Going Online
August 24, 2019
Alright y’all, have I got an interesting update for you this week! My mom has been on my case for the past couple of weeks now about how, now that we are really looking into this whole marriage thing, I should get on one of those marriage websites. A popular one that non-Malayalees may have heard of is shaadi.com (shaadi being the Hindi word for “marriage” and not the fobby way of saying “shawty”). These are different than dating websites, but not by much, in that the main purpose is to get hitched. None of that “looking for something casual” or “DTF” (at least, that’s not the point of it).
Within the Malayalee circle, there are a few of these websites. There is something like 38 million Malayalees worldwide, of course we would have multiple marriage websites. In my family, we tend to be more partial to m4marry.com. It is the marriage website run by the Malayala Manorma news outlet. Three of my cousins have found their spouses through m4marry, and they are all pretty happily married. So my mom has been on my case.
And this week, we went through the thing and made it official…I have an online profile on m4marry. As I write this, it is not “active” or “live” or whatever word they used, but it most likely will be by the time you read this. I set up and created it, but I was not happy about it. Let me backtrack a little bit here. The whole concept of profiles bothers me a lot! How are you supposed to know what someone is like in less than 600 characters? Alternatively, how are you supposed to describe yourself in less than 600 characters? Maybe, back in the day, this was easy because people tended to know everything about you. People you went to school with were from the same village as you. Y’all went to the same church/temple/mosque. When you grew up, y’all had the same or similar jobs. Chances are your whole social circle could be traced back to maybe seven distinct families that have blended over the centuries.
But that is not the case here and now. I had a certain character when I was in school, which is slightly different than my character now that I am a working woman. My church knows part of me, my family knows another part. While certain personality traits may blend, people at different stages and areas of my life know different parts of me. It is not that I am being fake or putting up a front for these different groups…it is just that I cater my relationships differently to what each person or group needs. So how can I describe who I am in 600 characters? For context, this paragraph is over 600 characters.
In that same vein, I am almost certain the guy cannot explain himself in 600 characters either. They could write that they are the next Mahatma Gandhi, that they spend all their time volunteering and being politically active. Or they could say they are a millionaire with a six-figure salary and a house in the Hamptons. But none of that matters to me because 600 characters will not tell me how that person and I will interact; it is mostly about personality and persona for me - can’t say all because career, hobbies, status do impact the overall impression of the person. The guy can be a saint, but unless we click and are able to communicate with each other, it is not going to work out. If it does not work out, that is fine. I am an intense person and not every personality can handle that. But I won’t know what I need to know in 600 characters.
This post is taking longer than I anticipated, so we are going to pause here and I’ll continue this in part 2, which will be up next week. Stay tuned for my review of the m4marry profile and what it actually means.
Just one more thing. I have a shout-out, this time for my cousin who got married this week! Congratulations Cheichi! Wish you and Chettai many years of love, happiness, and peace! Can’t wait to see both of you when you come state-side.
- Aemi
