got dressed, and took me to lunch at our favourite restaurant. <\/span>\n\nIn the \u201990\u2019s, when the most liberal thing in the country was its economic policy, my aunt did what most women only read about in those <\/span>erotic fiction<\/span><\/a> meets women empowerment meets mystery masala novels they\u2019d read on the sly, wrapped in brown paper. My huge extended family believed Astrid\u2019s unmarried status equalled celibacy, and that she had no business cavorting with a married man. In their pre-liberalisation midsets, the blame rested squarely with her: She was the \u201chomewrecker\u201d, the \u201cseductress\u201d. But my aunt \u2013 too busy holding down a full-time, high-paying job, providing for an alcoholic brother and an ailing mother \u2013 had no time to really give a damn. She didn\u2019t need a husband to define herself; she didn\u2019t need him to \u201cput a ring on it\u201d. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s funny how we think our generation is the first to encounter the minefield we\u2019ve come to call <\/span>\u201cmodern dating\u201d<\/span><\/a>. Aunt Astrid didn\u2019t have Facebook or Instagram or Rupi Kaur to tell her how to feel \u2013 she sort of figured it out herself and didn\u2019t make a big deal about it.<\/span>\n\nAunty passed away a summer afternoon in 2008 from a sudden heart attack. To this day I still make my <\/span>biryani<\/span><\/a> in the same beaten-up aluminium handi she used while teaching me. <\/span>\n\nThat handi isn\u2019t Astrid\u2019s only legacy in my life. In her 43 years, she showed me how you don\u2019t need to carry any bitterness in your heart. When Shamsher walked out of her life for good, she didn\u2019t let the pain get her down. <\/span>\n\nIf she were around today, I know she would\u2019ve had my back. I\u2019d known what I was in for once I agreed to be the \u201cother one\u201d and keep it \u201clow key\u201d. Now that the other two had made their choice, whining would only indicate immaturity on my part. Moving on was inevitable, but I would normally have seen this as an opportunity to run away from what I viewed as a bad experience, rather than running toward something better. <\/span>\n\nThanks to Astrid, I now know that <\/span>love<\/span><\/a> doesn\u2019t need to be a burden you expect just one person to carry. Instead, you spread it around, lightening the load. Were she alive, she\u2019d probably have said with a chuckle, \u201cBugger I told you not to stand in two boats men, your balls will get smashed. Chal, let\u2019s go eat some biryani now?\u201d<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Aunt Astrid had an affair with a married man, who finally picked his wife over her. She showed me that carrying bitterness in your heart is counterproductive, especially when you know what you are in for once you agree to be the \u201cother person\u201d in a relationship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[3651,4657,5079,5158,710,5159,1459,5160],"class_list":["post-2538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-love-and-sex","tag-90s","tag-advice","tag-affairs","tag-breaking-up","tag-feminism","tag-modern-dating","tag-modern-love","tag-womens-empowerment"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Date a Married Man: Lessons in Infidelity from My Aunt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"My Aunt Astrid had an affair with a married man, who finally picked his wife over her. She showed me that carrying bitterness in your heart is counterproductive, especially when you know what you are in for once you agree to be the \u201cother person\u201d in a relationship.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=2538\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Date a Married Man: Lessons in Infidelity from My Aunt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My Aunt Astrid had an affair with a married man, who finally picked his wife over her. 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