This edition of the newsletter is inspired by parents, and a possible hypothesis on how covid might have impacted their role in the marriage market.
Pre-lockdown, my days were typically filled with talking to lots of people about getting married or getting their kids married. While the ones who wanted to get married are still vaguely motivated to meet people, at least virtually, but the parents, I tell you - are GONE!
Guess what’s keeping them busy these days?
This…
and this…
Jokes apart, parents are legit scared about their wards making “commitments” before meeting in person. They are aware that chatting before meeting is possible with advent of technology but they prefer you didn’t. They don’t want you to “finish talking everything there is to talk” before ever meeting, because you see “charm will go off”.
I hate to admit this, but I miss talking to these parents.
Parents project their desires and preferences on us, both knowingly and unknowingly. In the marriage market, this becomes counter-productive unless you live with your parents after marriage and they outlive you.
I once wanted someone to meet a girl, and he reluctantly agreed because his parents had previously vetoed that girl due to horoscope issues. But he was adult about it, met her on my insistence, but obviously couldn’t get himself to meet her again. Whether he felt the noose tighten around him or it was something else, no one can tell.
Three months into the pandemic, I am starting to see parents return to the market. Now, I don’t know if it’s because Ramayana got over, but they’re coming out all right. I am pretty sure the pandemic has changed them irreversibly in a few ways:
If the kids have been away from home, the parents are now more confident that the kids will be just fine even if they were to single forever or at least a while
If the kids stayed at home, despite appreciating the solace of keeping them close at such times, the parents see a stronger need for the kids to be out on their own
There are also parents who’ve made peace with their kids being single knowing that it’s only going to get tougher to be otherwise in the days to come
Parents are far busier - what with the 24-hour trippy news of increasing covid cases and incessant WhatsApp forwards. They can barely keep up with the ever-growing list of home-remedies, forget matrimonial profiles
Parents possibly hate me thanks to me preferring to keep them out of the loop once they’ve introduced me to their wards
If anyone’s freaking out, it’s single people who’ve been sick of isolation.
The proportion of self-made profiles on all matrimonial sites is gradually increasing. I don’t have numbers on this, but I’ve anecdotal evidence from my market visits.
It is a pleasure I tell you to not have “more” middlemen/women. Things are more efficient now, but the downside has been witnessing more people our aging judging each other based on caste or skin colour.
Can I change anything at all? Only time will tell.