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One thing is for sure, the search for love (or at least a husband that we can grow to like) is nothing if not profitable. Fee-paying dating websites are in abundance for every race, religion and colour. Even every whim, as there’s a site for married people looking for an affair. Though that’s just being greedy.
Meanwhile, my mum is forking out on a monthly retainer to get the professional busybody to send biodatas through our letterbox. It seems that nobody wants to set anybody up out of the goodness of their own hearts. Everyone is cashing in on other people’s... well... desperation.
They say you can’t put a price on love but I wish this manhunt wasn’t so costly. We need some spare change for the wedding. Therefore, it’s a relief – and surprise – when Julia comes good on her mission to find me a man.
We met up with our mutual friend Helen for lunch at our Italian the other day. She was one of the bookish girls in school and hasn’t changed much a decade later, though she’s developed a love for the great outdoors of late. I’ve barely sat down and I’m ambushed about a weekend away she’s organising.
“You haven’t got back to me yet about glamping. Do you want to come? Joy and Claire have already confirmed.”
“Erm... I haven’t checked my diary yet,” I lie. I know full well that I have nothing going on but the thought of being shacked up for a weekend with three other girls while they get progressively more drunk and angry about men fills me with dread. It’s not the bitterness towards men bit that bothers me, as I’ll be in good company. It’s the boozing. Helen’s a crying drunk. She bawls every time she’s smashed. They’re full on, angry-at-life tears. Her glasses steam up and everything.
“Oh, we’ve got that thing, remember? You were going to stay with me in London that weekend... you know... to hold my hand during speed dating,” Julia lies for me.
She’s the best and she also has no intention of spending the weekend comforting a crying Helen.
“Gosh, you two! Boy mad!” Helen scoffs.
Julia disguises our collective relief at getting out of glamping with a giggle. “You don’t know the half of it!”
As we’re chatting over olives and bruschetta, Julia shares her latest dating disaster. She met a guy while on a photography expedition in Shoreditch. The excursion was organised through meetup.com, a website where you can find events run by like-minded people and there is something for every hobby. Since moving to London, she has joined the East London Art Lovers group, the Alternative Cinema club and even attended a chess tournament. In all the years I’ve known Julia she has never expressed an interest in photography, foreign-language movies or chess. Basically, these groups are the mainstream equivalent of thinly veiled marriage events. Over 90% of attendees are single and more than ready to mingle.
“He seemed normal enough during the photo meetup,” Julia begins. “So we agreed to go for dinner afterwards, and this is where it all went downhill.”
I brace myself for what horrendous cardinal sin this boy could have committed. Maybe he didn’t open the door for her? Or perhaps he failed to kiss her hand as he ushered her into his chauffer driven car? It’s not that I’m saying Julia is fussy but she was born in the wrong century. She longs for old-fashioned chivalry, the Gone with the Wind romance that hasn’t existed for about 100 years.
“Anyway,” she continues, “when it came to paying for the bill, he started pulling out all these pennies from his coin purse. And yes, he had a purse!”
Oh, dear. Julia’s always drawn the line at boys who don’t pick up the tab but I never knew she had an opinion on the number of coins required to make up the tab.
“He was counting each coin painnn-fully slowly. Even the waiter was mortified for me. After that, I just couldn’t date him again, so I didn’t return his call,” Julia concludes. Then she turns her attention to me. “So that’s my latest boy update. What’s new with you?”
Now, I try to steer clear of arranged marriage conversations with anyone other than Julia but I decide to share details of my date with Shy-boy. After all, I had a date. This was newsworthy in itself. When I tell the girls how it didn’t work out and I’m feeling time-pressed to find a man, Helen throws in a pearl of wisdom.
“You can’t rush love,” she says.
I reckon she got that line from a movie, as she has no love life to speak of. After college, Helen studied at our local university and now works for the local council. She’s never had a boyfriend. She’s rocked the same full-fringed shoulder-length haircut since school, though she did once experiment with dyeing her ginger hair brown. Helen still lives at home with her parents (yes, I know I do too. But I’m Bengali, so it’s different) and has a cat called Jumbo. But more to the point, SHE’S NEVER HAD A BOYFRIEND. And she’s nearly 27. On paper, Helen is more Bengali than I am. She is totally going in the direction of my sister’s friend Laura, who is eternally single. I don’t want to be like Helen or Laura, so I’m adding a little urgency to my quest for love.
