Athena Sobhan, 28, has been swiping for the better part of a decade on Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, OkCupid, Coffee Meets Bagel and even South Asian-focused dating apps like Dil Mil. But after more than five years, she feels like they’ve gotten markedly worse, and she’s ready for a different approach.
“The apps suck so bad, it’s not even funny,” said Sobhan, who is Bangladeshi American and lives in Southern California. “I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to play games.”
So she deleted all of them and asked her mom a question she never thought she’d utter: “Will you look for someone for me?”
As dating apps continue to be a disappointment to young people seeking love, some South Asian Americans are looking for an alternative that they once considered a relic of their parents’ generation: arranged marriage.
The modern arranged marriage
Western-driven media like Netflix’s “Indian Matchmaking” have, in recent years, sparked an exoticized interest in arranged marriages and Indian weddings. But the modern arranged marriage doesn’t necessarily look like what the media has subjected us to, said Harleen Singh, associate professor of women’s studies and South Asian literature at Brandeis University.
The process can vary from the hyper-traditional to a simple introduction.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re arranged and forced to get married,” she said. “This lens of what a South Asian arranged marriage is, it’s often also a lens that is coming from the outside.”
In some religious or orthodox communities, the families make the decision and sit down together once or twice before the couple meets at the proverbial altar. But that’s not usually the case anymore, especially in the U.S. diaspora.
Many people who are opting for it say an initial introduction would be followed by months of dating and getting to know each other before any decision is made. They just want to know they’re meeting people who are serious about…
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