The Death of Intimacy

What weddings are, and not

Thamara Kandabada
VMEO
Published in
3 min readJan 28, 2019

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I was at a wedding the other day. A cousin was getting married.

We drove over to this nice hotel in the morning. Banquet tables were laid out in the customary 10-seat arrangement in a well-lit, sparsely ventilated reception hall. A traditional Poruwa stood in one end of the hall, ready to serve its purpose. There was a dance floor, complete with a DJ eagerly fiddling with the console on a raised platform next to it.

It was the complete package. The bride and the groom looked lovely. There was more food than I could possibly imagine to digest.

Yet, I was dying to get out of there.

A Sri Lankan wedding is a peculiar thing. A lot of effort (and money) goes into one, but not nearly enough thought.

The whole endeavor, as I’ve come to notice, turns out to be a rather expensive exercise in vanity. A day that should be dedicated to intimacy ends up being a blueprint for excess.

It must have occurred to you by now that I don’t particularly approve of this extravagant ritual. So much so that I do my best to avoid weddings, and end up declining whenever I receive the occasional invitation. The modern obsession with loud, oppressively vibrant, yet unmistakably crass weddings signals to me the antithesis of common sense.

The dressing up is not for me. Nor is the earsplitting dance music. And I certainly can’t join in with the other inebriated drones who, by way of being dulled beyond reason thanks to the free-flowing alcohol, seem to be in momentary bliss despite themselves.*

Surely, an occasion as momentous as that of two loving souls coming together should lend itself to intimacy, should it not? The thought of it becoming yet another yardstick for perceived affluence, a marker with which to gauge social status, pains me to say the least. Have we so little regard for our own wellbeing and happiness that we deem putting up a flamboyant, excessively lavish, (and dare I say it, instagrammable) show more important than a true-to-self, and positively enjoyable one?

It is not surprising that when you, in a desperate attempt to please, manufacture a day so fake and sapped of spirit, the people who turn up on your invitation too have colored themselves in every shade of inauthentic. Fake faces wearing fake smiles, and beneath those smiles, a whole lot of fake ornamentation. It is also veritably common that you will never see or speak to most of these people again.

The Wedding Industrial Complex is a curse. Your paycheck can’t handle it, nor can your parents’. It eats into your hard-earned cents and theirs, and having seen the full depth of those pockets, like a vampire demented with bloodlust, it will ask for more. Granted, you will remember your wedding day, because your bank will make sure you do.

I may come across as a bitter old fool with no stomach for dance and cheer, yet I will pull no punches. Do me a favor, and don’t invite me to your day of hedonistic excess.

There has to be a more meaningful way to celebrate a day as special as this. There is, if you’re willing to settle for more intimacy and less glitz.

I don’t know if my cousin enjoyed the day, I didn’t see him for much of it. All I know is that it finally came to an end, long as it was and much to my relief, and the only memory of it left on my face was a look of resignation.

*I am a teetotaler, and I industriously stride away from anything that resembles a dance floor. Yes, I’m incredibly boring, thankyouverymuch.

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Deepities, platitude and stolen opinions. Perennially confused. Not good at parties. Email: thamara@hey.com