Laughing emojis and eyeroll gifs filled the chat.
A separate chat box leaped onto her computer screen.
PikachuMod typed, Good for you. Take that sucker down. How you are holding up?
Colleen smiled. Her fingers flew over her keyboard. Fine. Tired bc early day at work. I think I’ve been awake for 20 hours straight. How you?
The cursor blinked for a few seconds before PikachuMod, whose real name was Anjali, typed, Why you still up? Go to bed!
Didn’t mean to stay up this late. I just jumped on the boards bc gotta protect the n00bs. I swear TT and the other Killer Whales *wait* for us to all go to bed and then start scamming the tenderfeet. Why are you still up?
Crammin’ for exams, as always. Life of an Indian university student.
It’s summer! Colleen typed.
Taking a seminar over the 5-week semester. TG it’s the last week. Let’s go out Fri pm!
Colleen fast-forwarded her work schedule through her bleary mind. I get off work at 9 on Fri.
Perfectamundo. I’ll tell Sally and Rita to meet us. See you at Sharkeys.
Sharkeys had cheap beer and no cover for girls, so Colleen could probably afford one drink if she went out with her friends. Okay, sure.
You need a date, yah. You need a boyfriend. You need to get laid. Sharkeys is where you will meet someone and get a boyfriend.
Colleen rolled her eyes. I am perfectly happy how I am, and I certainly don’t need anyone setting me up with yous guys’ leftovers.
Not our leftovers. Some new and magnificent tall dark and handsome who will be the perfect nice guy after your string of losers.
They weren’t—
Colleen stopped typing before she hit send. No use lying to protect the egos of losers who weren’t even around. She backspaced over her words.
Instead, she wrote, I am just fine as I am. Statistically, unmarried women are the happiest people with the highest life satisfaction. Why would I want to trade that for some douche who would make me less happy, statistically speaking?
More words appeared in their chat bubble. No. Outlier bias. 50% of marriages end in divorce, and women initiate divorces 80% of the time. That means that 40% of married women are so unhappy that they are going to divorce.
She scoffed at Anjali’s words on her computer screen. You are not helping your case.
No, no, no, Colleen. What I mean is that those 40% are dragging the numbers down. The other 60% who stay married must be so incredibly happy that their statistics must be the very top. They must be very perfect numbers. You know what all the numbers mean. I don’t have to tell you.
Numbers flowed in Colleen’s head as waves of fluorescent points on a biphasic graph. She capitulated, Yeah, it does make sense that if there’s a subpopulation of very unhappy married women at the bottom of the graph, that the remainder must be farther up on the happiness scale to have the average come out like that.
Yes, that is right. That slimeball Chad broke up with you six months ago. That is why you need a boyfriend and a husband.
OH YE GODS ANJALI. No one said anything about husbands!
The words appearing on Colleen’s screen were so prim that she could hear the smug all the way from Anjali’s dorm room several miles away. I can get married any time I want to if I ask my aunties to arrange me, but I worry about you and our other friends who have no recourse if you don’t find a love match. It’s so insecure.
Giggles burbled up in Colleen’s chest as she read Anjali’s chat message. They’d had this debate a thousand times. I assure you that I’m absolutely fine. I don’t want a boyfriend, and I *really* don’t want a husband, maybe ever. I’m trying to get my life together, and I don’t want the distraction of guys right now.
Yes, well, if you come back to college, I can ask my aunties if they can arrange you if you want it. Indian husbands are very good, you know. They will not leave you. And if you finish your degree in finance and computer science, I feel sure we could get you a doctor or an engineer.
Colleen was laughing her head off, though silently because her neighbors and her neighbors’ kids must be asleep. Anjali, sweetie, you remember I’m not Indian, right? Wouldn’t your aunties balk at the fact I’m a quarter Scottish and some Lebanese and a little German and part Greek?
Pah, Anjali wrote, you could look Indian. Your hair is dark enough. Everyone looks different in India, anyway. We’ll just tell your suitors that you’re Kashmiri and put brown highlights in your hair like the Bollywood stars.
Ya don’t think it’s going to be a problem eventually? Colleen asked, bantering back because, even though this conversation was absurd, Anjali might not be kidding. She wasn’t the absurd-humor type.
