Thank you for writing Mandelbrot. You may think your advise is unsatisfying but it is not, in fact it is the obvious thing i suppose, believe in perservering and also that an arranged marriage would work out.

However, i am not able to believe.

As for arranged marriage – it does not lessen any problems that dating already has. Because to me it is the most orthodox and narrow minded form of dating in my generation. We up front say which caste, what salary, location, etc we want from the guy. So we “hunt” for guys who fit our criteria and meet him once in his family’s presence, talk for 15 minutes max and decide if he is the guy you want to spend the rest of your life with. It worked very well in my mom’s generation because it did not matter who the guy is or what he was like, the women were bound to stay with him anyways no matter what. I am not going to be like that and this is the fallback to not being able to find someone on my own. But i do not know how i could ever know if a guy is the one, or what the odds are of the one being from my caste, taller than me and earning more than me (eye roll!).

Going for an arranged marriage is pretty much giving up on the idea of love. It is a coin toss whether this guy will love and respect you. With dating i feel you would know him better – but since that also starts with finding the other person attractive, etc i never had any luck.