Dating is a serious business that requires thought, preparation and action to avoid wasting time and energy. My daughter has neither, I have both. So now it’s time to put some strategies in place. Time to recognise opportunities and grasp them firmly with both hands. And if opportunities don’t seem immediately apparent – create them!
My first strategy is: Start With Who You Know
This means dusting off those old address books, and I mean the hard copy, pre-mobile kind, for those friends and family members you’ve lost touch with. In 1986, the year my daughter was born, married me lived in Couples Kingdom. You know, a circle of married couples who socialised …….and competed. The house; the car; the holidays; the kids who could recite the alphabet at the age of 18 months! Four of us had children that year and my daughter, the only girl, was the last of them. Three potential leads! You might think it would be weird calling out of the blue after many years but it’s the easiest thing in the world to open with “I came across your number in my old address book and just wanted to find out how you’re doing” It’s human nature to want to talk about ourselves and we appreciate those who take to listen. Is it always possible to rekindle a friendship? Take the quiz to find out.
Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for an answer (Author Unknown)
Unfortunately the leads sank like lead balloons:- One abroad, one engaged, one wayward. Worth a shot though and the mothers seemed genuinely pleased to hear from me. One of them is having a birthday party in three weeks so I got in touch just in time to get me an invite! It’s the BIG FIVE-OH so there’ll be plenty of people to network with. Therein lies the key. I am going to have to network, network and NETWORK!! Pretty good timing with the Christmas season coming up. However, I’m so used to telly, bath, bed on a Saturday night that this has also got me worried. I’m going to need to be ‘on point’ with my hair, nails and clothes and I HAVEN’T A THING TO WEAR.
Tags:
dating,
networking,
parental matchmaking,
rekindle a friendship
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?
Tags:
asian dating,
dating matchmaking,
internet dating,
online dating,
parental matchmaking,
professional matchmaker
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!!!!!
Tags:
dating matchmaking,
internet dating,
jimmy choos,
menopause,
parental matchmaking
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