Diary of a Matchmaker
Getting married is tough for the vast majority of Muslims in the West. We know because we’ve been there. My (Zaid) journey spanned nearly nine years. It was filled with rejections and self-doubt. While I (Hiba) didn't know there was a journey to be on in the first place. After we got married we decided to create something different to help single Muslims complete their deen. And so our matchmaking service Halal Match was born.
After a few years of interviewing singles, a friend suggested we journal our stories. We tweaked that idea and turned it into a podcast. In ‘Diary of a Matchmaker’ we’ll take you through this unfamiliar world of matchmaking. We’ll share our stories, experiences, and much more. So say Bismillah and tune in.
You got a story to share? Email us at: info@halalmatch.ca
Diary of a Matchmaker
We Didn't Expect This When We Started
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Things we didn't expect when we decided to become matchmakers. Which one surprised you the most?
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Assalamu alaikum, I'm Hiba. And I'm Zaid, you're listening to Diary of a Matchmaker.
Speaker 2:A podcast that will take you into our world as matchmakers.
Speaker 1:We'll share our experiences and offer advice for the single Muslim.
Speaker 2:So let's dive in. Bismillah, assalamu alaikum everyone. Welcome to another episode of Diary of a Matchmaker. My name is Zaid and on the other mic is my wife and co-host, hiba. Assalamu alaikum. So if someone was to ask me or ask us what we've learned over the past three and a half years doing this work alhamdulillah, we've done workshops, we've matched people. Alhamdulillah, many clients have gotten married. So what are some things that you could just share with people? Say that you've learned as a matchmaker that you can sincerely give as advice to people.
Speaker 1:Besides the fact that university degrees are useless. No, not useless, but I guess.
Speaker 2:If only there was a degree in matchmaking, that would be pretty cool.
Speaker 1:That should be the next big thing, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we should work on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:An undergrad in matchmaking okay.
Speaker 1:So what would I say um three years of matchmaking?
Speaker 2:in a few words uh, nine, if you okay. So one key thing that stands out to you, that you've seen over and, over and over again that people are unique how so?
Speaker 1:um, just listening to hundreds of stories. Every person have a different story have has has different story, has unique things about them. Like just what, an hour ago we were speaking to this lovely girl and there's something that stood out about her. She was such a deep person. Uh, I really like her but, just, people have their own struggles, their own challenges, their own strengths, uh, weaknesses, um, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I love working with people I do too, I mean but, but I have my pet peeves, like most people do. I mean, I think, to be honest, you're more of a people person than I am, which is weird to say, because we both do this work together. But, like you said, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. But let's get into the meat of this.
Speaker 1:So one thing we keep saying and we mentioned it before is the gap between the ages of girls looking to get married and guys ages of guys looking to get married. Guys are getting to us at the age of early 20s, mid-20s and they're so excited about marriage and like they're really into it, and girls, on the other hand, come to us in their early 30s, mid 30s, late 30s, without that feeling of urgency. So this is something that I've never expected I would see going through this work.
Speaker 2:I was surprised too. And keep in mind the guys that you're talking about. They are mature, they have, you know, stable jobs. You know some of them are done with their degrees. So we're not just talking about like guys, like your random guy that just came from overseas, that's working at a pizza shop, like these are good like good eligible guys, but subhanallah, it's um, it's very um interesting.
Speaker 2:This phenomena is very, very interesting to me we also see oftentimes and I don't mean to harp on the girls, but I have to be honest here. I do this. I do see this a lot with girls that when we ask them point blank, what are you looking for in a spouse, they look like a deer in headlights that they're just like. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:What did you just ask me? I didn't expect this.
Speaker 2:And I kid you not, sometimes a girl is responding saying, wow, that's a good question.
Speaker 1:I've never thought about it, I've never thought about that.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's such a simple question, yet it's such an important question, and if you are reaching your 30s, mid-30ss and you cannot clearly articulate in specific detail what you are looking for in a potential spouse, that is a problem I honestly think people are just too busy these days.
