Online Arranged Marriage: A Tongue-In-Cheek Profiling!

Sarah Abraham, theindianrepublic.com, 11 April 2014: When parents are let loose on matrimonial sites…

When parents make matrimonial site profiles for you, they sometimes make some errors of judgment despite having your best interests at heart. Then they wonder why they haven’t got the kind of responses they’d like. Sometimes, they edit the description to add, in very loud caps, ‘FAKES DON’T REPLY!’ But here are a few reasons why they might be getting trolled.

The sons troll the dads to begin with

Take, for instance, the marketing professional whose dad made a profile for him on a very popular site. Among his son’s interests, the doting dad included ‘animal breeding’. Now, pets can be an interest. Animal breeding is a profession or a business, and since the site doesn’t have a specific section for pedigree dachshunds, he might be barking up the wrong tree. Also, do these folks know that their sons are probably yanking their chains when they say ‘bird watching’ is their hobby? In metros?! Does daddy know what kind of birds his son is talking about?

Talking about the dad or the son?

Then there are the ones who get completely confused while writing the description. For instance, along the lines of ‘I am a handsome, well-employed, well-spoken, educated professional’s son.’ Why, uncle, it’s nice that you’re handsome, well-employed, well-spoken and educated, but what about your son?

Looking for daughter-in-law. Wife for son is a distant second.

Another category forgets about the son after the first sentence. It usually goes along these lines: ‘My son is a grounded, down-to-earth, religious, handsome man. We want a simple, down-to-earth, educated, respectful, religious, intelligent, beautiful girl to be a part of our family. We are very traditional and modern at the same time, and are looking for a girl who will fit into our values.’ That’s great, auntyji, even if that combination can be a bit tricky.

But that sounds like you looking for a girl who fits into your lifestyle, while your son’s music choices are acid rock and heavy metal, and his favourite movie is Basic Instinct. Either he was pulling your leg and you didn’t realise it, or you might do better to acquire the daughter-in-law of your dreams somehow without marrying your son to her.  From his interests, it seems unlikely that a girl who fits that description could live with him. Unless that’s not a requirement, perhaps you should seek the son’s inputs – if he can tear his attention away from Sharon Stone for a moment. Really, has he been living under a rock for the last two decades? The rest of the world has moved on.

Clichés galore!

Some profile-makers get completely carried away and go the cliché way.

“My son is very happy. He loves making people laugh because it’s more difficult to make somebody laugh than to make them cry.”

“He believes that home is where the heart is.”

“He is very unselfish. He says, if you love something, you must let it go. If it comes back, it’s yours.”

Hallmark card material, really – why these sayings are expected to describe their flesh and blood is the question. Perhaps they could switch it up with something along the lines of ‘The apple of our eyes seeking the moon of his delight.’

Please marry my son the nerd! Anybody!

Here we have the ones who are desperately trying to marry off their nerdy or geeky offspring. You know them when you get to the books and movies part: science fiction, fantasy, classics. Then you get to the ‘partner preferences’, and basically, anybody around the same age and height will do. Religion, community, food habits, drinking or smoking habits – everything and anything goes! You can’t help but feel that their kids would prefer to be left alone with their books and their movies.

Syrian Christian parents from Kerala, who’re you trying to kid?

Now we get to the sheer number of Syrian Christians from Kerala who claim that their sons never drink. Really? When these lads go out of the state to go to college, they introduce their unsuspecting roommates to the whiskey-beer bomb, and it really goes off like a bomb. There might be a small percentage of such teetotallers among the population of Kerala of age 21 to 35, but definitely not as many as you’d think from these sites!

The daughter templates

Now for the parents and siblings who make profiles for their daughters. The overwhelming majority follow one of two templates.

Template 1:

‘My daughter/sister is a god-fearing, educated, homely girl with family values.’ (Translation: Likes cooking, obedient, won’t ask uncomfortable questions.)

Template 2:

‘My daughter/sister is an independent, free-spirited, fun-loving, caring, loving, understanding person.’ (Translation: Firebrand, please look past the outspoken nature and see that she is really just a nice girl. Good family. Really, good family. Promise! No no, stop looking for homely girls!)

Add educational qualifications and a few family details, and you have them all. Perhaps folks just let their creativity take over only with their sons.

As a writer, Sarah focuses on women’s and social issues, education, environment, the arts, humour, travel, health, food and sports. She worked for two magazines in Hyderabad for over three years, and then quit to stay at home, bake, watch football and write. This makes her an odd mixture of feminist, housewife, Arsenal fanatic, writer and Internet troll. When she’s not trying to change the world from her laptop or screaming at referees on the telly, she’s reading, DND.