Wacky ideas
One of the stories in this book is from Carole Chelsea George, who as a female American tourist in India placed a personals ad in one of the Indian newspapers:
Ever since I'd arrived in India several months earlier, I'd been fascinated by the matrimonials section of the Hindustan Times. I'd buy the Sunday paper and open right away to pages and pages of classified ads for potential brides and grooms:[...]
Having graduated with a degree in sociology, I tried to analyse the ads from a sociological perspective. Typically, they listed qualifications such as education, religion, salary, family status, age, height, weight, and zodiac sign. Often they included skin color, dowry, caste. Connections abroad mattered: English born, American educated, Canadian passport. Men were valued for money; women for good genes.
Finally, after studying the matrimonials for some time, I decided to do some first-hand research, and possibly publish an article on the results. This is the ad I placed:
Female American tourist seeks good-looking Indian man. Caste, colour, creed unimportant. Must laugh easily and enjoy life. Respond w/photo and personal statement. C. C. George, c/o American Express, Connaught Place, New Delhi.
Guess how many replies she received? 235!
This reminded me of the "run-on" or "liner" (text-only) ads we have in the Classifieds section, and started me wondering whether anyone actually reads those. They're so tiny, and there are so many of those although admittedly, not many of the "friendship & love" variety. If I were to run an ad in the Classifieds, would anyone respond? How much does it cost to run one of those, anyway?
Today I checked things out and discovered that both the two main English dailies, The Star and The New Straits Times (NST), don't allow online booking of personals ads; the advertiser must appear in person to place the ad, with "supporting documents" or "relevant documents for verification". The Star charges $18* for the minimum 4 lines, with an additional $4.50 for each extra line, while NST's costs $33.60, at $8.40 per line good grief!
Looking through today's "Friendship & love" classifieds, I happened to see one on speed dating. If you haven't heard of it, that's like having several blind dates in one night. Everybody's paired up, then given anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes to speak with the other person (the time limit depends on the event organiser) before all the guys stand up and move on to the next table. So every female gets 3 to 10 minutes with each guy in the room, and vice-versa. If you found the fella interesting and would like to meet him again, you give him a positive mark on your "scorecard"; if he marked you on his scorecard too, the organiser will contact you both with each others' contact information and you can arrange a "proper" first date.
Sounds intriguing, no? I read a Malaysian journalist's experience, and my interest was piqued. There seem to be at least two official speed dating organisers here, 1919 Bistro, which was featured in the article, and Click-Together. The first charges $45 per event, while the other charges $60.
The only thing I'm wondering is, how much can you say in five minutes?! I'd think 10 minutes more reasonable. Actually, the thought of having to come up with witty, sparkling conversation within five minutes in order to pique someone's interest is enough to give me performance anxiety...
Besides, we've all heard stories of couples who started off hating each other at first meeting and ended up happily married. Imagine if one partner had written the other off and they'd never met again where would each of them be today? How do we know how anything will turn out in the end?
But as a friend pointed out, if you're only given five minutes with each other, you'd naturally be on your best behaviour, putting your best foot forward. If you can't, uh, impress the other person even when you're at your best, then there's probably nothing more to be said. (Let's be honest. It really IS all about impressing the other person!) Which may explain one lady's decision: "Another guy pulled off the table cloth and everything on the table fell. I just sat and laughed. He was definitely out as I did not want to go out with someone clumsy." The klutz in me took instant umbrage to this. What? She wasn't even going to give him a chance? What if that day had been an aberration? Maybe he'd been nervous or something. Performance anxiety, as I've said before ;)
If I were going to go speed dating, I'd make sure I had blue nail polish on (like I did at Chinese New Year boy, did the uncles & aunts' eyes bulge out of their sockets!) and wear some funky big earrings. There's nothing like heading the faint-hearted fellas off at the pass! teeheehee