Okay, let’s talk about being on a matrimony site already
My parents put me on a matrimony site in June of 2016.
This was discussed with me; I knew it was coming, and when it did - which was essentially “Okay, you have graduated, you have a job, so, what about marriage?” I said, “Okay, but can we do it when I am 27?” My mum replied arranged marriages of today are not like her time when you get on the scene and everything’s done within a matter of months. Rather pointedly, may I add. She told me these things take time and you never really know. Having been on dating sites, I could see where she was coming from about things taking time. So, even though I felt a little young, I agreed. I had already done my own introspection on this topic since my parents were kind of circling it and I felt it was going to be any day now. Arranged marriages in general is not something I’m unfamiliar with and having seen a fair share of both successful and unsuccessful arranged marriages around me, I wasn’t totally against the concept. As for whether this was something I wanted to do, it was a clear and easy decision for me for the following reasons:
I didn’t enjoy being on dating sites and found it to be far more damaging to my self-esteem than anything I have done in my life. Finding someone who was interested in a long-term relationship was like Russian Roulette in the sense that part of me was ready to kill myself over how harrowing the experience was.
Casual dating was not something I was interested in anyway. I never saw the point. Dating sites took this to the extreme with most people having one foot already out the door or a “just wanted to see what’s on here” vibe. I always felt like I was a backup option or a temporary option or an “ehhh” option. What I wanted to feel like was someone who saw it as a partner and me, working together and towards our individual and collective goals. Similar outlook on core values but have different interests and hobbies so we don’t rely on each other for everything. Equal respect and all that jazz.
I was (still am) pretty set on the main or non-negotiable traits I wanted in someone.
I don’t get attracted to people based on looks. I usually get to know someone, get intrigued by their qualities and then they become increasingly attractive to me. So, dating apps and their algorithm, which often had to do with looks, generally failed in this. Also, because dating apps made me wonder if there was anyone interested in a monogamous relationship. Like AT ALL.
Just under a year before my parents brought up marriage, I spent A LOT of time in hospitals (not only because I worked in one, but because someone in the family was fairly ill). On many days, I found myself coming home emotionally drained and letting myself into a dark and empty house with no one to come home to. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about how I was feeling and felt very, very isolated, with only my pillow for comfort and tears. The stress and loneliness I felt during this experience washed away the ghost of “Do I really want to spend the rest of my life with someone?? Like can I even share a bed with someone??” doubts I had. I’m an extrovert and since I was a child, I’ve given my mum an hour-by-hour breakdown of my day once I was home (Obviously as I grew older, this was fairly filtered but you get the idea). I couldn’t imagine not doing this. I’m comfortable being myself but I just don’t see myself living by myself. This experience also terrified me that it could be too late and the person would never see me married.
I frankly didn’t know how comfortable or okay my parents would be with me dating someone and bringing them home like, “Hi mum and dad, this is who I want to marry.” I mean, I hadn’t seriously dated anyway but, in the grand scheme of things, I didn’t know if this would pan out in my favour.
It’s important for me that who I marry is also Tamil and this was fairly a shallow pool on localised dating sites. International sites often simply lacked the filters to do so and even if they did, it was still a shallow pool. However, being on a Tamil matrimony site already had this filter set in place for me.
Coincidentally, I just happened to have poked around tamilmatrimony.com a month before anyway and had decided, “Pfft. I’ve survived dating sites; this will be fine!”
And seriously, it just didn’t seem like a big deal to me overall. My parents weren’t going to throw me at the first guy they came across, I would be calling the shots. And at the end of the day, I want a long-term partner and marriage, people on this site are here for the same reasons too, so why not!
So, I gave my consent to be on a matrimony site.
Things didn’t evolve into a “Okay, let’s drop everything and register you on tamilmatrimony.com right away then!” situation like I thought I would. My parents went, “Okay.” And then started looking for an astrologer and an auspicious time to get me on the site. Pretty anticlimactic but okay. I can respect that. As a matter of fact, I totally understand it. There was always (and still is) a small part of me that was FREAKING out that we were dating as a family but overall, I felt like I had made the most logical decision.