Speaker 2:They have work, they have bills to pay, they have education, their family obligations, and we just don't have the time to sit down, think, ponder and think about these matters I think that and this goes with guys and girls that we often take the idea of searching for a spouse, uh, for granted, meaning we just think it's a very passive, easy process, like, hey, I want to, I want to get married, okay, let's um find someone let's find someone okay right.
Speaker 2:Is she pretty? Is she educated? Um, is she in the right age range? Okay, that's it. She's good enough, okay? I mean, there's more to it than that, is that? Let me ask you guys something. Would you approach medical school or dental school the same way?
Speaker 1:probably, whatever school would take me, I'll go, not really what if it's in timbuktu?
Speaker 2:no, I'm talking about here in canada, I mean okay, maybe it's a bad analogy, but the point is that when you are pursuing your education, you do approach it with a sense of seriousness. You have to write a personal statement, don't you Right, where you have to share your values. You have to be vulnerable. You have to say why do I want to become a doctor? Or why is this so important to me? What do you plan on contributing to society? All of those things you have to do a deep dive within yourself. So getting married isn't that much different. It does require some vulnerability. It does require a lot of work.
Speaker 1:You know what just occurred to me?
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:What if people now turn to AI to build their profile? Imagine, god, I'm so busy I don't have time for this. I'll just let AI do it. Wow, that's the next one. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I couldn't imagine what that would look like. Yeah, something else. We see a lot in that this. We see a lot when we're doing festivals, um. So we sometimes sign up for a festival or like some sort of eat event and we rent, we um book a booth and we hang our banner halal match and we just talk to people and the thing that we come across over and over again is that people are joking about the idea of marriage.
Speaker 1:I didn't expect this, honestly.
Speaker 2:Me too. I was a bit surprised to see this. I thought you know people would jump at this opportunity, have a serious conversation with us, say, hey, I got a brother, a sister, a friend that's really looking to get married.
Speaker 1:but no, the complete opposite we turn out to be the comedy booth exactly, exactly what do we see?
Speaker 2:hey, uh and I remember having making you made this joke once uh, it feels like we're selling ebola. All right, people running away, people joking about a second wife hey, can you find me a second wife, can you? Or a wife would come saying, hey, can you find somebody else for my husband?
Speaker 1:So yeah, we didn't expect that. Something else we didn't expect to find, which is the amount of people who say I'm burnt out, I'm tired.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I can't take any more of the apps.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I've been ghosted so many times. I can't trust people anymore. It's like they're going through trauma.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I'll go back to the same analogy. I just suggested that if you are a professional, you apply to dental school, pharmacy school, medical school, whatever it might be. Chances are you probably got rejected from the first school you applied to. But you didn't give up right, you kept going. You applied to a second school. They rejected you. You applied to a third school. You got rejected. Then maybe you got a job in the field and you worked for a few years and then you reapplied. But you got a job in in the field and you worked for a few years and then you reapplied.
Speaker 2:But the point was you didn't give up, right, because you were determined, you were focused. Marriage isn't that far off, right. It does take some rejections. It does take some, you know, self-doubt. Sometimes you think, oh, am I good enough, am I attractive enough? All of All of those feelings come about.
Speaker 1:I think it's a little bit far-fetched analogy, honestly.
Speaker 2:How so.
Speaker 1:Because marriage it's something way more personal, way more like you. Being rejected from a school isn't much like an attack on your ego. They're not going to reject you because you're unattractive. They're not going to reject you because I unattractive You're not. They're not going to reject you because, I don't know, they didn't like your family. But when you're trying to get married and you keep getting rejected, you start doubting yourself. Am I not attractive enough? Am I not successful enough? Maybe I don't live in the right neighborhood? Don't have, maybe I don't have enough money.
