Does one always need the girl on his side for arranged marriages today?
All my life my parents and elders raised me to believe that all a guy has to do whenever he fancies someone is to just tell his parents and that they will go the girls parents, elders and try to get the ball rolling.
But i am now learning the hard way that times have changed in certain cases.
I have always had a crush on my bhabi's cousin for the last 7 years who is ten years younger than me and i first saw her when my elder brother got married in 2011. Back then she was very young i.e. 17 years old while i was 27 years old and i just dismissed it as an innocent crush.
I then moved to a new country and had to reeducate myself in order to start a new life and to pursue a new career pathway. Professionally and Academically things have not been easy, i had been fired 4 times as i was unable to cope with the fast paced working environments of those organizations where they had a sink or swim culture and those experiences have badly scarred me and hit my confidence to the core where the last time i got fired in extremely humiliating circumstances i.e. where i turned up to work, the office receptionist stopped me, went to tell my boss i was here, he came out of his office, without saying hello, anything just instructed me to follow him to a board room where there was a female lawyer present and politely requested me to sit down and then basically went like "_______ (My name), your employment is now being terminated effective immediately, ________ (Lawyers name), will explain all the details to you, thank you for your service" and then proceeded to storm out of the board room and into his office slamming the door shut.
Alhamdullilah i have been working for a big Jewish firm now for the last 6 months where the working environment has been really nice and even though people and recruiter reach out to me on Linkedln with requests for interviews, i desperately just want stability right now and dont have the stomach or courage to take any more risks at this time.
Anyways so during this whole process of working, studying, being fired, struggling to find another job, my parents, elders kept teasing me about being single, about how now that i am in my 30's i had aged out for really good attractive catches and that my options had now diminished very badly and all my relatives and extended relatives were aggressively lobbying for girls in their families who had broken engagements or were in their late 20's, early to mid 30's and were looking for someone without giving a damn about whether i was interested in them or not.
The last straw for me was when my parents recommended a first cousin on mine to me whom i had always regarded as a young sister more than anything else. I realized that my naive beliefs and hopes that i held since childhood that "All you have to do is just focus on your studies, on getting set career wise and your parents, elders will find a nice match for you which you will be very happy with" was badly misplaced and that i could no longer rely on my parents, elders for getting me the kind of match i would be happy with.
It was during this time period i thought about my bhabi's cousin and i looked her up on facebook and saw that had now grown up and i still felt the same way about her all these years but this time i began to feel why not. To be very honest, she is very pretty and 90% of people after looking at her pic and my pic will straight away flat out say "You are not in her league, forget it, you are punching above your weight".
I told my folks about my interest in her but they were not supportive at all and were off the opinion that the girl's family and her was a complete misfit and categorically accursed me that you just see her as a doll and that you are just interested in her because of her looks and nothing else.
I tried talking to the girl a few times on facebook but i had to do most of the talking and eventually in a few days in 2016 she completely shut me out and ignored my messages. When i reached out to 30-40 of my closest friends and confidants worldwide on what to do about this, the most common feedback was that "You have to have the girl on your side and you need to be dating her or have her reciprocate your feelings before you get your folks involved", yes there were a few people who were like "It is possible for you to pursue this girl via the arranged marriage route even if she has not reciprocated or if you don't know her or if she doesn't like you". And yes lol i also got told by a few people "This is highly immature high school type behavior from you where you are just interested in someone for there looks".
When i asked my elders and other relatives for advice they basically told me that my perceptions that a guy's family goes to the girls family just like that was misplaced and they told me that i was being extremely selfish and that i had no care or regard for my parents name and respect
Anyways i kept battling with my parents to ask for her hand for me but one obstacle after the other kept coming up
- The girls father drinks
- The girls mother is a social butterfly
- The girls parents were once separated at one point in time and that is apparently a red flag
- The girls khala and mamu have been divorced
I still didn't give up and battled with my parents that i don't believe in these things, i don't believe in the crap that marriages are between 2 families and that i believe that it is ultimately between 2 people at the end of the day. Then my parents made me feel bad and were like "She is a Human Being, you are treating her as a doll, you are being very self centered in this whole thing"
I didn't let these comments phase me, i was off the opinion that i was following my heart, that these moments come once in a lifetime and that you can't miss the boat. So i didn't give up and kept trying to press my parents to go and then other obstacles came up
- The girl was in a steady relationship with a guy in her University but the guy's father was opposed to the union
- The girl had been in relationships before and therefore according to my folks this was a red flag and was a sign that she is not marriage material
I still didn't give up and finally my folks were like, look if you really like her this much, we don't have any problems it is your life, but you have to do this yourself and get her on your side, we aren't doing anything otherwise.
