Matchmaker, Matchmaker

Here's an interesting read for the weekend. I saw this in last week's Sunday Inquirer Magazine. See if you can relate as well ...

What's worse: your parents telling you that you are to remain single until further notice, or the day they decide that it's about time they put you on the market?

Click continue to see the full article by Cate de Leon.

Matchmaker, Matchmaker
(AKA Mom and Dad)

by: Cate de Leon

IT’S SOMETHING that happens to most of us. One moment you’re practically banned from meeting the opposite sex, the next you’re being pushed and shoved toward every eligible partner in sight. There isn’t much you can do about it, really. Parents wouldn’t be parents if they weren’t capable of inflicting a certain amount of torture on their kids. But it always helps to share stories and find comfort in the fact that we are not alone in our suffering.

Four years ago, right before I went to college, my dad sat me down and gave me a serious, awkward talk about how it was best for me not to get a boyfriend just yet. Barely a month into my freshman year, however, we had this conversation:

Exhibit A

“What about that classmate of yours? Bea? She’s pretty!” Dad said, elbowing my brother, Derek.
“Dad, you’re so sexist!” I fired from the backseat of our car. “You keep your eye out for Derek, but me, just because I’m a girl you think I should have nothing to do with the opposite sex.”
“That’s not true!” Dad defended himself. “I just haven’t seen anyone who’d be good for you. Dan is too scrawny, Ben is too dark, and Brian, well, he’s OK, but you don’t really look good together.”
I was dumbfounded. “You’ve been checking out my friends?”

Exhibit B

“So is he courting you?” Mom was nosing around my ‘love life’ again.
“What?! No!”
“Do you like him, then?”
“Nooooooooo!!!!”
“Sige na. You can tell us. We’re open!”

Exhibit C

“So how was your date?” Dad interrogated as he fetched me from a night out with my org mates.
“Huh? It wasn’t a date. We weren’t the only ones there. We were with friends. Besides, we don’t like each other, OK?”
“Oh, I was just wondering why you had this glow about you,” Dad smiled, pleased with his own teasing.
“I do not have a glow about me,” I retorted as dryly as I could.
“There it is, o! I see it!” he literally pointed at my face.
“Hope for their offspring makes parents delusional,” I said, annoyed.
“If you’re happy, I’m happy.” Dad quipped, undaunted.
And after a few seconds, he couldn’t resist adding, “So when do I meet him?”

Exhibit D

It was Christmas season and I had just gotten back from caroling with one of my student organizations.
Dad looked at the clock. “It’s late already. How did you get home?”
“Jake dropped me off,” I answered matter-of-factly.
At this Mom and Dad broke into wide, meaningful grins; first at each other and then at me. “Oooh! Who’s Jake?” they asked almost simultaneously.
“O, ayan na naman kayo ah! Ang bait-bait ng tao, pinagsu-suspetsyahan n’yo! [There you go again! He was just being nice and here you’re turning him into one of your usual suspects.]”
“What? We were just asking who he is. We just want to know who your friends are, that’s all,” they feigned innocence.

Exhibit E

We were at my uncle’s wedding. It was a very small and simple gathering – not the kind where you’d expect to meet any prospects. Then this tall, dark and decent-looking guy showed up. Okay, so I did check him out but concluded pretty early that he wasn’t my type. So I was contentedly sitting by myself when all of a sudden Dad’s voice boomed from a short distance. “Cate! Cate! Come here, I’ll introduce you!”

Sure enough, he was standing next to the tall, dark, decent-looking guy, enthusiastically conversing with him and his mother. I stood up and shook his hand, just to be polite. His mother said he was currently taking his master’s in Electrical Engineering at the University of the Philippines. Poor guy. It would have been better for his mother not to have said such things. Dad is attracted to such credentials like a dog is to a big, juicy piece of meat.

Come reception time, I spied Dad talking to the guy one-on-one, even picking out a small table just for the two of them. Poor, poor guy.

And, of course, when we got home, Dad wouldn’t let me hear the end of it. “He seems like a great guy! He’s nice, smart, and he’s a Christian! It would be good for you to get to know him better.”

My protests about how he wasn’t my type were in vain, falling on deaf ears.

And there are so many more examples that would take me infinity to enumerate. The funniest I’ve heard so far was how a nerdy guy friend of mine was “required to go out with a girl” by his dad.

Makes me wonder which is worse: your parents telling you that you are to remain single until further notice, or the day they decide that it’s about time they put you on the market. I also don’t tell them whenever I like someone because I think they’re crazy enough as it is. Nevertheless, I think they can still tell.

I guess there’s no choice but for me, and others like me (I’m sure I’m not the only one being sold off), to bear with all the madness and to try my best to protect my male friends from unnecessary parental interrogation/checking out, and the fact that my parents think they all have crushes on me. I just comfort myself with the knowledge that it’s normal for mom and dad to be overly confident and slightly delusional about their offspring. •

Can you relate or can you relate? Send your comments and similar stories to catgdeleon @yahoo.com or visit the author at http://writer-cat.livejournal.com

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I truly can relate. However, I think this girl has awesome parents but she doesn't know it yet. When she finally meets that special someone, I'm sure she'll be more than glad to share that person with her parents. I do understand that she may want to keep her love life private for now.

Sometimes I wish my parents were more sociable and that we have more family friends.

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