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…
My wife’s parents kinda tried that for her. But she’s really stubborn, standoffish, and refused to learn how to cook. So now they have a white son-in-law. While her entire family has come to love me, everyone from California to Canada, and New York to India learned a very valuable lesson about being too strict and traditional.
I worked with a guy who had an arranged marriage. His parents decided it was time for him to get married. He lived in the Philippines near his parents. They had a friend who had an eligible and similarly positioned daughter living in the US. They got married and he moved to the US. 20 years later, they have 2 kids and seem happy.
I’m a Pakistani American. My parents and grandparents and all my aunts and uncles were arranged. My parents have tried for years to set me up with someone through friends or coworkers.
I was never ready. I’m engaged to a beautiful woman I met through work. I’m ready now.
I think my manager had an arranged marriage and is living happily and has a couple kids now. I believe one of my cousins met his wife through a dating app too.
I don’t really think any of this is weird especially today where it’s harder and harder to meet people now.
When my grandma was old enough to marry, her father took her to his friend’s house and introduced her. The friend said, “I’ve got two boys upstairs. Go pick out the one you want.” So she went up and talked to both of his sons, and the one she liked best became my grandfather.
She said she was fine with this, but I would’ve been climbing out the bathroom window. 😂
When I was younger and single, I had co-workers or random older people I met trying to fix me up with their brother/son/whoever. I think that’s pretty common. But I ended up getting together with a guy I met online (organically, not through a dating service.)
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.
Formal matchmaking? Yes, several people. Their marriages are about the same as others, maybe slightly better due to strong social systems and clear expectations about roles. Every marriage waxes and wanes with how partners feel about each other, and the arranged ones aren’t any different in that respect.
Informal matchmaking? Lots. This has been the arrangement for much of human history. Consider them pre-vetted without the need to stalk their socials.
No. I have dated people who used matchmaking services.
They were horrible people.
I’ve also dated some Indian women who made it very clear they’d never take me seriously because their parents would disapprove, but they’d fuck me casually in the meantime. I declined.
The issue with modern romance is that there is less and less of shared common culture and everyone is living in their social media silos. I used to have things in common with women I met, but now I have absolutely have nothing in common with them because they are living in a totally different universe and we have no common beliefs, interests, or traditions by which we can form any social bond. Like, every fact of my life and my lifestyle offends and upsets them because they are only looking for people who are the mirror image of themselves and their lifestyle. Literally was on a date two weeks ago and everything i said she made a stinkface because in her universe all that mattered was her job and vacation travel destinations, and she thought I was weird for having a life outside of my job and didn’t care much about destination travel.
It is culture. In most english native ares (this exclues India where english is a common second language) it is unheard of and people would rebel.
‘True love’ as in the movies only lasts a couple years. It is fun to be in but eventually you realize some truths about the other. From there is it can you live with it or not - which is why divorce is so high from those looking for it. True love as some couples who have been together for decads exists - but it is very different from the movies even if they sometimes seem to have a few features in common.
Arranged marriage and figure it out on your own exists in different parts. both are about equally successful for any long term definition of success. Shy people prefer arranged because they don’t have to risk rejection. Others like freedom to decide.
meeting others happens as part of life. The only hard part is you think maybe this can be more and the other not only disagrees but also refuses to be a friend anymore. It can be really hard - but eventually it can happens (and may or may not last)
So many generalisations and a complete lack of understanding of there being other valid ways of conducting a relationship beyond what you’ve experienced yourself or seen with your own eyes.
True love is like any other feature of a relationship, only as enduring as the health of that relationship. That takes work, communication, and many other aspects too numerous to list here. It is complex and not easy to define. But it can endure just fine.
If it makes you feel better to think that relationships based on true love don’t last, by all means continue in that fantasy. But it is a fantasy and I think it says more about your fear of what you’re missing as someone who’s likely stuck in an arranged relationship, or stuck in a culture where that is expected of you, than it does about how enduring true love can be.
True love as you defined it is not what true love as the movies show it looks like.
Shy people prefer arranged
My mom dislikes crowds (e.g. NY Times Square New Years Eve)
My dad is a passive, mom is the dominant parent in my household…
Lol
don’t have to risk rejection
Technically you can reject, but then parents would try to introduce you to more prospective spouses until you pick one… like this constant pressure, at least in their home country… diaspora experiances might differ
Arranged =/= Forced
You are not rejected, it is your parents. which makes is safer in some ways.
My mum would try and set me up with random girls when I was younger, pressure me to talk to people she wanted me to be in a relationship with, once apparently lied to my classmate’s family that we were Jewish or something (i.e I don’t know if this was an ethnicity thing or a religion thing and I don’t want to know.)
I wouldn’t say the other party’s parents were complicit in this or even realised it was her intention. Hence why I’m not in an arranged marriage right now.
It’s interesting seeing several lonely people online talk about how arranged marriage is a superior system. I don’t feel that way right now, but we’ll wait and see what I say when I’m older.
I think arranged marriage is more of a “just want a reliable life partner + probably children” type of thing and less of a “true love” type of thing…
My parents are kinda of just partners type of thing… (like I don’t see the mainstream media “omg we are soo in love” type of stuff in them…) I don’t even think they fuck (besides those two times to procreate), never saw them kiss, or hold hands, or hug… not sure if this is a cultural thing or a lack of romantic love thing
For long period of time when I was a kid, I would sleep in between my parents on their bed… there’s no way they could’ve fucked and they are busy with work during the day…
Like… idk what even is their relationship lol…
Mom threatened divorce a few times when I was a kid (she was the main source of income btw, the “breadwinner”), but they never divorced so there’s that…
A colleague of mine met his wife that way. He’s from India, where it’s a lot more common.
Honestly I never really got neither the parent matchmaking nor dating apps. I met my fiance over discord, which I guess is kinda like bumping into someone accidentally, but a digital version lol
But to answer the question in the title, I haven’t known anyone to go on a date arranged by their family
I was introduced to my ex- spouse by a mutual friend.
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