Helen leaves our lunch early, as she’s got book club afterwards. So Julia and I are left to share a profiterole dessert. I miss these catch ups, they’re becoming a rarity as Julia gets more settled into her life in London. I’m keen to find out how she’s getting on, diabolical dates aside. Then I realise the time myself. I was meant to pick up my little sister from badminton 20 minutes ago.
I hastily say goodbye, leaving more than enough money to settle my share of the bill, before Julia stops me in my tracks with a big surprise: “I was waiting for Helen to go as I wanted to tell you, I might have found someone for you!”
Her news comes at a good time. Ramadan has ended, we’ve celebrated Eid and I’m out of my self-imposed boy ban and back on the hunt. As I have to run, I promise to call Julia as soon as I’ve picked up the brat.
Once my carpool duty is done, I look around my house for some privacy to make a call. My teenage sister runs upstairs to hole herself up in our bedroom. She hasn’t even bothered to shower after her class. Mum’s just come in from the garden after hanging out the washing. She heads straight to the kitchen to attack the grey and yellow diamond-printed lino with a mop. Dad’s in the living room, watching the news on the Bengali channel.
I enrobe myself in mum’s lilac paisley-print pashmina and retreat to the garden, as I can’t wait to hear what Julia has to say. No sooner does our conversation start, than dad comes into the garden to check on the clothes mum has just hung out. They’re clearly not gonna dry that quickly.
He spots me and says: “Eh-he, you on phone?”
“Yes dad.”
“Ok, ok. You talk.”
Usually people say this when they leave you to it. Not my dad. He continues checking the clothes – which are still dripping wet – before looking at the autumn-ravaged raspberry bushes. It’s not that dad’s one of those super-strict parents that will scold their daughter at any whiff of boy talk. He’s just inherently nosey.
I let Julia do the talking and respond with “mm-hmms,” and “oh ok’s,” so dad can’t figure out the gist of the conversation.
Julia realises from my responses that I need to be discreet and says to me: “Just to be on the safe side, I’ll use the letter B instead of boy.”
She really is a sister from another Mister. But she begins to speak in riddles, which only confuses things. I manage to deduce that Julia doesn’t know someone specifically, she knows someone who might know someone. In fact, as if it wasn’t convoluted enough, she knows this acquaintance through another friend. It’s like the seven-degrees of rishtaas.
Apparently, this friend knows a couple of guys. While I like to think I’m modern minded, dating two guys at the same time is a bit much for me. But I’m keen to find out more from this friend of a friend of a friend. Julia’s vague about the details, as she doesn’t know much herself. What she can tell me is that this girl, Zahra, is Bengali, a bit older than us and seems to be well connected. I take her number, and after a text exchange with Zahra, I agree to call her on Monday on my lunch break.
This is where it gets interesting.
I call Zahra from my car and quickly realise that it’s a good thing I ring-fenced an hour for our call. This girl can talk. Mainly about herself.
The first 15 minutes of our chat is all about Zahra blowing her own trumpet: “So I’m an accountant by trade but that’s really just a small part of my life. I’m really, really heavily involved in the community. All in my own time, at my own expense. I’ve always been passionate about working with people. Our people. Our Bangladeshi women and the next generation, just to ensure they have the best opportunities. The kind of thing you and I take for granted.”
I want to joke that it sounds like she’s the one looking to get married the way she’s PR-ing herself, not the boys. But I don’t have the balls to be so bold. I continue to listen, though I’m getting bored.
“Umm... let’s see what else. I’ve hosted lots of charity events. I think the last one raised £5,000. No, sorry, that’s £6k, for an eye hospital in Bangladesh. Through doing this I’ve become really well known in the Bangladeshi community. Without even trying really. Even people from different castes and backgrounds know my name, people I’d never really interact with otherwise. Anyway, um... what else... what else. To be honest, I could go on forever but you’d be better off Googling me. Everything should be on there.”
She’s beginning to sound like a real wanker. Zahra continues harping on about her life, while I’m eager for her to cut the crap and get to the good stuff.
Finally, she talks about the boys. The first boy, she says, is from a very respectable family, originally from Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. I’m from Sylhet, a smaller town. Historically, those from Dhaka turn their noses up at us Sylhetis. It’s kind of like the north vs. south divide in the UK.
