I’m rewatching TOW Season 4 and I just do not get this guy. He knew he couldn’t marry Jen, so why keep her on the hook for 3 years? He couldn’t have gotten a visa out of it. Did he actually love her??? That feels doubtful. Was he chasing 90 day clout? I don’t get it. What do y’all think?
I think they want to have a life outside of their tradition, but are bound by tradition. I think Rishi really wanted to be with Jen, but I think he also knew mom wasn’t going to give her blessing. I just don’t think he fully understands that he would genuinely have to choose between these relationships. He could choose Jen & lose his whole family, or choose his family & lose Jen. He’s not going to get to experience personal happiness without one great loss or another, and the way he’s navigated this is by trying to tunnel an alternate route. I think he thinks (or thought) he’d find some way to compromise that would work with him being able to have the love of his life & his family.
Maybe it’s just really hard to get laid in India and he met an American girl that gave him some and he wanted to try and keep that going as long as he could.
Rushing was a liar. Who knows what his game really was but he wasted her time. He is like the affair partner who couldn’t leave his wife so he kept lying but in Rishi’s case he couldn’t leave his mommy.
Because he wanted to have sex with her without feeling guilt about his traditions
They weren’t having sex during the filming of the episodes. She wanted to wait until they were married.
Free sex.
I don’t think people understand how much that has an effect. Anyone living in a sexually free society doesn’t understand how much a taste of sexuality can make someone do irrational selfish things. Much like the Pringle’s slogan once you pop you can’t stop
They claimed they were waiting for marriage
I think he had a dream of a life he knew he could never have, and an American wife like Jen was part of how he imagined his life could be. He wanted it to be real.
His parents made no bones about it:
“She’s too old, if she was young, fine.”
Can’t have babies.
I get the impression that people like this are just really avoidant of conflict. They’ll say or promise whatever the nearest person wants to hear, even though they know that they can’t keep all of those promises.
this is especially true in asian cultures where the concept of “face” and “saving face” is so important
I think you’re bang on here. They don’t like the conflict, and I don’t think he really wanted to hurt Jen. I think he loved her, and probably knew deep down it wasn’t ever going to work out, but didn’t want to see her go.
Spot on, I know people like this and it’s infuriating sometimes. You can’t really have a discussion with them because they just say “you’re right, I will” then do the same thing
Sumit was/did the same
Follow them on IG
I think he loved her and didn’t want to lose her so he kept her strung along.
I think he liked the attention Jen gave him. It probably boosted his ego.
As an older woman who was dating a younger Indian man for 1.5 years (both in the same US city, ages 27 and 38 when relationship started) and it ended because of family, this was my experience:
- The Indian family raises the son to believe that his sole responsibility is to make his parents happy. They come first and you don’t go against them. According to my ex “my life is not my own.”
- The Indian parents often tell them things like they can marry whoever they want, they will not be controlling in a choice, they will not push them into an arranged marriage, etc. It’s a lie they tell the son to keep him happy and feeling like he’s a man in control. So then he takes this literally and dates someone of his choosing who may not be a traditional choice.
- Once he presents them for marriage, the parents totally flip to traditional and say no because of things like age, ethnicity, religion, caste, horoscopes, height, jobs, etc. They totally backtrack on everything they said before.
- Because you usually don’t meet Indian parents until you are ready to get married (not while dating), these relationships usually go on for years before the rejection comes.
So it’s not so much a case of do your research, it’s a case at least in mine of being reassured over and over the age was not an issue every time I brought it up, told this was a liberal family who is not like all the others, but in the end they always end up being like all the others.