The problem is that all this sounds very good to hear and simple to execute but it was easier said than done for someone like me who had never been good at this. In my absolute state of madness and desperation i wasted $10,000 going to fortune tellers and an Indian Attraction expert with whom i wasted one whole year of trying to adopt his Alpha Male philosophy i.e.
- Go out there and try to date, romance, hit on 100 plus chicks every where you find
- To do rock climbing
- To take photographs of yourself doing Alpha Male Activities
I ultimately had to give up following his instructions when one of his drafted messages did not work for me.
In 2017 when i went for Hajj, i prayed every single moment to get this girl and i was super charged up by the perception that whatever you pray for during Hajj normally comes true.
In April 2018, my bhabi gave birth to 2 fraternal twins and it happened just one day before the girls birthday. I used the opportunity to wish her well on her Birthday and then used it as an excuse to speak to her about the birth of her baby cousins.
From April 2018 to July 2018, i have probably interacted with this girl the most beyond my own expectations, imaginations compared to any other time period in my life. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't extraordinary or anything earth shattering because i was the one who had to initiate the chats, had to do the bulk of the talking to get conversations going and if i didn't send her a message then she would never talk to me but thats the case with all my facebook contacts where if i don't talk or reach out to people myself, no one will chat with me so i didn't make to much of it. But i exchanged many photographs of her twin baby cousins, articles and videos i felt she would be interested in. 70-75% of the times if i would send her a message, i would get a response after like 10-12 hours, 5-10% of the times she would respond instantly but the maximum that would last for was 10 minutes max and then yes there were moments when she would not respond to me and after waiting for one whole day, day and a half if i didn't get a response or if i she read my message but didn't respond then i would send a follow up message where she either responded after 12-14 hours, instantly or not at all and i would repeat.
The difficult i had with those thing was that i was just unable to put or implement any concrete strategy. Everything i had planned in my head in terms of what to talk to her about today and how i will take the conversation forward would go kaput if she didn't respond. My thinking was that i would during this time period build some comfort, confidence before i would tell my parents about this or if possible tell her about my feelings.
Unfortunately everything has gone kaput in the last one month where she has stopped responding to my messages or she reads my messages but does not respond. My parents are maintaining the same position i.e. if she likes you and reciprocates then we are going otherwise we aren't as this is not how arranged marriages work.
The vast majority of people i have spoken to agree with my folks. A few select people are like your folks know you are punching above your weight and also because they are not in favor of the girl and the family, that is why they are adopting this position because if they had been in favor of some other girl then even if that particular girl was not interested or involved with you yet, they wouldn't give a damn about whether she was not interested in you as long as they were in favor of it they would go all out to help hook you up with her and lobby with her parents to influence her to say yes.
The way i see it right now, i just don't have a powerful case or leg to stand on as the girl is just not responding or communicating the way i need her too.
The vast majority of the people and girls i have spoken to have told me "Just tell her the truth and get it over with". But this is easier said than done for people who are not dealing with the situation. It's easier to go gung ho and just tell a girl fearlessly about how you feel when you actually strongly believe that you have other good options out there. The last time i told someone i fancied them was ten years ago when i had no real friendship, connection with them and the girl was a complete stranger and it was very humiliating to deal with rejection. It took me a good 4 plus years to get over that experience and the memory of the whole thing. It wasn't just dealing with the pain and humiliation of rejection but the after math of the entire brigade which kept telling me "Just tell her", where they started making fun of me for the embarrassment and the criticism that followed "You freaked her out", "You are so dumb, what were you thinking? You think you can just go up to a stranger and just tell her you like her just like that?", "Don't you have a brain, what were you thinking and expecting".
I know realistically speaking that my chances right now as it is pretty low and if i just flat out tell her everything is going to be a 99.99% failure. Even worse for me will be giving the impression to the girl that everything i had been doing for the last 6 months of speaking to her was just disguised to get close to her and that i end up appearing like just another guy.
But i just don't see any other alternative right now and its not looking good. It is now dawning on me that i have wasted the last 3-4 years of my life trying to pursue this and it was all for nothing where i was not able to concentrate properly on my studies or my career and i just don't see how i can agree to be with another girl (due to family pressure) whom i am not interested in because i will still be feeling for my present crush.
One thing is for certain. That my relationship with my parents and elders is just not going to be the same again and there is nothing worse than a child losing trust and faith in his parents and elders.
