Eligible — OMG October!
When we started with October sessions at Eligible, the overarching theme for the month was Fear in Relationships. Moving forward, there was a need to take up tactical topics so that people have more insights, specific inputs and action items to work on. The objective — to know that you are not alone in this journey of life partner search and make progress towards your relationship goals.
Disclaimer: Some of these things may sound mechanical and too logical for people if they believe matters of heart cannot involve mind at all. It’s okay if you disagree or it does not resonate with you. To each, their own.
The user journey from being Single to being Married is mapped out in seven steps and we are deep diving into one stage with every session. So by November-end, we’ll wrap up with this.
Here are the seven steps:
- Combating your fears about relationships
- Announcing ‘I am Single’ like a marketing campaign
- Getting to the first date with anyone
- Conversations for n number of meetings
- Rejections? Restart!
- Moving from dating to marriage
- Involving families, addressing issues
I absolutely loved the session which ran for a little over 2 hours. Officially, it’s an hour-long session. But then we do a pre and post for those who may want to hang out more and I always have company! To give you a flavour of what it looked like, we had a pre-session round of ‘Show & Tell’ where people Screenshared their 10-year-old pictures to talk about the story behind it. Pro-tip: You never want to use those or dated pictures in your matrimonial profile which do not reflect what you are today. You are trying to go from online to offline and meet this person. Be relevant. Be honest. Be confident in putting yourself out there.
You know you are enabling a safe space when people feel comfortable being vulnerable and sharing. In that process, they inspire others. We talked about body image issues and someone mentioned going from 93kgs to 72 kgs since lockdown. That made someone else go “WOW, we should totally talk about this since I’m not able to make up my mind to meet this person because I think I need to lose some weight”. To this, someone else mentioned that they are short-heighted and unlike those dealing with weight issues, they’ll never be able to grow their height. We looked at numbers on how many people rejected them because of height issues — one or two. They believe it is THE reason because that’s the story they are telling themselves all along. We are now looking at ways to create serendipity that may allow them to meet someone outside the arranged marriage system. When you are different at a lot of levels from others, you may find it difficult to find someone your ‘type’ in the traditional context. So it’s okay to engineer that serendipity by diversifying your interests, social circles and eventually find someone.
Since Diwali is round the corner, I asked for a show of hands to know if we needed a break from these sessions for people to celebrate festivities. Turns out we can’t let our Sunday ritual go, so we are not pausing and we are not stopping and we’ll be there holding the space for you. Come, join us. Introductory call can be scheduled here.
P.S. Immensely grateful to this community that’s helping me validate, build, iterate and grow. You guys are my dream team that I never knew I could have or ask for — from product managers, corporate lawyers, machine learning engineers to entrepreneurs, investment bankers, communication professionals, spanning cities and time zones and ages and experiences. Thank you for showing up!