I continue to listen. His dad apparently works in Washington and his mum is a retired teacher. That trumps me. I’m the daughter of a retired restaurant owner and housewife. Based on biodata-type stuff, this doesn’t sound like a match. But I listen on, hoping this boy might potentially overlook my parents’ lack of career credentials and be impressed enough by my PR job.
Without taking a breath, she moves onto boy no. 2. According to Zahra, he’s also very impressive, as he works in investment banking in London. She fails to mention how she knows these guys. Apparently, she’s collected the details of dozens of eligible bachelors, becoming something of a matchmaker in the process. I joke that she should keep a spreadsheet. She laughs and tells me she’s got one.
I smell a rat. An expensive rat.
Zahra continues: “So I can get you in touch with these guys, if you’d be interested?”
Mug that I am, I say: “Erm... potentially.”
But then comes the money shot, quite literally.
Zahra says: “But the thing is, this all takes rather a lot of my time. I make sure I see everyone face-to-face and vet them beforehand, to ensure that they’re good decent people. I do all the background checks, which is the really important bit. As a woman, a Muslim woman, you want to feel safe when you meet a guy for the first time. So I take away any worries. And like I said, I’ve got loads of guys like this on my spreadsheet.”
She clears her throat: “So the way I do things is... I basically charge an annual fee of £500. For this, I will arrange a minimum of six introductions for you. I won’t set you up with just anyone. If I don’t see you as the right fit for a guy, I won’t put you in touch with him. So what do you think?”
I can’t believe it. She’s another fucking busybody. But worse, she disguises her services as if she’s helping a sister out. She’s dangled two boys in my face but is holding them ransom for a princely sum. And to top it all off, she throws in the religion card during her business pitch.
I have so many follow-up questions as her services made no sense to me. If she’s already met and vetted these two guys on her spreadsheet, am I paying to have myself vetted? What if the first introduction turns into my dream man, do I get part of my fee back as she’s promised five more introductions? Or do I just go along to these dates to get my money’s worth? And most importantly, who the hell is she to determine who’d be the right fit for me?
Suddenly, I grow a pair of balls. I don’t know if it’s the pent-up frustration of my whole fruitless search, or the sheer anger at Zahra’s bullshit but I let rip.
“Are you having a laugh?” I belt out. “My friend Julia genuinely thought you were going to introduce me to someone out of the goodness of your own heart. But clearly everyone has a price. If you were selling a service, you could have just been upfront and said that, instead of chewing my ear for half an hour telling me about how brilliant you are.”
I hear Zahra trying to interject but I’m on a roll and this train of anger can’t be stopped. “That’s half an hour of listening to your bullshit that I’ll never get back. And now I’ll never get to Tesco in time to get my meal deal. So thanks a bunch. But also, no thanks. Find yourself another mug.”
Before Zahra has a chance to respond to my rant-y monologue, I hang up. My fingers are trembling. Did I just say that?? I’m shocked at myself. Whenever I’ve felt wronged, I’ve not spoken my mind. Society – be that British or British-Asian – encourages a stiff upper lip. I even chose a career in public relations, which is all about saying what people want to hear, rather than what we truly think. My work is based on being liked rather than being right, or even honest. And that’s how I’ve been most of my life.
I couldn’t call out Heena for teasing me about the pharmacist, for fear of sounding desperate. I stopped chasing mum about Tall-boy, for fear of sounding desperate. I constantly dodged the subject of arranged marriages at work, for fear of being singled out as the strange brown girl in the office. But every woman has her breaking point. For me, someone who purports to help me out while actually pedalling their services and cashing in on sisterhood is a step too far.
On reflection, I might have been a tad aggressive but I’m not sorry. Once I explain Zahra’s true intentions to Julia, she’ll understand why I flew off the handle.
I’m exhilarated. Hungry but exhilarated. I found my voice when politeness would often be my tone of choice. As I make my way back to work, I’m hoping that nobody ambushes me with an ignorant question about arranged marriages, Ramadan or just being brown in general. Today is not the day.
As I enter the kitchen and try to fashion a lunch from the fruit porridge I forgot to eat yesterday, in walks Carol, the office secretary.
Seeing my porridge, she exclaims: “Oh I didn’t think you’d be eating this month. Should I call the Ramadan police?”
Oh well. You can’t win them all.