self_made_human's profile

self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 1hr ago · Edited 19m ago

I sense a tale waiting to be told. Sure, Germany is far too close for comfort for the British, ancestral memory and all that. I suppose you can subsidize the alcoholism and I'll get the sauerkraut. I think both of us could use the drink, if not the wiener.

Your family cares about you. Be glad.

Oh I certainly am touched, my family is great, not that it stops me from muttering about the way their care and concern manifests on occasion. I'm only mildly exasperated; I'm no lemon or old beater that I need an enthusiastic salesperson or a dozen trying to sell me off to the highest bidder, but eh, enough stress might bring about the male pattern baldness earlier than expected and it's always good to have a backup.

Apart from all that, what is your family's opinion on you moving to Scotland?

My parents never wanted me to move abroad, and were vocal about it. To them, an ideal ending would be me taking up my dad's reigns as a surgeon, or at least marrying a woman just regaining her sanity after a gyne MS, so that his massive clientele and skills can be handed down to someone who needs them for more than writing the odd examination or two. Well, they've got my younger brother still in the oven, and while I doubt he's insane enough to take up gyne either, I'd bet decent money he'll be getting married off eventually, preferably to a surgeon. He's far more handsome, but simply doesn't give a single fuck about the fairer sex. Not gay either, he ignores the horny fucks sliding into his DMs, and those include one of his male professors from med school. I suppose he'll just shrug and bear it. I'm deeply jealous, that's a level of sanity that I can never aspire to.

But that's all the ill I can speak about my parents. They've been supportive of my own ambitions, even if it means I'm flying the coop. The worst they've done is occasionally argue and try and dangle carrots before me, never the stick. They have valid arguments, both emotional and practical, but so do I. I don't think I'd ever be happy in India, I fit in much better abroad.

Right now, they're feeling the same melancholic, bittersweet happiness that I do. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but they're proud that their son is getting around to adding more alphabet soup behind his name, and a degree in the UK still gets their peers nodding appreciatively, so they can't complain. A postgrad degree is what everyone is dying to acquire post MBBS, while doctors might seem interchangeable to a layman beyond knowing their age and specialization, the lack of the latter doesn't get you very far in the eyes of your peers or your career.

I certainly wouldn't be getting so many marriage offers if I hadn't proven that I have some degree of academic competence, at least not from the parents of other doctors, though that's partly because until you've got that locked in, the rest of your life looks an interminable grind getting there.

Cheers to you, not that I can drink on duty. I can use a continental vacation at some point, and a beer, dearly.

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self_made_human Kai su, teknon? 3hr ago

I recently spoke to a cute med student on the dating apps, same med school as my younger brother.

She tells me she knows my brother. I mean, who doesn't? He's a looker, all the girls and a good quarter of the guys want to know him, in the biblical sense, but she wasn't so crass. All good.

She she says she knows my dad. Okay.. But I've heard worse.

She goes on to say that not only are our parents colleagues, they're from the same med school. What a coincidence!

I ask my brother about her. You know, due diligence. He gives me a look, and tells me to keep my filthy paws off her if I know what's good for me. Huh. That's new. I swear he's never had that particular reaction before, and I wanted to know why, but he just shook his head, asked me to confirm her surname, and wandered off.

Then she says that hey, your dad was visiting our place just a month or so back, how's he doing? Quite well, thank you for asking. What field of medicine are your parents in? Gynecologists themselves?

I matched into psychiatry. Then I found out, after a very reasonable amount of flirting, that I had matched with my psychiatrist's daughter on a dating app. I told her that I had literally called him a month back to share the good news. The former, the latter was nothing but bad.

My dad delivered her by c-sec. He does that to a lot of people, it's not a very exclusive club, after all, how could it be, when I'm a member?

My fucking brother, he was laughing his ass off in the next room, the walls, while thick, weren't nearly enough to hide the chortles or my beet red face. Then the asshole goes on to tell my parents about her, and I limp back home from work, only to have my dad ask me if I want to marry her.

I chuckle and throw my employee ID card somewhere it won't be missed. Then I take a good look. He's not joking. This is the opposite of good, but what am I good at except brushing off commitment?

No? Then stop fucking around, SMH (he's also shaking his head, and I mine). She's a Good Girl™, studious, from a respectable family. You want to get married? I can call her dad right now. He's not kidding either. I thought I was dead inside, but apparently it's always possible to make room for desert and to make what's already dead roll over and die again.

I assure him that as someone about to move countries and stay in Scotland for 3 years and change, marrying an Indian med student only halfway through her course is the ABSOLUTE LAST THING I want to be doing.

Ah, but they're well off enough, and so are we. We could fly her out every six months or so to see you.

-_-

My mom was in the room and giggling her ass off. Thank you for the moral support mom.

I tell my dad that I don't think a healthy marriage involves the newly weds living a continent away, seeing each other every blue moon. He doesn't seem all that fussed, and I realized that roughly summed up the first few years of his marriage, given how he was on the sigma grindset. I suppose there's a reason they had their honeymoon when I was three years old. No, I tell him, given that if there's ever going to be a shotgun wedding, her dad will be the one wielding one, only to keep me at bay. He's my fucking shrink, he knows things. He'd need a shrink himself if he let me anywhere near his cute and nerdy daughter, and I'm not licensed yet.

At this point, my mom asks me if I care to examine the latest batch of single ladies lovingly handpicked out for me by my aunt in London. I've well and truly had enough, I stomp out of there with steam, tinted pink with dying brain tissue, hissing out of my ears.

My life is a farce. Joke's on me. So are the drinks, but only because I'm going to be downing a lot of them.

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