Speaker 2:So I think it's a little bit of unfair comparison but the point is the, the takeaway, the, the connecting points between the two analogies, is that you didn't let the rejection stop you yeah, but when the rejection is not direct, like they reject you maybe because you don't have the academic qualifications or your personal statement sucks exactly.
Speaker 1:But it's not an attack on your personality, on your upbringing, on your neither is getting rejected for marriage. It's not an attack. Maybe attack is a stronger word, but but you do take.
Speaker 2:I mean, come on, getting an education is a pretty personal thing, Like when you finish your PhD or your master's, you pretty much identify with that, like, hey, this is what I've achieved, this is who I am. Look at me, look at all the years, don't get me started on that.
Speaker 1:That's another sickness in our. Like some people, they don't identify themselves. You wouldn't know their name. You just would know them by the doctor. I remember we had somebody in our neighborhood. I swear nobody knew his name, he's just even his mom. His mom refers to him as oh, the doctor came, the doctor left his mom I swear well, the point is I mean to an extent they have earned it.
Speaker 2:They've earned it to a certain degree, like they've worked eight, ten years pursuing that. So like you got to give a little bit of respect.
Speaker 1:You call them by their name they sit in the same table as other people.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm not saying you, you put them like above you, or like they go like sit up on the roof, you roll the red carpet out for them, or something.
Speaker 1:I think that mom wanted her son to be treated that way.
Speaker 2:Oh, god regardless.
Speaker 1:Um, anyways, that was a crazy tangent other things we've seen we didn't expect to see um a very self-centered mindset oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So what I mean by that is when people start their search often and I'll share a funny story that Baba Ali shared with us once that there was a brother who was looking to get married, so he approached a Sheikh and he had on this sheet of paper a long list of things he was looking for in a wife. And I don't know, I think the list might have gone back and back in front, and the Shaykh looked at the list and then he gave it back to the brother and he said you be that list. And so the point of that story was that when we start our search, we start with XYZ that we want from the other person. Right? How can this person make me happy? How can person, uh, make me fulfilled? How can this person give me children, xyz.
Speaker 2:But we oftentimes don't look at what we are bringing to the table what we are giving to the relationship, um, and that's something that's oftentimes missing in matrimonial profiles too right?
Speaker 1:so yeah, some people have a lot to work on um, on their personality, and they are demanding so much, like, if somebody is that great, why would they say yes to you, right? But, we fail to see our shortcomings and we just expect that yeah, so you know, you're what you bring to the table.
Speaker 2:what your strengths are goes well beyond your degree and your income. Sometimes people just start off with that Look, I'm a doctor and I'm Pakistani and I'm at this age and that's what I bring to the table. No, I mean, there's more to you than that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, like, demonstrate how to you, than that, yeah, right like, demonstrate how and and we talk about this in our workshop too that demonstrate if you're a guy, how you're a leader, how you're mature, how you're financially responsible, how you are, as the quran puts it, a maintainer or caretaker for a woman.
Speaker 1:All right, these are qualities that are uh, you know that are important that girls are looking for in a potential match one more thing, yeah and last thing I would share today is like in this day and age we're living here in canada, one of the most multicultural countries, right, and yet people are still hung up on marrying somebody from the same culture, from the same background, from the same sub culture and, like it's, it's a minority of people who are open to marrying people from other ethnicities, and even though most of these people are born here, so it's not like they are born in Pakistan or in Jordan or they're born here. They have their own new mix of Western Eastern culture, and yet people are passing on great opportunities just because they're not the person doesn't come from the same background. I wouldn't, I didn't expect to see this in Canada in 2024.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with you on that, because I think when we start our search and I was guilty of this too that we default to somebody of our own ethnicity because we think that naturally we're going to be more compatible with somebody who eats the same food as us, who speaks the same language as us, even though I don't speak Urdu. But I just defaulted to finding somebody in my own ethnicity because, hey, I was just used to hearing people speak Urdu, eating Desi food, you know the Desi customs and activities. So I thought, OK, why even consider somebody who's not Desi? And it wasn't until I entered my 30s and, you know, I was getting older and, to be quite frank, a little bit more desperate. Then I'm like, why not just be a bit more open? And then you came along and I'm like we have a lot in common, um, more. We have more in common than I've found with desi girls I've spoken to in the past and it was crazy.
