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From experience, most men will claim they have been online looking for a wife only the last couple of weeks at most a few months and yet be hard pressed to explain how the age on their profile is lagging behind them by five years. Asking that "delicate" question could deal a fatal blow to the "relationship".

They also generally profess to hate "this process" and will regale you with stories from the days of gut and glory when picking up women "offline" was easy. But as luck would have it, just when they turned "ready" for marriage, their jobs got so busy that they no longer had time to date the good old fashioned way. It's amazing to what lengths they go to prove they are not some borderline lunatic or pervert lurking online to prey on unsuspecting women as they do turn out to be five times out of ten.

To have to resort to online dating seems to be viewed as a sign of being a socially inept loser, specially if they have been at it for a while without any success. The times three rule does not seem to be in effect in the online world - men will claim to have dated far few women than they really have. Picking up someone on the web is hardly a conquest like walking up to a woman in a bar and talking her into a date.

Instead of looking at the positive opportunities that this form of interaction presents, they follow a tried and tested script that calls for a certain cadence of e-mail, chat, phone conversations and in person meetings which rarely adapts itself for the current person of interest. With some differences, much of the same contradictions and angst around online dating might be applicable to women as well. It comes as no surprise that folks have been around for five years and are stilling looking and would be in need of a story to cover up their online meeting with the significant other when at last they do so.

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Comments

ggop said…
There is some confusion in Indians about dating. Many don't need to work at getting a spouse, they have the safety net of parents' finding a suitable girl. About online dating I don't understand the "loser" aspect of it. People have promising profiles, correspond well online but are a big letdown in person. Looks like finding a real connection is not an easy process at all - on or offline.
gg
2:26 PM
Anonymous said…
Without making a big deal of it, online searching for a mate or a dating service is a good thing. It widens the pool of available matches. Most immigrant Indians are not used to or adept at finding and dating mates as their American counterparts, who grew up with that model. To pretend that they were online only for a coupe weeks or any such excuse is pretty lame. Why anybody would fake a profile is beyond me, any advantage it may provide is fleeting till the first meeting where the let down probably erases any gains.

Anyway this post is a great reminder for me to cancel my match dotcom account that has been dormant for a couple of years...
3:00 AM
Heartcrossings said…
g - I think the idea of being a loser comes from not having a compelling love story to tell - you know Bollywood style romance where boy meets girl by happenstance and the heavens conspire to make it work out despite enormous odds. Meeting online is totally devoid of that kind of romance.

sfg - One problem desi immigrants seem to have is that they try to do a combination of dating and arranged marriage and in as such fail resoundingly. They are not fully ready to let go of the safety net that an arranged marriage provides and yet want to be able to make independent choices.
5:08 PM
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