What about the situation, before marriage? How can one be so grounded, even in the throes of intense infatuation, to ask one's prospective cherubic spouse to fill out a questionnaire of likes and dislikes? ?That would be the sure way to end any courtship and let the potential mate escape from the spidery web of carefully woven love, man!?

?By the way, don't you realise that even if he or she were to fill out the questionnaire, what's going to prevent her from conjuring an ideal picture on paper??

?You must be real na've to believe that people and their ideas, principles / opinions don't change, buddy!? Sometimes they even change overnight.

?Oh, and don't forget, no one's perfect. There are lots of obvious reasons to endear you to your prospective spouse and loads of reasons to detest the same person after marriage! Aren't there any durable marriages around, anymore? Take a leaf out of the survivor's books. The trick to stay afloat in a marriage, is to hang on to the likes for dear life and kick the dislikes out of sight and mind (yeah, your mind)!?

So, a camp of thought squarely espouses that this course of well-meaning action (i.e. getting to know the other person with a straight face!) would be most inappropriate and useless, to elicit a list of likes and dislikes from a would-be life partner. (In political circles, these are the category of people we normally call the ?Opposition? party. They just get a kick out of doing the exact opposite, of the sane majority.)

Then there is the prevalent thought of the majority. Yes, the fountain of a happy-forever-marriage springs from not springing a surprise, after marriage. Coax your prospective partner into fun-filled walks along winding garden paths and also into those revealing information pathways that could prevent those after- marriage shocks and surprises. Forewarned is forearmed. Order for your wedding dress and also get ready an impregnable suit of armour to ward off the harmful dislikes.

A marriage stands a greater shot at success, if there is mutual agreement on various sensitive and curled-up-dog-tail issues. (If you can't straighten the tail, please learn to accept the fact that it can at least wag!) It is all about putting in an effort to accept the dislikes, to the possible extent, or to at least sidestep the dislike.

Work on it or ignore it.

The question that follows is, ?How does one decide what issues can be broached to ensure that the wedding bells peal happily ever after??

?          Well, most married couples disagree on having children or as to how early they should intrude into their married life.

?          Religious beliefs can get out of hand any time (One does not need to be married or unmarried for this problem, in the name of God).

?          Responsibilities and expectations after marriage (Example: Who does the cooking? Who does the dishwashing and the cleaning up? What are the boundaries of responsible spending?) should be thrashed out in the open before marriage, rather than let it hang around the ether, until well after D-day and drop down on the hapless victim like a ton of bricks, post marriage.

?          The manner of behaving with each other's families is a common source of marital friction. The beaming ear-to-ear grin or the polite subdued / lively speech for ingratiating oneself with the future in-laws should not be relegated to some forgotten recess of your living memory, after the marriage.

Whether you quiz your prospective spouse or not, generating the effort to know your partner intimately, indulging in the dos and carefully avoiding the don'ts, are the right steps towards the direction of mutual caring. Much more than the dos, it is the don'ts that one must grapple with, to gently wipe them away without a trace or to cope with the persistent ones.

Last but not least, it is not about just coming to grips with the other person's likes and dislikes, it is also about realigning oneself.

?Oh frail mind, tossed in the vast blue sky of life, can you unravel the ?morrow, now??