I'm going to tell my story from start to finish as best as I can detail it. One reason being that a lot of people give advice but have never gone through the experience themselves. Not that I know all the answers, but this serves two purposes. One to show where I'm coming from, what I experienced, and the challenges I've faced in fulfilling my dream of being married. Secondly, I hope this serves as some kind of inspiration to others that are searching for their life long mate that there is always hope and always a window of opportunity to use. I think it's important to share our stories, because although experiences are a learning tool the experiences of others are even more powerful. I encourage those of you that reach success to submit your stories to the site for others to learn from your experience and strengthen their hope. Although I'm Muslim, I'm going to keep the context as general as possible because at this site we have a broad range of readers representing many cultures and religions.

From The Start...

From the early age of 16 I've had a strong desire to be married one day. I yearned for the companionship of that caring and special person to share a life long love. My master plan was to finish college, then immediately start looking for a wife. During this time I actually had extremely low self esteem and didn't have much self worth. So I didn't even think I could find someone that was even interested in me.

After college I decided that I needed to completely overhaul who I was. This is when I learned the meaning to "I think therefor I am." It's a very strange phrase if you don't spend any time thinking about it. But it essentially means that you'll be whoever you think you are. So if you think lowly of yourself, then you will be lowly. If you think you're someone in charge of your life, then you will be that person. It's completely self-fulfilling. So I started to think positive, and over time I actually started to act positive. I started dressing better, and realized that the future in front of me is a hell of a long time. So I've got to do everything in my power to at least make an attempt at getting what I want. As opposed to sitting on the sidelines of life and just assuming that nothing good will come so why even bother trying.

And you know what? I also found out that negativity repels people, and a positive attitude attracts. Although, I also found that negativity could be used as a bond with another who shares the same issue. This is because both people can sympathize and relate to each other on that level. A friend of mine mentioned to me once that a negative thing (like depression) isn't exactly the best premise for the foundation of a relationship.

What I Started To Look For...

So with an overhauled image and fresh outlook I decided to start my mission. I wasn't exactly a model Muslim, far from it actually. But the one thing that I wanted to do right was following the religion to a tee. I'm very accepting of consequences that are directed at me as a result of my actions and decisions. But the thing about marriage is that someone else's life is involved, and I wanted to do everything in my power to make sure everything is perfect by using God as a guide.

A lot of Indians and Muslims are subjected to strict cultural guidelines in addition to their religion. Fortunately I didn't have to follow that. My dad is Pakistani and my mother is Austrian, so culture wasn't a strong point in the family. My dad is extremely religious and values religion above anything else. A lot of cultures are derived from religion, and so mixed in it, that a lot of people actually can't separate certain things from being religious versus traditional.

I wanted to follow the rules as it's written in religious text. Plus girls being off limits all my life, I had nothing else to relate to. Sure I had friends that dated girls all through high school and such, but I didn't really believe in that. I'm not into this temporary stuff. I wanted to find the one person I needed to spend the rest of my life with.

So according to the religious rules, and the cultural protocol I've seen practiced, my parents and relatives were to scope out available prospects and inform them of me. And likewise inform me of available prospects. I've seen other people find someone in extremely short periods of time, and I figured all that you needed to do was find someone that just fit the 'parameters' of what you were looking for. Again I had absolutely ZERO experience with all of this stuff so I had no idea what to think, or how anything works.