Speaker 1:Maybe it's a stretch, but I feel it's an illogical assumption that I would be more compatible with somebody from the same culture, given that I'm born here. I'm not actually born here, but if somebody is born here and raised here, and all of that living with people from different backgrounds and cultures, I feel it's an illogical assumption, assumption like it's similar to assuming oh, I believe food that is red in color tastes better that food that is green in color. Like, what does color have to do with anything? Right, or maybe it's a stretch, I don't know. This is how I feel I, I don't know.
Speaker 2:um, I feel like it does connect back to upbringing too, Like growing up I lived around daisies most of my life. I didn't have many non-daisy friends. I ate mostly daisy food obviously. All my customs and activities and everything were, I wouldn't say quote unquote Desi. I mean, I would play sports when I was younger, but that was kind of my world right Um, my Muslim Desi community for the most part. So you want somebody that can fit into that world right, okay naturally.
Speaker 2:Um, so I I get that. I get why people default to that. But but to your point, in canada we are very multicultural. Yeah, we share the same food. I mean, my god, you can find any type of food here in mississauga just go to ridgeway plaza and you'll experience every culture out there yeah, yeah, um, the last point that I want to bring up, or unless you got more points I thought that was my last point, but uh, no, this one is a big one.
Speaker 2:Um, that really, uh, that really annoys me yeah, maurice uh, that it still frustrates me today and I I saw it today actually which is a lack of initiative by the person looking to get married. My god, if you, I don't care if you're 20 or 42, if you are looking to get married, stop having your mom and your daddy make the profile for you, please. I see it on so many WhatsApp groups Making a profile on behalf of my daughter, making a profile on behalf of my brother, my sister, my son, whatever it is, and you see the long profile and then you can see in the first section, the description of their daughter, and second section is what they're looking for, and, in fact, I should just like read one of these no, god, don't please.
Speaker 1:It'll take me a while to read it. They feel a copycat of each other. Honestly they are.
Speaker 2:They pretty much are like and going back to the funny things that keep coming back to the same analogy. Would mommy or daddy write your medical school application for you? Imagine, would they write your personal statement for you, or would you do it yourself? I mean, come on, I don't know what else to say about that yeah, yeah, yeah. Lost for words.
Speaker 1:I am I really? Am Like you can't expect to make a serious commitment about your future. Um, if your mom or dad are doing it for you, well, did you consider that maybe the the girl or the guy they don't know that their mom or dad is looking for them hunting? Maybe, but I think most cases they don't no, actually we have clients.
Speaker 2:Uh, I can think of one client right now who, you know, sometimes is a bit of a challenge to communicate with, and when we ask her, so because we encourage all our clients to continue putting in the work and continue searching, because we genuinely want them to get married, so that we don't want them to be completely reliant on us. So when we checked in with this one client, she's like no, I haven't been looking. My mom is still searching for me. She sends me potential matches every now and then I'm like okay, where do I start with this?
Speaker 1:Maybe somebody will fall from the sky. Maybe somebody will fall.
Speaker 2:So the point is please, if you sincerely, genuinely want to get married, put in the work. You can't expect somebody to fall from the sky if you're not tying your camel. So, put in the work, put in the work, put in the work, Anyways. I think, we've spent enough time venting.
Speaker 1:No, not venting, Just sharing. No, not venting, just sharing. I look forward in three years to do another similar episode and see, what will we?
Speaker 2:what we'll have to say. Maybe we'll have something new to share inshallah, until next time, assalamualaikum.