Dating my Daughter

Life and love are both fraught with possible pitfalls – just like a fiddler sitting atop a roof! In the film, set in Tsarist Russia in 1904, five sisters sing with a mixture of hope and trepidation

“Matchmaker, matchmaker make me a match. Find me a find. Catch me a catch!”

So matchmaking is nothing new. In fact it has been acceptable practice in Europe, including Britain, among the aristocracy for generations. How else could they preserve their wealth and status? At the other end of the financial scale, such as in rural communities, the matchmaker provided a useful resource where opportunities to meet the opposite sex were limited.
In today’s society singletons theoretically have ample opportunities through work or leisure to find their own potential partners. In fact, in western societies any involvement of parents in their childrens’ love lives may be seen as meddling at best or female oppression at worst. Furthermore, technology has made looking for love acceptable and easy. With a few key strokes you can now receive video, audio, instant messaging, e-mail and much more from anyone and everyone. This has worked for some but the technology doesn’t come with a magic magnifying glass so….
                                        LIARS MEET LIARS!
Now the search for love is turning full circle resulting in the rise of the “professional matchmaker”. Recently a 33 year old sales rep living in New York saved up for two years to hand over $10,000 (seriously!) to two high-end professional matchmakers. She had tried numerous dating services without success and decided to seek help. The matchmakers sign up eligible batchelors, who don’t pay to join the agency, to offer up to three blind dates with the women – who do! ($10,000!!!)
So should parents help their offspring meet partners? Why not? If you have a good relationship with your children and they have neither great expectations or objections – Why not? (If you had a child desperate for work experience and a friend with their own business surely you’d hook them up?)
In the Far East parental matchmaking is all the rage. Every Sunday, concerned parents and grandparents are taking “CVs” of their offspring and exchanging profiles in parks all over China. Similarly at sessions in Singapore parents are turning up in droves to find partners for their children aged from 25 to 45. So …….Why not?

What internal serpent
Has lent you his forked tongue?
From what pit of foul deceit
Are all these whoppers sprung?

These words, although from a poem written over 200 years ago, are bang on target in today’s dating minefield. According to figures from the Office for National Statistics there are approximately 1.3 million single people in London between the ages of 25 and 39. That’s a pretty big sea with plenty of fish in it! And yet despite all the My-Face-Twittering, personal ads and numerous online dating sites, love isn’t happening for many. Perhaps the sea is too vast which is why all the singletons try to step up their game to be noticed. (Without sounding like a loser, freak or psycho/sociopath).
The trouble with internet dating is that it creates liars of hitherto straight talking individuals. From the profiles to the photographs their declarations range from truth-bending to mind-bending. A sort of “CV speak” for the soul which needs to be read with a generous teaspoon of salt.
For instance:
-Caring…….The word “caring” is everywhere. Men describing themselves as caring, women saying that they want a caring man. In the real world this translates as follows:-
She: Do you care about the effects of climate change on the Polar regions?
He: Yes
She: Do you care if the hand towels co-ordinate with the soap in the bathroom?
He: No

Good Sense Of Humour …….
Man slips on ice and falls face first into the lap of a nun. (Might cause a chuckle)
Man slips on ice and fractures his pelvis. (? funny).
In the real world men like women who laugh at their jokes and women like men who make them laugh. There is no G with the SOH.

….. love dining out….. An all you can eat buffet for a fiver is hardly a gourmet experience.

…..enjoy cosy nights in…. Rubbish! You only stay home when you have to i.e. you’re broke, hungover or recovering from the flu.

…… love long walks? …Yeah….because you’ve got no car!

When mamas (and papas) get together to talk about our children we don’t need to lie. We know them so well we can reel off the good attributes as well as the reasons why they’re single. (Honesty is always the best policy).

Maybe it’s time to lend Cupid a helping hand!

I am a single mother – three by two: three daughters, two dads – waiting to exhale. A few years ago I was basking in the glory my eldest had achieved and telling everyone about her 2.1 degree and getting on the property ladder at the age of 23.
Wish I had a pair of Jimmy Choos for the number of mothers who said “She sounds lovely. I wish my son could meet someone like that!” Too late! I left a wake of disappointnent as she had found her someone. Now the second daughter will be 23 in four weeks and again I am preening with another academic success. (My what strong genes I have!) This one is a mama’s child. She’s smart, really funny, strong-willed. She is how I wish I’d been when I was 23. Perhaps I would have recognised the arseholes a lot sooner. There she is, a lovely, with her staypressed skin and size 8 body. Here I am at 51, approaching the menopause and losing the will to fight the flab and time. We are both single and unattached.
She thinks there’s plenty of time to get serious about someone but….
Let’s look at the timeline
She says she wants to wait until she’s 30 to have her first child….. Hmm….That means getting pregnant at 29……..
2 years prior to getting pregnant, fingers crossed she gets married at 27.
A wedding needs planning so hmmm …engaged at 25…..
Gotta get to know him so ……date for a couple of years at least….
OMG!! That means meeting THE RIGHT ONE has to begin RIGHT NOW. TODAY!!!!

What does my daughter think?
She hasn’t got the time or the inclination to trawl through internet dating sites.
She’s a sceptic – doesn’t think there are any Mr Rights cos they’re all knobs!
She finds this amusing and is prepared to indulge me.

So this time around, when I meet mamas with sons who have POTENTIAL, I am taking numbers and e-mails. I am hookin’ her up! Maybe this is more about me than about her:- a DO-OVER of my misspent youth. Nevertheless I’m on a mission. There IS a man out there who is so wonderful he should be DATING MY DAUGHTER!!!!!