Confused, marriage? why? how?

Confused, sleep deprived, stressed and all the rest of it.
Its come to my attention that I'm a very confused person, I don't really have a clue in what I want to do in life. This blog has nothing to do with biochemistry.

Jumping to the wrong conclusion, that's a huge mistake that I've made a couple of times, for instance, one of my very close friends got married recently. And she didn't tell, naturally i assumed that i mustn't mean a great deal to her if she hasn't told me. But then again I hadn't seen her on facebook for about a year. Internet connection maybe? I really don't understand why people, especially people you were friends with would hide something like that from you, not just her but I've firsthand heard more of the same story. Facebook's another thing, it allows people you've erased from your heart and memory to re-connect, after it's taken you so long to delete them.

Finding a spouse. Yes I've said it, in some Asian and African cultures the time for women to get married is the early 20's and I've hit it. My family has already started to give me some criteria, my mother would come up to me and say " i want a son-in-law who is good to his mother, one that will be like my son" and uncle "so there's no possibility of someone knocking on your door tomorrow" oh it gets better mothers friend " She's going to bring you someone she's met in uni" and the icing on the cake, my little sister " Hurry up, i want your room".
oh aren't i loved (!) As you all may know, having a boyfriend/girlfriend in Islam is a big no no. What really annoys me is the assumed pressure to get married soon, sometimes you can sense it in a conversation.

so how do people go about meeting their spouses? that's a good question and that really varies. some people are school sweethearts, knew each other but didn't engage in activities which are prohibited. Others dated anyway. Some meet through family, in arranged marriages where they'd meet in a room with people, usually family members. They may exchange details or they may not ( i.e if it's a long engagement they will only contact to arrange the wedding) There's many ways people go about it. And with the uprise of technology there's even Muslim dating sites.

Personally I'd like to know what the persons like before it reaches asking my father, that's why I'm a bit iffy about arranged marriages, you'll only see what the other person wants you to see, and that's gonna be them in a good light. when in fact they may only be like that 5% of the time.
Which is why I think the easiest way is to find someone in school/college. Then you'd see how they treat other people and how they deal with problems etc.
 Personally I'd rather be engaged for a long time, whilst i get my shit together ( I want to have my own life before i share it) and then get married. During that time it's culturally acceptable to talk, it sounds very restraining and it is in a way. But by not mixing freely with the opposite gender there's generally fewer heartbreak.

When i was younger i used to think, I'll meet someone in uni, who has the same lectures as me and then we'd get married when we graduate. Time has changed and most importantly there are no potentials in my course. I'm not a big fan of inter-racial marriages, not that I have anything against them. It's just not for me. I'd want a man who sings to my kids the same lullaby's my father used to sing to me. Now however the concept of marriage seems so scary to me, I find it difficult to trust people especially men. That's because I've seen so many broken households where the woman ends up raising the kids on her own. You see marriage to me isn't about the first couple of years where spouses are head over heels in love. But what about after 20 years? Especially if it's an arranged marriage you can't really know. I've spoken to one of my friends about this once and she said i should pray and put my trust in God, and she's absolutely right, when my turn comes i really should.

The part I've noticed women struggle with is finding a potential which gets me wondering if it's the same for men.

I'm not 100% cynical, like i said I'm a sarcastic person and immature (though I've been working on the immature) and if i marry someone with the same sense of humour, then a bucket load of laughter would be shared. I've just figured the obvious out, people trust who they're going to marry because they love them. So maybe it won't be such a scary experience after all!