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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 18, 2025

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I can only stress how hard they're bending over backwards to accommodate this guy.

Why though? Just because he's so much better for her than the usual fare she gets around her?

Fang Yuan would have put a baby in her, then refined them both into Gu.

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.

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's getting close to too old.
  • She's a model, which is scandalous. The looks are a positive, the career a negative. Her parents wanted her to do something else, but she talked them into this. Most families would prefer a housewife or career woman, and not this.
  • She has had multiple previous sexual partners. This is a big deal, it would be easier to suppress this than to talk it through.

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:

  • Relatively serious about marriage
  • A semi-compatible background
  • Apparently honest and entrepreneurial
  • Decently handsome

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)