Here it is! For a cool $5.95 (plus S&H) my faux married life has begun! The ring is a little small, but, as a friend pointed out, that just makes it look like I’ve gained the inevitable post-nuptial weight.As you have probably guessed, the ring is so that I can more credibly lie about my marital status while in field work in India. And not just because of the looks of terrified pity when I announce my age and lack of husband simultaneously. And also not just because I need to fend off sleazy requests brought on by the assumption that white women are essentially like a cross between a pornography website and a green card. (For these types, I suppose I can say that my husband, sadly, could not come to India in light of his ongoing jail sentence for aggravated assault). What I really want to fend off with my ring is requests for friendship from men who work in the tourist industry and who basically collect white pen pals.
This is harmless enough, I suppose, but the emails have two big downsides: they are (1) written in text-message-ese, in which I am not fluent, and (2) consist largely of motivational proverbs and requests for replies. I cannot bear to get any more guilt trip emails about why haven’t I written back to a rug seller in Kerala whose letters read like Stuart-Smalley-meets-MySpace. And, since such an email relationship—even though it most closely resembles eating fortune cookies—would not be appropriate between Indian males and married Indian women outside their own family, I’m hoping I, too, will be able to dodge some pen pals with references to my alleged husband.
The big downside to having a faux marriage is that it reminds me of a teenage girl practicing signing her name “Mrs. Gregory Smith” and making elaborate plans about a future with her crush in Algebra II. By which I mean: this seems like it has the potential to really freak out my boyfriend. I don’t know for sure, but I bet buying yourself a wedding ring fall pretty squarely in the “potentially interpreted as overbearing” category. No doubt, many a political scientist has had her heart broken with just such a misunderstanding.
More as I get closer to D-Day, July 16!
