Eligible Campfire — June 2021

At Eligible — a community of independent Indian Singles on life partner search, we truly believe in the power of tribal knowledge. So when someone from our women’s circle held last year volunteered to come on our Zoom call and share her story of how she found love during the times of Corona, we were beyond excited.

Starting at 26

While wrapping with her PhD in Bangalore, she was still 26-year-old when she joined our women’s circle last year. Energetic, bubbly, ever so cheerful, she dreaded matrimonial platforms because of how parents would look up her number and instantly call her. Given her unique name, it was also easy to look her up on social media. There came a time when she hid her profile to stay away from the noise for a while. But destiny had something else in store for her.

Getting discovered

An Indian techie based out of the Bay area had looked up her profile on Jeevansaathi and reached out to her. Distance did not stop them from progressing with the interactions. Video calls soon led to virtual date nights with both of them dancing to the same songs, playing online games, watching movies online and sending gifts on special occasions to each other. They were arranging their own marriage as her parents asked for bio data and she proofread it. Though a vegetarian, she was comfortable with the guy being a non-vegetarian, but her parents would have taken it as a red flag. So she edited it for hygiene’s sake. Alas! Things you do when you are on the same team!

Next Level Unlocked

By Diwali 2020, they had introduced each other’s families on video calls while they are yet to meet as I write this. Given the lockdowns, Covid situation and the inter-continent relationship, technology has been such a saviour for our lovebirds. In a near-case study way, her story was followed up with curious minds asking about establishing trust with a stranger she met on Internet, dealing with conflict in a long-distance relationship, progressing with talks while being in lockdown and never having met in person despite ten months of relationship, so on and so forth.

She was generous enough to share the process of how she created her profile (I did hear my name on nudging her), went through the process and involved families when they were both confident about going ahead together. Our takeaways on this success story:

1. Being early in the journey and including a presence on a matrimonial website helped. While we have nothing against dating apps, it’s easier to gauge the interest and get enough detailed information from a matrimonial profile. Depending on which dating app you are using, it could be highly skewed towards photographs or keeping you engaged in the app as you chat with bots. Going online to offline or from text to video calls in a shorter span of time is crucial to ensuring that you sustain the momentum.
2. Creating a funnel that included matrimonial websites early on helped. People think it’s a loser way of creating a matrimonial profile and they are better off swiping profiles or organically trying to meet someone. If you zoom out and consider all the channels that could allow you to build a funnel with prospects, why leave out platforms that are meant for matrimony?
3. Another function of being early in the process by her peer group standards meant that she was curious and non-judgemental, not exhausted or drained out in the process of meeting prospects, getting ghosted, dealing with too many options and wanting to get married on a yesterday-basis.
4. She has clarity and willingness to relocate to the US. She knows that she can go for a postdoc there and will not have to give up on her career by being a homemaker or spending more money and time in further studies to secure a work visa. This played in her favour. Again, she was 26 when she e-met him. If she had an established career here, things could have been different and she may not have wanted to uproot herself from her social system here.
5. She communicated well since the beginning of the relationship about her need for time and attention. They speak each other’s love language, make video calls in their free hours every day, discuss lives and this works for their long-distance relationship. Also being from the same community helped in getting the families onboard fairly easily.

We truly appreciate the generosity with which this story was shared on the community call and the hope it instills among us. Such first-person accounts make you believe that there is goodness and hope and someone for you too, if only you give love a chance.

P.S. Given the repeated interests we have received for a better understanding of How to create a good profile, Dating refresh for existing profile, What kind of platforms, subscriptions, personalised matchmakers work, we are now hosting workshops on weekends. Reach out for individual or group participation. If you are a bunch of friends, flatmates or coworkers who’d like to have a private group session, that’s an option too.

Until next time,

Radhika