Continuing from above — in “Indian Matchmaking”, what pops up over and over again is that you will never have “100%” of what you are looking for in a partner.
Every young person she helps with always start a list of qualities of their ideal partner, some of them are really small things. Yet despite telling them, it is not “100%”, they can’t let that go even before dating starts. And then you see how it sets the tone for the dates and all the drama that comes of it, and they have not even married yet.
I remember watching that and thinking, yeah, that’s obvious. Glad I know better.
But thinking about all of this, I realize, it doesn’t end at the dating. Your partner wasn’t “100%”, and as people grow and change, they are not “100%” different ways, over the years. There are different things that comes up in which to let shit go.
It might be why arranged marriages and strong cultural values around it works. There is no illusion of an ideal partner to begin with. (And you get the shadow side too, like anything else when there are bad actors)
No doubt. The people I have known in an Indian arranged marriage actually understand relationships.
They aren't trying to live in a Disney movie or Goethe novel.
My understanding is that Goethe and romanticism really messed up our views in the West about romance. We have unrealistic beliefs from trying to live up to fiction.
Yes, and music and all other parts of culture too: the lone genius model of human achievement, suffering=greatness, the primacy of emotion, and many other tropes that are now our cultural “defaults”. It’s hard to see clearly because we’re still inside the romantic movement.
Every young person she helps with always start a list of qualities of their ideal partner, some of them are really small things. Yet despite telling them, it is not “100%”, they can’t let that go even before dating starts. And then you see how it sets the tone for the dates and all the drama that comes of it, and they have not even married yet.
I remember watching that and thinking, yeah, that’s obvious. Glad I know better.
But thinking about all of this, I realize, it doesn’t end at the dating. Your partner wasn’t “100%”, and as people grow and change, they are not “100%” different ways, over the years. There are different things that comes up in which to let shit go.
It might be why arranged marriages and strong cultural values around it works. There is no illusion of an ideal partner to begin with. (And you get the shadow side too, like anything else when there are bad actors)