Because I keep overhearing my mom trying to do this stuff for my older brother so I’m just wondering about other cultures… (My family emigrated from China)
Like I constantly hear that topic being mentioned in the livingroom… like phone calls, WeChat voice messages…
My mom keeps telling my older brother to “lose weight” and like nagging him about stuff…
So yea, I can’t help but to also wonder about this aspect of life…
My parents are arrainged marrige… they just got introduced by… um… someone (as in family/friend got involved and arrainged for them to meet) then they talked and were okay with each other so they just settled down and got married… then my older brother and I came into existence…
So there’s that…
Also: Do people actually just use Dating Apps in the west? Like its a corpo algorithm… but then again having parents involved is also kinda weird ngl…
(Honestly this whole relationship stuff is just so foreign to me… in movies and tv, its almost always portrayed as a voluntary meet, not dating apps, not parent matchmaking… they just happened to bump into each other in the real world and then fall in love… and happily ever after…)
Edit: Also I heard my mom talking on WeChat trying to introduce someone that’s like I assume that’s her friend/acquaintance’s unmarried adult child to another of her friend/acquaintance’s adult child who is also unmarried…
I know several people who are in arranged marriages, and while they are happy enough with the situation, all of them have very clearly said they will never do this to their children, so take from that what you will.
Introduction is common enough I’d say, but any expectation beyond maybe talking to them is not.
As for what most people do: it’s just going about life and meeting people. Join clubs, talk to people in your community, at work or school, friends of friends (or family friends, again introducing is common enough, anything beyond that isn’t), even bars works; anywhere really.
Just don’t go places to find a partner; go to places to meet people. From there meet the ones you like more often, make friends, and over time you’ll bump into people and find the right ones. This is one of those things that happens more the less you “try”. Be open to the idea, but let people get to know you as a friend first.
In my experience none of this is true.
All I meet is people who are already coupled, who I have nothing in common with to form a real friendship. At best we are acquaintances, and they are always married and only interact with other married or coupled people.
I think it was true, 10-20 years ago you could do this. But the social environment has changed a lot, and people are WAY more insular than they were a generation ago. I have been going out for 20+ years, and it’s way way harder to meet people, of any age, then it was in say 2008 or 2012. For me things really started to become difficult around 2018. There was also a way broader common culture back then than there is today. Like back then I could say I saw a movie and people knew what it was, now I say I saw a movie and they are confused that I watch movies at all because they are ‘boring’ or a ‘waste of time.’
And when I go out to a public space now by myself, EVERYONE is on their phones. They are buried in a phone or a laptop, at a bar, on 9pm on a Friday night, especially anyone who is either alone, or in a large group. Only small intimate groups or couples seem to be off their phones and interacting with each other.
The world has changed, and it’s genuinely more difficult to make social and romantic connections due for the average person. Even my younger nephews who are teenagers, are WAY more insular than I was at their age 25 years ago. They want nothing to do with anyone who isn’t already an existing friend, and they have no interest in dating, and they are afraid of college rather than excited by it, and their interests in life are incredibly specialized in a way I can’t understand.