Meeting a friend's hubby-to-be

There are some social situations where not doing anything leaves you exhausted. You have to reign in your usual sparkling personality, put a lid on anything that might expose the inner workings of your demented mind, and most taxing of all...be nice. These situations usually involve meeting a new acquaintance, especially someone important to someone important to you. These are the times when you bemoan social niceties, lament your dependence on this person and your own inability to not care a hoot!But, then...the friend matters to you...more than all else. So you swallow pride, sarcasm all else that's abrasive about you, and become unrecognizable.
Certain of these awkward situations are better than others. Case in point, meeting a friend's parents. These are genuinely nice people, who themselves have no clue about their son/daughter's "activities" outside home, and who think that their son's friend should be a "nice" girl. Hardly the place to respond to blameless people who ask you "...so your parents must be looking for a boy for you.." with a snarling "...how does it matter to you whether I marry or not...bugger off!". So I usually try to look demure, smile (more like grimace) and say "yeah...they keep asking...but there's time...".
Other situations are painful - meeting a friend's boy/girl friend (who you instantly dislike), meeting the parents at places they wouldn't expect you (e.g. coming out of sex shop/casino/sexy lingerie shop). But most painful of all...is meeting your best (girl)friend's fiancee - hubby-to-be. This is when, you can't give any feedback to friend, can't prevent the worst from happening, can't tell her..."woman! the man's not our type". You see, the decision has already been made - all she wants for you to do is to look, endorse, and be happy for her.
Imagine, your friend is as footloose and fancy-free as you are, but her choice of husband turns out to be a pretentious, heavy usa-accent, patronizing, chennai-hating, tam-bram tradition loving "boy". What...but what is one supposed to do? The man looks most horrified when I ask him "...so do you like cooking?". I mean, he has stayed outside India for more than a decade now, and even I with all my loathing, can cook to save my life, so its a logical conclusion that he knows how to cook. How can he claim to love tamil and yet say, "I comparrrtmentalize my life, speak tamil only at home!", in Chennai. Not like I was asking him to speak only Tamil in London right?
I hate people who begin a conversation with "I was promised scintillating conversation by her"...its a guaranteed method for a boring, groping for inoffensive topics conversation. It just puts unnecessary pressure on the parties.
The worst is yet to follow - you successfully negotiate the powder-keg evening, bite back all the amazingly witty responses that are your trademark, smile enough at the man to convince him he's a hit, avoid spending more than a second necessary, escape home, shut the door and heave huge sighs of relief....only to get an sms from the woman demanding feedback. I mean, what am I supposed to say? It took the longest 10 minutes of my life, to compose a message that was thoroughly cleansed of any bitchiness and true sarcasm. It had to say only the nicest things about a man I wouldn't touch with a bargepole - imagine the effort in the cause of true friendship! Phew! I atleast did hard labour, another friend was so hard put to respond, she didn't! Woes of the sisterhood, man!