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I catch myself thinking that if accepting the business was a precondition to marriage, it would feel more like a downside to me, on account of having neither experience nor desire nor, I suspect, much talent in running businesses. But I suppose what Fang Yuan would say is along the lines of "even if you run it into the ground within a year, you've benefitted as long as you don't go into debt".
You know, I was just browsing the RI sub, mourning the fact that I had finished the novel again.. Fang Yuan would have put a baby in her, then refined them both into Gu.
Anyway. Her dad didn't frame it as a precondition, it was a genuine offer. He's getting on in years, and he'd love to have someone take over the business. His son is busy doing something that makes too much money in an MNC abroad to bother, his daughter? She couldn't run a Nestlé distributor during a drought. So the only real options are to sell, or to look for a SIL who can handle things.
I can only stress how hard they're bending over backwards to accommodate this guy. Indian families tend to be very class/wealth conscious, she's marrying down in that sense. Different ethnic group, different religion. This is incredibly rare, and the boyfriend really thinks too highly of himself for his own good but that's his prerogative.
You must consider that the boyfriend is not being pigheadedly stupid and recognizes the offer on the table: and she is really that bad. That even a life of easy living is not worth the trouble of marrying this particular woman.
That is a possibility that I can't rule out with any real certainty, I did just date her casually over a few months. However, I still think that's unlikely. She's not a bad person, from my perspective, she's doing everything she can to help herself, just severely handicapped by not being smart.
He stayed with her for a year, took the idea of marriage seriously, indirectly asked for a dowry. That's not really the behavior of someone who doesn't want her, even if a combination of pride and adherence to protocol means he isn't willing to follow through. I still think that his ego getting in the way is the most parsimonious explanation, he's definitely not reading articles on the heredity of intelligence and taking them seriously.
If you date enough absolutely gorgeous women you will find out two things:
A shocking number of them are obnoxiously perfect (by which I mean they are smart, kind, and functional). It's quite unfair! ...And it puts pressure on the relationship because they know they can have anyone.
For the ones that aren't, well it gets tiring and it happens oddly fast (especially because most of them aren't good in bed). A girlfriend + porn rapidly starts to seem better than the 10/10 girlfriend who is annoying. If you happen to know a bunch of beautiful women closely you'll be shocked at how much some of the complain about not getting laid especially the ones in a serious relationship. The quote "no matter how hot she is, someone out there is sick of dealing with her shit" is prescient.
I imagine this guy is having some number two action.
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'Not very smart' in the sense of unexceptional or in the sense of actually retarded? Like they are two different things.
Read the OP and judge for yourself. Based on my own read of same, I wouldn't go so far as "retarded" but "unexceptional" fails at doing her justice in the other direction.
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Noticeably below average, if not actually retarded. The kind of person who is literate, but definitely struggled in school, not that I have her test scores at hand.
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Maybe he has other aspirations?
Tao Zhu also comes to mind on the topic of RI and blowing a cute wife and huge wealth... Also, people can just be dumb without higher meaning in their actions.
My life is better when a random post of mine receives not just one, but two RI related replies. I can die happy.
Everyone has their own values/utility function, but this guy seemed quite serious about wifing her, right till the issue of the move arose. I get the cultural issues and desire to stay close to family, but she was willing to help him find an apartment in the same building! My parents might as well complain of abandonment if I move to the basement (if we had one). The barriers seem insignificant, it's no Five Regional Wall.
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Why though? Just because he's so much better for her than the usual fare she gets around her?
I highly doubt the Gu of Cute but Retarded would be of more use to him than securing the favor of a wealthy righteous clan.
It makes sense to me; he needs someone to marry his daughter so she stops her bad habits(after all, it sounds like it's mostly her getting taken advantage of) and take care of her and someone to take over his successful business. Win-win. It's a scenario that would strike me as plausible but not exactly common- sort of like winning the lottery- in the modern US, let alone India.
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I don't know for sure, but that's a likely reason.
She's late 20s, same age as me. That is slightly long in the tooth by Indian standards. Not the end of the world by any means, but it'll only get harder once she hits her 30s. She was fretting about this during our video call.
It's also bad from the perspective of being a trophy wife, with little to offer except looks and decent familial wealth. Her family are well off, but not ridiculously so. If she was a working professional, she could probably delay till her early 30s before things got really bad.
The arranged marriage market in India is quite brutal. I would flourish in it, because I'm a qualified guy (age is far less of a factor). Her family is quite liberal in mostly turning a blind eye to her romances, but if I had to guess, largely because she seems serious about locking a guy down and it saves them a lot of hassle. Love is a great lubricant, and at least cuts down on dowry demands.
To the modal, conservative leaning potential marriage partner:
She has no end of guys down to fuck. I remember, on one of our dates, she showed me her Bumble matches. So many the counter broke. But how many would want to put a ring on it? Most would be like me, in for a ride but not willing to take the car out of the dealership for good.
To an extent, her anxiety is well founded. She only has a few years before it becomes an uphill struggle, even if it won't be literally impossible to find a good partner. Ed creds and a good job would have sweetened the deal, but she's not there, and she's not a supermodel either.
This guy was:
To a family that has wealth but concerns about the continuity of said wealth, she could do worse. I presume her family would have loved me, but we never got to the stage of introductions. I made it clear I was leaving soon, and it would be a good while before there was a chance I'd be back.
I mean, this is a sad story. You didn't want to marry her for reasons, this guy doesn't want to marry her for reasons. (I do think there's an element of pride there about not wanting to be perceived as the male version of a gold-digger, but whatever).
She's not sleeping around because she's riding the cock carousel, as the crude phrase has it. According to you, she only had a handful of boyfriends and slept with them in the context of 'this is a serious long-term relationship'.
She wants to get married, but can't. This is not the temptress of redpill lore, she has all the perceived advantages in the dating marketplace but can't find a guy who wants to marry her, and it's not because she's looking for unattainable perfection.
An arranged marriage would be the best chance for her: her parents find a decent guy who will be happy enough with a ditzy (but loyal) wife who looks good, has enough knowledge of wealthy social circles to fill the role of running the household and hosting and supporting his career, and he is capable enough to take over the family business and not run it into the ground.
I hope she finds someone soon, this is wasting her life and chances for what sounds like a nice (if dumb) girl. Remind me to say a prayer for her, the traditional one I know is "St Anne, St Anne, find me a man" but looking it up online the other matchmaker saints (for women) are St. Andrew, St. Anthony of Padua, and the Archangel Raphael. I guess St. Nicolas of Myra fits there too with the dowries he arranged.
You're welcome to say a prayer for her, I'm sure she'd be touched if she knew, and I might well tell her if you do.
I do pity the lady. Her situation isn't the best, and she's stuck in the very common trap of being used to romantic relationships and feeling unwilling to settle for a more pragmatic arranged marriage; all while a pit of dread forms in her gut telling her the former isn't working out. She's not a bad person, even if I'm not seeking to marry anyone until, at the very least, I'm done with my current training.
(It's not that arranged marriages are bad, even I don't really think so. But they're usually seen as unromantic, even if, in my experience, the people involved do quickly become very fond of each other. A hot woman used to a great deal of male attention might feel let down by one - and if the guy was a real catch, he likely wouldn't be looking)
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