Arranged Marriage- My on going story

[guy_001]

Hello,

 

I understand that the concept of Arranged Marriage may sound strange to many of you, but in India (and maybe some other countries) its pretty popular with extremely high success rate. I am not here to defend or criticise the arrangement but just want to share my experience.

 

Well about me, I am a 26yo guy from India working in a MNC having a pretty good job. I have studied and worked in England for 3 years so I have a pretty decent idea about foreign culture. I would define my life as good, stable and believe I am well settled and know exactly what I want in life.

 

Start of 2015, I felt its time to get married. I had ended my relationship with my GF around August 2014 and had been single ever since. Why did I break up? Well we were in long distance relationship and it didn't work out. My work kept me so busy that taking time to visit her was becoming like next to impossible. When she came to see me it was hard to find much time. She taking off from work to come see me and we only able to meet for dinner doesn't exactly makes me a good BF. I took her for granted and she found someone else.

 

Anyways back to the topic, I started evaluating my options which were pretty limited. I never had thought I would even go for the idea of arranged marriage but after doing some basic first hand research I concluded that it actually works. Many of my friends and colleagues got their life partner this way and are pretty happy. Well the success rate cannot be 100% but I was sold on the idea. I didn't immediately wanted to involve my parents so I decided that I will search for a bride myself. I registered on a matrimony website and was overwhelmed with the responses.

 

The easiest but tedious part was to filter out any proposals sent by the bride's parents/ siblings/ friends. I didnt wanted to involve anybody else in the first step other than me and the bride. I had a good idea what I wanted in my wife and her being courageous enough to post her own profile was top on the list. Many times it happens that parents post on behalf of the girl without her knowledge. Then when a family of the groom goes to meet her she is presented like a limited edition car and the dad becomes worlds best salesman. I knew my method would filter out some good prospects but I wanted to stay away from the unnecessary headache.

 

So after initial filtering, I was left with profiles created by the bride. I began reading each and every profile keeping looks at the last priority. I wanted someone who is independent and know how to utilize her time. So the profiles where the girl studied MBA, Msc, etc yet was not working went on my bottom list. Girls who typed in L33T went above that and so on. Finally I narrowed down to 11 good prospects and accepted their invitation to connect. I wrote personal messages for all of them based on their profile.

 

So far I have met 3 girls and had different experiences with each of them.

 

Girl #1: She gave me a time (lunch) and place. It was a decent restaurant, not that expensive and not that cheap. She had all her questions ready and I felt I went little unprepared. Maybe she had done it many times. I frankly told she is my first prospect and could make out she didn't believe me. We started with introducing each other in a bit detail, our work, ambition, family, hobbies, etc. It was more like a job interview. She definitely wasn't the best one to look at but was pretty smart. She had a lot of questions for me and to be honest it was a bit turn off. I didnt feel any connection so when I went home I wrote her an email saying I dont think we are a match. She responded with one word "same".

 

Girl #2: This girl was pretty interesting. First look at her and you can tell she is everything a man would want. She has a great job and knew exactly her career path. I avoided lunch meeting, so we went for a coffee. Thought it would be more casual and it was. It felt more like conversation rather than an interview. I called her the next day and asked if she would be interested in meeting again so we can talk a bit more seriously. Her response was "Yes".

We met again after 4 days in the same place (her idea). I told her straight that from my side I have a strong positive feeling for her and if she thinks the same then we can proceed to the next step. My idea of this meeting was to be completely honest with each other with whatever we feel needs to be shared and then if both still want to go ahead we will involve our parents. I told her about my past relationships, adjustments that I believe she would need to make, my take on kids and couple of other personal things. I told her I am hiding nothing and I expect same from her.

She said that she was in a very serious relationship which broke off recently. The guy's father didnt approve of her because of different caste. I felt that the guy is spineless ******* but didn't say anything. She confessed that she still got strong feelings for him and still loves him. I just asked her one thing "say on our marriage day your ex returns and says to leave me for him, will you?" Her answer was "yes". I liked the honesty but this was a game changer. She added "but if he comes after our marriage then she wont leave me". I had no idea how to react or what to say. I told her I needed sometime and will let her know.

 

Girl #3: This girl asked me to choose a time and place. I decided on a different coffee place. When this girl walked in you could tell her photos were highly photoshopped. She looked much thinner in the photos. Reminded me of a similarly story I read about a blind date couple. She was a bit nervous obviously knowing I could make out the difference. I wasn't put off with her looks but the fact that she tried to hide the obvious. We chatted for a bit and then I asked her "you know I feel you look a bit different from your pics posted". She just smiled and said "Yes, I get that alot".

When we started talking about work and her expectations, she said she hates her job and wants to quit after marriage. Pretty common in India, so no surprise. When I asked her the reason I was amused by her reply "Too much hard-work for the pay". I knew I didnt wanted to be with someone like this. So I quickly wrapped up the conversation and sent a sorry mail when I got home. No reply from her side.

 

Well I am meeting another girl on Sunday. She is from a different city so she is flying with her brother for the meeting. If people are still interested to hear then I will post.

[adna89]

This sounds so old ,i would never do it.I come from a muslim family, but this is something my grandparents did and i think you should try to date first.26 is not old for a guy

 

PS:what you have been trying is not arranged marriage,this is internet dating,you have many sites like that on the internet

[mrs rubble]

I have several workmates who've had arranged marriages. All arranged by the parents, only one has failed and this guy really didn't want to get married at all anyway, so I think it was doomed from the start.

The others all seem perfectly happy.

As the above poster stated, your experience sounds more like internet dating!

[adna89]

I have several workmates who've had arranged marriages. All arranged by the parents, only one has failed and this guy really didn't want to get married at all anyway, so I think it was doomed from the start.

The others all seem perfectly happy.

As the above poster stated, your experience sounds more like internet dating!

 

In traditional societies marriages most of the times work,arranged or not.Because divorce is the last thing anyone wants

 

I personally married the guy i chose,My dad and mom never had any say in all this ,neither did his mom (his dad died long time ago) ...we have our fights,but we are doing fine thanks God.