The ‘un-great’ expectations of finding Mr Right

In a stark contrast to our needs, male needs seemed abnormally basic. Little seemed to have changed since the 1800s. They still barely managed to mumble out one coherent sentence and if they did, it stank to high heavens of domesticity.

They don’t think twice about skeletal online profiles or partner expectations, nor do they make any attempts to couch their extreme conservatism.

• ‘Live with my parents. Siblings live elsewhere.’ [Why aren’t you attempting a jail break too?]
• ‘Hi, I am thirty and looking for any normal girl.’ [Shoot! If only you were looking for a psychopath or someone into S&M.]
• ‘Will be delited if she is gorgeus, and smilling but not mody or fat.’ [Given the abysmal spelling, I don’t know if he was going for moody or slang for modern. As for the fat part, for the sake of my blood pressure I shall pretend he didn’t say it.]
• ‘Must be adjustable.’ [Given the number of these requests come across, I’m quite miffed evolution hasn’t fitted us with this highly desirable button. Instead, a few of us like me have been fitted with a large ‘will not adjust’ button. Not fair.]
• ‘Looking for rooster soulmate.’ [Is he surreptitiously informing me he is gay or am I supposed to regretfully inform him that I’m a pig as per the Chinese zodiac?]
• ‘Must know how to balance home and work.’ [I’ve been passed over for the ‘balance’ button too!]
• ‘I want beauty with a house because I don’t have one.’[Greedy boy. How about a good beating?]
• ‘Shrewd, manipulative girls stay away.’ [Why would you say such a hurtful thing? You know I’d only want the best for you.]
• ‘Looking for wife for all the lives HE commands us to win.’ [I can’t decide what to react to—all’, ‘HE’, ‘win’? Like a dutiful girl in doubt, I shall hold my tongue.]
• ‘Hi.’ [Two whole alphabets hanging in the entire expanse of space so generously provided by the kind souls at the marriage portal. I’m a big fan of brevity but then why not just a hand-waving emoji? Or even better, why not leave it completely empty? Women are believed to be highly intrigued by men of mystery, right? Go ahead, delete these two scraggly alphabets from your profile.]

I, of course, saved the best for last. With four whole sentences, he had a clear lead over the others who could barely push beyond the four-word limit. I guess having age on your side does help. If a fifty-year-old can’t write four sentences, who can?

• ‘Looking for a healthy single virgin who has never dated. Dating invariably leads to sexually transmitted diseases and I for one have had my share of these. You see both my spouses had more than two dozen lovers before me and I now truly wish to break this cycle and save our community from this scourge. So please, only single virgins apply.’ [How selfless! He cares more about his community than himself. A true zealot.]

Slim, beautiful, cheery, domesticated and of course, disease-free virgins obviously never go out of style. It was pretty silly to assume otherwise. Why would preferences change merely because the men are older? Haven’t we all learnt that grey cells deplete, not sprout, with age? It’s this kind of rose-tinted thinking which has probably led to my ending up as a sheng nu. (This is the latest slur to hit us singletons. It’s being doing the rounds in China for the last couple of years and seems unlikely to disappear soon. It means ‘leftover ladies’—women above a certain age who are unmarried and presumably ‘leftover’, as they are too old to be desirable. The male equivalent of the ‘single and over thirty’ phenomena is an ‘eligible bachelor’, of course.)

Anyway, just when I gave up on men’s ability to string together more than one sentence, I bumped into the Gyan Gurus. They were as bad as the one-liners but worse. While their requirements were doused in domesticity too, they insisted on giving a lengthy sermon along the way. Nothing less than a 760-word paragraph (almost as lengthy as some of the chapters in this book) would suffice.

One gentleman proceeded to enlist his requirements alphabetically and went on to describe what exactly he meant by each characteristic, just in case we misconstrued what he was trying to say.

‘A is for “Articulate”. She must speak clearly. People should be able to understand her so they can respond appropriately. She must speak fluently and coherently. Every word must be crisp and succinct. Next is “Accountable”. She must take responsibility for her actions, her work. She must be prepared to lie in the bed she makes, even if the bed isn’t nice. “Adjusting”—she cannot be demanding. Must listen to people in my home. Not do what she did at her home.’

Then he moves onto ‘B’ and so forth. Oddly, ‘G’ seemed his favourite alphabet with most of his requirements stemming from it—god-fearing, good-hearted, groomed, giving, gifted, gentle, genuine, grit, gracious, graceful, grateful. Sadly, he seemed to run out of steam after ‘G’. Quite a tragic loss for the woman whose character strengths started from ‘H’—hard-working, hygienic, homely, helpful, hopeful, honourable, humble, honest, happy, hospitable.

But what truly categorizes them as Gyan Gurus are the precious pearls of wisdom they throw our way, amidst the list of adjectives.

• ‘Don’t expect happiness all time. Don’t blame others for sadness. Learn to handle it.’
• ‘No bitterness in heart is very important. Mouth should be chocolate factory, mind should be icy cool factory.’
• ‘Don’t chase fortune. You will get your deserving’.
• If he walk with you, he is true friend.’
• ‘Health, food and peaceful sleep is more important than all wealth in Ali Baba cave.’
• ‘It is good to be important but it is important to be a good.’
• ‘Don’t cry that it is over, smile it happened.’
• ‘If you that type person running behind money and beauty do not accept this profile. Because this is all come, go, come, go, go, go. If your skin is brown, Wheatees or pink, small or big that is not also not effective for successful marriage. If groom rich and good beauty but did not have love what will you do?’ [A very valid question indeed.]

Of course, these are tremendously truncated versions. The original ramble makes you want to pull out all your hair or do anything that causes immense physical pain—something to drown out the intense irritation of being nagged by these self-proclaimed enlightened souls. Reading between the lines all I get is, ‘I’m superbly broke, pathetic and going to cause some hard-core misery. Please adjust.’ Sorry, fellas. No more adjustments. Oddly, wiser the man, the worse his English got.

At times when I’m in a more indulgent, forgiving frame of mind, I do wonder if these profiles are consciously provocative or someone’s idea of a prank. As kids, we’ve indulged in our share of madness. I, sheepishly, remember getting together at a friend’s place and making crank calls to the other kids in school, rambling absolute rubbish and then falling with laughter to the ground at our hilarious ‘joke’. Maybe this, too, is a joke—a bait to see who replies to such nonsensical profiles. Maybe it’s a Female Profiling Project. What percentage of women are silly enough to accept interests from weird profiles?

Whatever be the rationale and be it the one-liner loons or the Gyan Gurus, I can clearly spot another gargantuan opportunity for all matrimonial website owners. English class.

Excerpts taken with permission from Penguin Random House India

Pages 196; ₹ 250