Arranged Marriage – Preparing for the first meeting

-Akshay Ranganath

Looking at the trend of visits to my blog, I thought a more serious blog about 'how to prepare for the all important first meeting' would be a useful post to you, my dear readers. And so here is what I learnt based on my experience.

Please note that since I am a guy, this is from a male perspective. I guess most would apply even to girls, so do read on.

Preparing for the meeting
Arranged marriage has its set of excitement and none is more exciting than the first time you get to meet your 'would-be' in a face to face mode. Just the very thought is enough to raise a few goose pimples and start a sense of thrill, of confusion, of worries and lots of butterflies in stomach. After all, what are you supposed to talk to her in the one hour by which you can decide if she is the one with whom to spend the rest of life!

Yes, it is an important meeting and like for any formal meeting, it needs effort on 3 fronts:

1. pre meeting – what you need to talk and ask during the meeting and deciding where to meet
2. meeting – what you actually say and how to say or ask, making her comfortable enough so that she can open up and say what she has in mind
3. post meeting – the duration when the serious stuff is done and you can show the softer side of yourself, just long enough to tease her to get interested in you.

Pre meeting
You are meeting someone who could potentially be your life partner and you need to know if she is the 'right-fit' for what you are looking for. Unfortunately, most of us don't even know what we are looking for in the life partner – at least I could never articulate what I was looking for.

As a preparation, you need to do a lot of soul searching – a sort of long term planning. Like the typical interview question, 'Where do you see yourself' types, you need to make a note of the following questions – and its answers:

1. What type of a person are you? A completely happy go lucky, a guy who likes a detailed and well planned life?
2. Based on your background, what type of a lifestyle did you have? A very rich and happy one, a typical middle class life – equally comfortable with bus or a car
3. Your social status and quality of life – again, typical middle class – occasional movies, summer holiday trip to grandma's place or international visits, bowling alleys, etc.
4. What type of a job you are doing and what are you aiming for, at least a rough idea: A well paying but not necessary being the CEO, a high flier with life filled with constant excitement with fast career, a nomadic world roaming life
5. Your friends and how you all get along
6. Your hobbies – what you do in free time, what makes you passionate in life
7. Any family responsibilities and financial position - only son so need to take care of parents, etc., and salary

The points above are to give a well rounded picture about you. Its like offering a package deal of yourself, describing yourself in all angles and letting the girl get a feel of who you are on the whole and what to expect in terms of life, travel, location, family and friends.

During the meeting, you need to extract similar set of information from her so that you can make a judgement about what she wants in life and if you want to and can afford it. If not, its better to take a call right after the meeting rather than letting a life get messed up by wrong expectations.

Meeting

After all the preparation comes the actual meeting – the thing that is most important. For this, first choose on an appropriate location. Regardless of what movies and serials show, girls are shy for the first date, at least in the initial few minutes. So, the most important thing is to ensure that the location makes her comfortable.

My suggestion is to choose something that is close to her place. That way she knows the area around and knows things in general. Cafe Coffee Day outlets in cities like Bangalore are the best places to meet – more so if they have an outdoor chair. This way, you are sort of in free fresh air and she need not feel suffocated.

Starting the meeting
As with any planned meeting, set the agenda. After the initial meeting and greetings, tell her clearly that the meeting is for generally discussing about what you are generally planning in life and would like to know about her plans, interests, desires and concerns (if any).

During the initial few minutes, the girl will (most probably) be shy. So take time and explain about yourself. Don't say the mundane stuff like which college, 12th marks and so on. It doesn't matter. What does matter is the type of life you've had – if you stayed in multiple places, how you enjoyed the rains in Pune, the beach in Chennai, the dejection when you couldn't get into that college you wanted – you get the picture. Something to make her feel that you are a human.

Ask her about herself, what she does and generally how she spends time. This will give her an opening to talk. Don't ask too many personal questions at beginning and don't probe. You are not in an interrogation.

Don't order by yourself. Let her take a look at menu, ask for her preference. If she's confused, help her. The break will give her some time to get her thoughts in order and same goes for you too.

Progressing with the meeting
After the initial 10-15 minutes of startup, get into a bit more specific details. Explain about your career, what you've done so far and what you want to do. Tell her if you have plans for settling abroad or you are just not interested. Keep interspersing your points by her details. Try to ensure that the conversation remains two way. Keep watching her and check if she's not getting bored or pressurized.

Here is where you basically talk all that you'd prepared. Ensure that you ask questions so that you too can form an opinion of her. You basically would be interested in her plans for:

1. career
2. life style
3. location preference
4. open to stay with in laws or not, etc

Don't drag it with too much details. Keep it to a maximum of 30 minutes.

Concluding the meeting
By the time the coffee gets over, its time to end the meeting. At this point, tell her something about your friends and what you do for hobby. Something to tell her what is your likes in food, movies music, etc. Ask her about her favorites. Comment over it since it gives her a feeling that you really care for the preferences. Put in a few funny things that had happened in some trip or movie – it should be funny but not gross!

Post meeting
This is the time when you drop her from the meeting venue to her home (or till her vehicle or bus). By now, you would actually know the outcome of meeting. It won't be tough believe me. If you two can talk like you've known for ages by now, you know she's the one.

So look for signs from her – if she laughs happily and her eyes sparkle, then you know its a win! If not, try and explain any points that could mean you are not made for each other. Whatever the outcome, it should end cordially. And if the result is a 'yes', then take a small risk and insert something romantic in your speech. I didn't realize it but, I gave her my card with my mobile number on it. And my fiance says the moment she got the card, she realized that I would say yes.

Finally
So, finally, the first meeting is all about setting the right expectation for both parties – you as a guy on what you can offer in terms of life and life style and for her to tell what she expects. Remember, it is the girl who makes the bigger sacrifice of leaving her family and taking up a new home, life and literally a new role. So, she needs to know what she is getting into – make this as easy for as you can.

My dad helped me with a half a day session on this – and now I'm passsing it on. Happy meeting and hope what I wrote helps you.