Who do you think you would’ve ended up with had you allowed your parents to play matchmaking on you?

My sister.
J/K. I’m not even from Arkansas!

MaryBeth. She is four years younger than me, and a close family friend. When I was in my 20s my mom tried to get me to date her. We even went out once.

It would have not lasted at all, we had very different interests and politics. And she was Canadian by birth, and prefers Vancouver to San Francisco.

I don’t know my parents always left it up to us, my late step mom tried to get me to go out with a girl she knew , I did meet the lady once but after talking for a few minutes knew it would never fly.

There’s a thought that stopped me dead in my tracks. The notion is so inconceivable to me. I don’t think my parents had a single clue about my involvement with gils and I think were always perpetually astonished that girls liked me at all. I can remember the look on my mother’s face when I was 17 and the 2 of us were in the supermarket with it being my turn at “cart duty”, meaning I pushed the cart, while my mom stuffed it and griped about everything that passed from between her hands and the basket. (You see where I get it from). Anyway, we were rolling along when a girl she’d never met blindsided us, introduced herself to my mother and fell in step with the 2 of us. Without taking a breath she Informed my mother that her and I were classmates, and that mom had evidently done a fine job, but I required taking in hand, and she was just the girl for the gig. The procession ceased abruptly and an expression moved across mom’s face that I had never seen before or since. It amounted to a dazzled look followed by a very prolonged blink of her eyes. The eyes opened and a grin as wide as the prairie spread over her face as she said. “You must come to our house for dinner! I want Stan’s sisters and my husband to meet YOU!”

I have no particular person in mind but he probably would have been Jewish, more lively and a liberal. My Ex was a liberal atheist from the UK raised in the Anglican church. Not sure how it would have worked out in the long run since this is totally hypothetical. They never objected to the man I married in any case and he worked with them for many years.

My mother and stepfather had no friends and didn’t particularly like me.

I’d be a spinster if it were up to them.

If it’s anything like other parts of my life, I wouldn’t wish it on them. I’ve been difficult enough as it is. My dad would’ve thought he knew who I needed to be with, but I would not have liked his pick at all, and would’ve tried to avoid both dad and would-be-partner as much as possible. My mom would’ve tried to figure out who I did want/need to be with, and I would’ve avoided answering her as much as possible. I would have somehow stumbled into someone I really did like, possibly several someones at different times, but would’ve spent much of my time feeling inadequate.

However, both my parents are conceptually against their picking my partner, as they’ve expressed at various times, so I have a hard time imagining them doing so, even if they probably wish they could get me to find someone already—they will sometimes speak about the “me” I’ll be in the future, with a future-someday-partner-in-life.

Probably just the right person.

You are attempting to mix oil and water…apples and oranges by comparing two completely different societal constructs. One society gets to choose their own marital partners and if things do not work out well they get to divorce no harm no foul no shame.

The other society where parents do the choosing of spouses, is typically a society where if the marriage does not work out it will bring great shame not only to the married couple but the bride and grooms families which I believe puts pressure on the married couple to stay married and work things out. IMO hard to make a fair comparison between the two scenarios.

I think my parents wouldn’t have agreed on a person for me. They would have chosen differently and then argued over it until I got sick of waiting. (Only half kidding)

When I was 16 or 17 years old, my married 35-year-old boss asked me to be his mistress. My mother knew him, and said he’d take great care of me and that I should consider it. So…no thanks, mom.

Good for you @augustlan Your mother actually approved of it? strange.

Yeah, my mother is a disturbed person.

I’m ashamed to say that I did consider it, and ended up blowing him off for a really dumb reason (he had the nerve to keep me waiting when I wanted to talk to him about it – god what a bitch I was at that age). Very happy that I made that decision, though, even if not for the right reasons. Two years later, I’d have never even considered such an ‘offer’.

I thought this question over… and over, and over. Answers added on, and still I am stuck.
I really cannot imagine my parents sitting down with each other or a boy’s parents to discuss who to marry me off to. By no stretch of my imagination can I see them choosing a mate for me. My father would eliminate everyone right away, and my mother would behave confused and boggled and suggest a dating website.

Peter H. He played the accordion, which my mother thought was a terrific sign.

I disagreed.