My mom works with a bunch of goris and they have whole bunch of different issues too....like one teacher has been dating a guy for a long time and he is pressuring her to live with her. She would like to get married, he says it's just a piece of paper, and if she 'really' loved him, the paper wouldn't matter. Her situation is really common... lots of girls in their late 20s end up in live-in relationships rather than marriage....of course their boyfriends upgrade after a while and these girls are left so sad and broken. And then they are freaking out about having a child and their fertility. If these girls were desi and at that age, they can find a guy and get married within a year. In fact I know some desi people who get married within several months. Most american guys, on the other hand, will not marry the girl without dating her at least 2 years. So a lot of girls waste their fertile years like this and end up panicking at the end, worrying about freezing their eggs or whatever.
Another prob which is common is that a guy expects the girl to sleep with him by the third date, but if the girl says she loves him even after 3 months, it's just 'creepy' and 'stalkerish'...I don't get how a guy can have sex with a girl for months and months and be freaked out that she loves him??
Basically i think some desi marriage practices are really messed up. But i am glad that as a desi, it is not weird for me to consider a guy who likes me as a potential marriage partner and that i don't have to do it with every potential rishta (can you imagine?? :-O). Also it is sort of good to have the parental card...i don't have to deal with a guy pressuring me to live with him and worry about my long-term security.
other than relationships though, i do like the overall 'carpe diem' attitude of goras toward life. desis seem to just say "kismat mein aisa likha tha" which seems to be an excuse for laziness.