Scary the matchmaker

It has been too long, I know. But I have been ridiculously busy. You understand. The pre-Christmas chaos has swallowed me whole. I have been running around trying to buy presents, attend parties and various Christmas bazaars and fairs; and do some work in between. 

I also tried to set up some friends. Clearly, I am not good at this. I am beginning to grow respect for matchmakers. It is a hard, ungrateful and frustrating job, let me tell you.

At first, I tried to set this bloke up with an Azeri girl. He said he wanted to go out with someone non-British for a change. I should have known, of course, that she would not like him. Back home, people often refer to someone they respect as highly educated.  The whole highly educated notion creates arrogance and snobbism that divides people in its own, post-Soviet way. Of course, we did not have upper or middle class as such, so we found our way to create classes and social levels. Highly-educated people were too proud to hang out with anyone who, in their eyes, was not educated enough. So it did not matter to this Azeri girl that the guy I introduced her to had a successful business of his own, and was working hard to make a pretty decent living for himself. He was not educated enough for her. To be honest, it did not surprise me and I thought to myself that I was being silly trying to set up people from such different backgrounds and with such different expectations. Never mind, I thought. This is a cultural thing.

So, not allowing the bad luck in matchmaking my single middle-aged friends defeat me so easily, I tried again.

This time, I thought I would do better. The girl who expressed interest in meeting Husband’s friend was not Azeri . I explained to her in advance that the guy in question was a pretty blokey bloke. I told her he was very normal. She did not seem fazed by that.

I thought I prepared them both for the evening. I have never been on a blind date and was intrigued by the things both parties wanted to know in advance.

‘How thin are his thighs?’ She asked. ‘How wide is her waist?’ he wanted to know. 

‘But forget all that,’ my friend said. ‘I should have asked you a better question. Would you do him?’

Come on! I said. What sort of question is that? I could not really answer in any way that would sound right, could I. If I said I would not do him, she would question why I thought he was good enough for her, if I did not find him attractive. If I said I certainly would, what sort of a married slut would that make me in her eyes?

Honestly. 

But, in the end, I felt bad because it did not work out. Again. My friend decided, after having met the guy, that she actually always preferred men in suits. Of course, I wished she had told me that openly before. Never mind how skinny his thighs were, as long as he wrapped them up in some grey office trousers, she should have said. But you see, people don’t like admitting that they might be a bit snobbish, after all. Personally, I don’t know why, because I have no problem with that. For example, I don’t like chushkas. Husband hates it when I say that. You see, Husband, despite being a highly educated middle class white boy, has this bizarre fascination with common people. He loves listening to their life stories-the rougher the better. He enjoys their company and finds them genuine and fun. If I were a shrink, I could have analyzed this strange tendency of his, but as it is, I am just grateful that he does not aspire to live in a trailer.

But back to my matchmaking story. My girlfriend realized that, after all, she preferred office guys in ties and suits.  She wanted more sophistication, more class so to speak. Wow, I thought to myself. So we are back to the highly educated issue, even though I was not dealing with an Azeri this time. 

And now, I had to tell the guy. And I felt terrible about it. Now, having been told twice he was not their type, the poor guy was going to think something must be wrong with him. Whereas it really was just all my fault.  ‘I must be pretty bad at this...’ he texted me and I thought Oh, crap. Not really. There really is nothing wrong with the guy. He is not common, he is not stupid, and he is not unattractive.  He is successful in what he does, whether he is wearing jeans or office trousers. And I am sure that he will, sooner or later, find a woman who would appreciate him the way he is. I just hope he gets someone else to set him up next time.