Things were… interesting for the first six months to maybe even a year. Everything was fine in my astrological charts, we were hopeful and optimistic, and once we got on the site, matches came flooding in - it was just green lights everywhere. With confidence, we ignored or rejected the ones we considered weren’t a good match – sleazy dudes, smokers, opportunists who simply saw me as the pathway to a Singapore citizenship. If I had a bit more control, I would have rejected guys with selfies in the toilets, guys who had ABSOLUTELY nothing written in their profiles other than the columns the site had deemed mandatory, guys who had things like “fair girl” on their profile and guys who were 30 years old and chose the girl’s desired age range as 21 to 30 or sometimes even 18 to 30. Something about that just doesn’t sit right with me. But my parents were quick to say it could be the guy’s parents who wrote such things and not the guy himself. I was quick to retort, “Well is that the kind of family you want me to marry into? A family that wants an eighteen-year-old tall, fair, slim bride for their 30-year-old son? At 25, short, stout, and dark, I’m the right opposite.” My parents hushed me about rejecting the good things that came our way. Five years on, my parents think toilet selfies are weird too, a 35-year-old guy looking for an 18- or 21-year-old bride feels barely legal, and make it a point to ask the guy to share more when he approaches us with nothing on his profile. The fair girl thing however feels fairly non-negotiable. I think girls with dark skin are just not meant to have a loving husband and a stable future or something. And while my darkness has always, always been pointed out to me, I didn’t see it as the barrier of my dreams until we got on this site.
It’s interesting because most families pose the “Ponnu maanirama/ Is the girl dark?” question to us. And I’ve realised it’s often posed as the opening or closing question of the call and never in the middle of the conversation. As if it’s the end-all or be-all deciding factor on whether the family still wants me as the person for their son. I used to think “Well, does it matter?” in a wounded manner when I hear the question and my dad answering it. Five years on, I think “BITCH, DID YOU NOT SEE THE PHOTOS WE UPLOADED ON THE SITE AND THE ‘WHEATISH’ OPTION WE CHOSE UNDER SKIN TONE?” If it feels like an overreaction, it’s because of the near thousand of such phone calls I’ve heard in the past five years that went this way. When a family calls us on their own accord, the next question they ask after the skin colour question is, “So, tell us about your daughter, where is she working?” Again, I used to think maybe they’re just trying to make conversation. You know? Yes, these are things that are all already on my profile but maybe they’re just using simple, comfortable, and accessible topics that can help branch the conversation out into other topics of interest. The grease if you will, to get the door of our home opening just right. In five years I’ve realised, these people really have not seen anything on the profile and just called us. If you’re thinking “Whaaattt? On what basis are they calling to talk to you then??” In some instances, it has been for the citizenship, that’s all they saw on my profile. In some instances, just my photo. I guess I’m attractive (possibly even fair?) enough for their son? But for most? I don’t have a clue. They just saw my profile, looked up the number and called my parents.
For families we contact, only because they sent us a “like” on the profile, some have gone well, but a considerable claimed it was an accident, “They don’t think they had sent that like, but we can talk anyway, is your daughter dark? Tell us about her, where does she work?” Turns out the son sent the like and didn’t tell his parents about it. So you would think they would speak on behalf of their son. Nope. They just disappear. And then there’s the number of guys who seem to have no clue that the profile is set up by my parents and often call or WhatsApp my parents’ number with “Hi dear. I am so and so from tamilmatrimony.com. Ping me if you like my profile.” Again, just to be clear, these are not isolated incidents. These are five years of observation. This whole post is my thesis on matrimony sites.
And for a “matrimony” site, things have been going just the way things on dating apps have. When I was younger, my idea of getting married was to date someone for two years, and then be engaged for a year, and then get married. It’s so interesting how you can talk to someone and decide in two minutes that you don’t want to hear from this person ever again. You don’t want them in your life at all. No matter how compatible your horoscopes are.
One asked me for my name at the end of a thirty-minute call. As in, “By the way, what’s your name?”
One told me to shut down my blog. He also said, “You’re doing Q&As for barely 1000 followers?” We had known each other for the better part of an hour.
One explained Singapore and its culture to me, having lived here for three years (To note: I’ve been here for twenty-seven years.)
