Exactly What Is the Right Age To Have a Boyfriend?

I’m always too early or too late

Photo by Alba Rebecca on Unsplash

When I was growing up as a teenager in India, I was told I couldn’t have a boyfriend as long as I lived with my parents. I couldn’t think of boys and romance in the same sentence. If I did, the conversation was always brought back to studies and being an A-plus student. Doing well in school always had to supersede any desires of the heart. Falling in love was forbidden.

All grown up, a young adult with an MBA, I was told this wasn’t the right time for a boyfriend either. The allure of romance would distract me from taking care of my career and making sure I made something out of my A-plus grades.

Having a boyfriend was seen as me abandoning myself and, more importantly, disgracing my conservative, educated, and accomplished Indian family.

In my late twenties, when I expressed an interest in getting married, my family acted like I had said the most inappropriate thing. Young women in the rich and upwardly mobile Indian society we were part of didn’t speak or dream openly about falling in love.

These women talked about traveling, working, and being independent, while their parents and relatives covertly arranged marriages for them.

When I finally did have a boyfriend, after living and working independently for many years, I couldn’t tell my family. When they found out, they acted like I had done the most shameful thing.

Young, unmarried, good girls from families like ours didn’t have boyfriends!

Finally, when I got married quickly to a guy because the boyfriend phase was unacceptable to my family and couldn’t last too long without invoking the wrath of everyone, it ended in a divorce because I didn’t know who I had married.

Then the tables were turned, and everyone in the family scolded me for marrying a guy I didn’t know well. How could I get to know him? I was never allowed to have a boyfriend!

Every year after that, I was told implicitly and explicitly that having a boyfriend is for the young. Not for a thirty-something divorcee like me.

It was too late for me to call anyone a boyfriend!

In every instance “boyfriend” was treated like it’s a dirty word. It had shame and guilt associated with it. Having a boyfriend was simply not accepted by the family.

I was always too early or too late.

With age, wisdom replaced everything I had heard from my family. Like most women, I now know that love isn’t just a label, and it doesn’t need permission to arrive in our lives. Call your love by whatever name you want: boyfriend, lover, soulmate, mon amour, or husband. The underlying feelings matter more than what he or she is labeled.

I am clear now that I have the right to find a boyfriend. I don’t need my family’s approval or blessing to experience love.

Only this conundrum remains. How can I help change the minds of the many South-Asian parents who are still to this day raising educated and accomplished daughters and then telling them they can’t have a boyfriend?

Author Bio:

Gargi is a writer, lawyer, and the founder of UNSQUASHABLEGIRL, an organization that inspires women to step out of abusive and dysfunctional relationships and live better lives.