Your Profile Has Been Updated
August 31, 2019
Welcome back! This week’s post is a continuation of last week. In case y’all need a refresher… last week, I created a profile for the marriage website m4marry. I broke this into two posts because there was a lot that I wanted to unpack from this experience. While the last one was more about my overall impression of the whole proposal website concept, this one is going to be specifically about m4marry. Disclaimer: this is the only profile I have set up on a marriage website, I have accounts on dating apps such as Coffee Meets Bagel and Dil Mil, and therefore I do not know what is common among websites like this and what is unique. This is a sample size of one. And as always, these are my experiences and my opinions. Let me know in the comments about your own thoughts and experiences!
Like any profile, it starts off with ways to describe yourself: name, sex (which they list as gender -deep sigh-), and date of birth. Since this is a marriage website, it also asks for more personal information like height, marital status, religion, and astrological sign, I guess for matching purposes. Up until then, it is pretty normal stuff. Then it starts asking me about things that as millennial, as an American, as a feminist make me want to scream!
On the milder end, there is a section to fill out your weight. Now, you might be thinking like I was; it is invasive, but not terrible. Don’t worry, we are just getting started. Then it goes on to ask me about my Body Type. This one is multiple choice, so I can be Athletic, Average, Heavy, or Slim. Did you wince? Because I did. I can also fill out my Physical Status: Normal or Disabled. At this point, I was at a loss for words. No one in America would ask such a question in such a straightforward manner. Not only do we consider it rude, but disability is a protected status. You can get into legal trouble if you discriminate on the basis of disability.
As a woman, this next one was not surprising. But as a woman, it is still incredibly annoying that this is still a deciding factor: Complexion. Indians are known to go to crazy lengths to get that “beautiful” white complexion. There are so many bleaching creams on the market, all telling us that our brown skin is not good enough. That the lighter you are, the better your worth is. For a time, I had bought into this as well. I would use Fair and Lovely because I wanted to be white too. I stopped when my face started peeling, no kidding, I was literally burning my skin! And then as I got older, I realized just how amazing my brown skin actually is. Not only do the orange tones in my skin give me this glowing/radiant look, it also hides my micro-scars and blemishes, so I do not have to rely on make-up all the time. Honestly, one of the best feelings in the world is basking in the warm sunlight. If I am having a bad day, I am having a bad day, I will go for a quick walk just to feel the sunshine on my face, fear of getting dark be damned!
Depending on the time of year, my complexion shifts from caramel (in the summer) to weak chocolate milk (in the winter). Unfortunately, caramel and chocolate milk are not options on m4marry. No, instead they have Very Fair, Fair, Wheatish, Medium, and Dark. No, you read that correctly, and I did not mistype it. There is a complexion known as “wheatish”…like the golden color of wheat. I mean, I guess that is one way to describe it.
Moving on to Education and Career, there are the basic school and degree questions. But in the occupations section, you can list your salary. Like what? I guess it is nice to know if y’all can support each other’s lifestyles, but people can easily lie about these things, they can lie about the whole profile. As a millennial, I grew up with the mindset that yes, money is important, but it is never THAT important. You could lose everything you own, but the real you is your character, personality, and system of belief, and those things will not disappear as quickly.
When it comes to Indian marriages, you are not just marrying your spouse, you are marrying the whole family; so of course there would be a Family section. It is also why, when it came to my cousins who are married, proposals have always been a family affair. And it is not just your own wealth status, you can list your family’s status as well: Lower Income, Middle Class, Upper Middle Class, Rich/Affluent. My main issue is that these are all relative. What is rich to me might not be rich to you. We are comparing at different scales. You can list your parents and what they do. You can even list your siblings and whether or not they are married, I still do not know what that has anything to do with anything.
A person is not just their bio data and their family, they have interests and hobbies. In the next section, you can add things that you are passionate about. For example, I put down photography, writing, and cooking (I prefer baking, but that was not an option) for things that interest me. And then you can rate it on a scale, from 0 – 10, about how interested you are in said hobby (?). I think when they started this website, their target audience was a whole other generation. One of the hobbies you can list is “Web Surfing.” Um, for one thing, do people still call it that? I feel like that was a late 80s/early 90s term. For another thing, what kind of millennial doesn’t “web surf”? So many questions….
Enough about me, let’s talk about My Preferred Partner. Actually, there is not much to talk about, it is basically the same as any other site: age, height, location, education, occupation, and religion. They also have the “weird” (because as a feminist American millennial, this is weird) categories from before as well: Physical Status and Native Place. Native place is a strange concept for me as an F1 generation. I was born in the US. I have spent 26 years growing up here. My history and past are etched into the soil here. And yet, my brown skin and dark hair are not what most people think of when they hear “American.” When I fill out demographic surveys, my choice is “Asian-American” with the sub-category “Indian-American”…even though the total amount of time I have spent in India amounts to less than a year. So why is it that my Native Place, a city that may mean the world to my father, means nothing to me? There is only one thing I have claim to in Kottayam right now: a family kaalarra (grave) at our eda palli (home church). Once I am married, I will probably lose that as well. So what makes Kottayam MY native place? More importantly, why do I care what HIS native place is?
Lastly, there is the contact information page. Here, I can put whom potential suitors can contact to find out more information about me. You think this is any normal contact page because you can list your phone number, your email address…and your home address? I guess to match with people who are close in location to you? But then there is one more field, which I knew about years ago through older friends who had profiles, you have to fill in. It is who this profile was created by. As in there are relatives out there making profiles for their children/siblings/nieces/nephews without the person’s knowledge! To me, that is absolutely insane! Like how desperate are you to have your child married off that you would go on their behalf to find a spouse. I have said this before and I will keep saying it until I die: there is nothing wrong with being a self-sustaining single person! Not everyone needs to get married. And those who chose not to are not a blight on society.
Finally, click “Save” and bam! your profile has been updated. You can upload a couple of photos and pay your subscription fee and you are on your way to finding a spouse. So until then, take care.
- Aemi