One just woke up from a nap – as in, the ringing of his phone woke him up and spoke in a semi-conscious state for the call. We had arranged the time and date for this call beforehand.
And these are the things I can say to keep them anonymous. There's a whole bunch of WORSE things that were said to me I can't share – lying about citizenships, future goals, downplaying alcoholism, violence and manipulative tendencies. But none of these matter when a bride can come in and magically fix it all, right? Talk to and make a guy leave behind some of his incredibly negative qualities (qualities he was given the room to sustain for over half of his life by his own parents). Change him for the better. Sure, Jan. If this was a man I loved, I absolutely would. I just don’t want to be given this as a “to-do” item on the first-ever phone call. What you need is a therapist, not a wife.
And while my parents have done so many calls, I’ve not done as many. I only talk to the guy when they pass my parents’ first impressions. Every single one of those phone calls has been stunted. Conversations just stall if I don't actively push them along, racking my brains to create a flow and a vibe, asking what their hobbies are, do they watch movies, what kind of books do they read. The logical thing to do? Ask me back what my hobbies are. What movies do you watch? Do you like books? I don’t have a problem keeping a conversation going or leading a conversation but when no interest is expressed in me, I can’t do all the talking. Nope. Often they simply talk about themselves and what they want in a wife. My polite, “Do you want to ask me anything?” at some point in the conversation gets a no and a shrug as though it's beyond them on what they could possibly ask me about. They have nothing to ask me about. On the rare occasions where they did return the questions to me to ask me things about myself, it went as above.
It’s shocking the way guys think they just have to be and there will be THRONGS of girls throwing themselves at them. And the way the families act too. As though they are doing us a favour. As though we should kiss the ground they walk on. They tell us they will call at 530 but they take a nap and don’t do so until 630. You set a time to meet at 630, they stroll in at 8. No politeness, no courtesy. But that’s the thing I’ve realised. Someone who managed to birth a son is automatically superior to someone who birthed a daughter. And guys who are fours get to be raised like they are solid tens while girls who are tens are treated like they are fours at best. There’s always something to improve about ourselves, something to adjust, something to accommodate, something to get advice about. We are made to feel like we should be lucky this two is considering us. No one said a relationship is without sacrifices or adjustments. But there’s a difference between that and shrinking yourself till only the husk of you remains while there’s nothing, absolutely nothing your partner has to do to sustain the relationship.
And I have friends who settled – not close ones who I could properly dissect the experience with, but familiar enough to get an understanding of the situation. I just can’t bring myself to do that. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been single all my life that’s holding me back, telling me “You would be happier by yourself than in a relationship where you have to erase yourself.” Then again, maybe it’s only a matter of time before I too, give in.
Meanwhile, I have felt like a disappointment around my parents for five years. Every guy I talk to creates a “this could be the one!” vibe in our home only for the disappointment of our entire family when he turns out to be a dud. I feel like I have failed. When a wedding invitation arrives or when someone calls and asks my parents, “So, what’s new?”, with ill-concealed pointedness. When someone invites us for their baby naming ceremony or when a cousin calls with their baby and say things to it like “Say hi to grandpa or grandma!”. Where are my kids who should be calling my parents that? I look at wedding invitations and consider if it would be my style. I attend a reception and wonder if this is a great location. I look at caterers’ information because you never know. I have so many carefully curated sarees from years of buying new sarees for Deepavali and my birthday because hey, I’m going to need them after all. You never know with these things, right? I can’t even decide if I was being sarcastic or hopeful with that remark.
What is the end to all this then? I don’t know. Ideally, my marriage. Realistically, I don’t know anymore. Why even stay on this site you ask? Or switch to dating apps, maybe? Where I could meet more “modern guys”? No, I’m fine, thank you. Because honestly, setting aside looks and casual dating and only considering guys on these apps for long-term commitments, my experiences with them have been no different from the matrimony site. So, I would rather stay on this site where I know for certain these guys are Tamil and want a long-term commitment. I hear my parents talk to a guy and then I see if he passes their first impressions and if they come to tell me about him. I put on a pottu, I smile, I warn myself to hold my tongue when I feel impatient, and I press “answer” for the incoming call.
*Subscribe to my monthly newsletter, "Thendral's Telegraph" here!*
