Committed? Then bear the brunt

The few 'unwanted' changes in the life of committed guys go like:

All Indians are my brothers and sisters 

The first blow that one's hit with as soon as he gets into a relationship is – consider all the boys and girls around you as your brothers and sisters. So, dare you raise your eyes to check out others around. For now, you are reserved for the one you're committed with.

Says Kapil Sharma, a second-year college student, who's been dating his girl for the last eight months, "Only I know what a 360 degree turn my life has taken eversince I got committed. Even though I love her, one thing that irritates me no end is her habit of following my eyes everywhere. So while she's loving it when we're alone, as soon as I am with my school friends, a lot of whom are girls, I'm under her constant gaze. And later I'm bombarded with things that I haven't even done - 'I saw you checking out that babe?' or 'Weren't you standing too close to that girl?' or 'It's so clear, you find all other girls prettier than me!' And all of this eventually ends in a fight, with me often wondering what fun it used to be hanging out with my female friends earlier or cracking silly non-veg jokes all the time.

It's 'Our time' anytime, all the time 

Secondly, it's high time you guys realised, that for you, there's nothing as 'my time'. So if you're committed and you're still fighting with your partner over 'my time' or 'my space', give up! For as a rule, the moment you walk into a relationship, your partner is entitled to everything 50-50. And yes, your time too!

Says Sachin Gulati who got engaged in March with Deeksha after two months of courtship, "It's been six months now and I'm still waiting to go biking with my friends, as was our routine every weekend before my marriage was fixed. Going biking to distant towns over the weekends was such fun and it was our way to unwind. Now, it's become a dream, as Deeksha is like 'You guys drive so fast! I'm scared you'll get hurt. So if you go, I'll come along too.' And since we all have been doing it as a boys' sport, with my other friends also leaving their wives behind, I feel helpless and have to make Deeksha understand it all." Adding he says, "While biking is one, all this while, there hasn't been one occasion where I have been 'permitted' to party alone, even if it was a drinks party planned just between us boys."

Love me, love my dog 

...That definitely sounds familiar, right? "Oh definitely! Ask me," sighs Akshay, a post-graduate student, who confesses, "This one irritating habit has been common between my previous and current girlfriend. Somehow women think if we love them, we're supposed to love everything and everyone in their family – right from their pets to their school friends to even their most distant relatives. Recently, my girlfriend introduced me to her distant cousin, with whom she's very close. Later just as a casual banter, I laughed about his weird dressing sense which upset my girlfriend so much that not only she yelled at me, she didn't even speak to me the whole day till I apologised to her."

Show me your money 

However much you may earn, take it from the ones who've tread this path – 'it's never enough'.

Shares Dhruv Pandit, a second year management student, "How excited I was and felt so rich when my dad doubled my pocket money from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 when I got through MBA! But then I fell in love with a classmate and 10K suddenly looked so meagre. I mean right from paying for our movies to dinners, disc tickets, soaring phone bills, everything just doubled. Add to it a dating norm - that guys need to keep their girls happy whether it is with expensive gifts, flowers or romantic dates, I was back to being a pauper. Now, how I wish my dad raised my pocket money to Rs 50,000," quips Dhruv.

Bill da mamla 

When in love, phone bills are the last thing one cares about, till they finally arrive and give you a heart attack.

"I've suffered this big time but somehow have never been able to control it. What's worse is that the girls who I had marathon conversations with are not there in my life anymore," says Akash Suri, a BPO executive, continuing, "Now I know 'everything comes with a price', so do relationships!"

Love me more than my friend's bf 

"Now how do you do that!" exclaims Kapil Sharma, "How do I meet up the standards of someone I don't even know! It's extremely irritating to hear my girlfriend sing praises of some other guy who loves and cares for his girlfriend. And then she expects me to behave exactly the same way. More than the fun element, I'm mostly living under this constant pressure of trying to keep my girlfriend happy so that she stops comparing me with other guys."

Can I please breathe? 

For Sachin Gulati, his engagement has been 'life changing'. He says, "I have always been independent, even my parents are not strict and don't check me much on anything. But with Deeksha, I now have to report everything - from what time I reached office, how many glasses of beer I had at a party, to the number of cigarettes I smoked in the day. So much so, even the new laptop that I bought is of her preference. If I am on such a tight leash right now, I wonder how things will be once we are married!"