The forth Question from Lauria Meadof

The fourth question comes from Laurie Meadoff

Laurie Meadoff is president of and partner in NextNext Entertainment and an executive producer of Chat the Planet. She has executive produced programming for Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC, HBO Family, MTV and VH1. Passionately envisioning a world without barriers and prejudice, Ms. Meadoff strives to build bridges through tolerance and understanding, and her tool of choice is television. As executive producer, Ms. Meadoff leads the young team of producers, activists and techies behind Chat the Planet. Building on her 20 years of experience in youth work as founder of the Citykids Foundation, Laurie continues to focus on today’s young people and their concerns enabling Chat the Planet to deliver entertaining television that results in positive social change.

“How do the cultural clashes between the traditional Indian culture and the emergence of technology such as text messaging and internet dating effect romantic relationships in India?”

India is so traditional in so many ways. It depends extremely much on where you come from and from which class of society you come from. These last months that I’ve spent here have shown me that dating can be very much alike the norm it is in the westernised countries. I love the comment that one of me team mates Siri got from her friend Maja Shanani about not being able to choose your own man. Maja said that it is so fantastic that it’s in that way because then you wont set the standard too high on your partner so you don’t get as disappointed in the relationship, as many people do.

Of course technology will change how Indians date, hell that’s what the westerners did so why shouldn’t the rest of the world do that. Online bridal sites exist where you can choose what you want your future wife to look like, what characteristics you want her to have and so forth. You type all these things in, or choose in the different categories. The database gives you the results which are a few hundred women that have all that you want. You can narrow the search result down if it is too much to choose from and when you find the woman you want you say YES! just like www.russianbride.ru.

Rich people and people that have travelled have totally different view on dating. Many of them order brides through mail order services from countries like Russia, Poland and other Eastern Europe countries. I have met a few that have had some female companionship from places like Latvia, Estonia, Russia and so forth. Many of them ordered from the net.

At the same time I’ve met Indians that date a lot I’ve also met people like my butler, here at the hotel, who got fixed together with a girl a few years back. They got married, had a child and live a very normal life. The guys that I meet that date many women have not had any success on settling down with any of them. It is actually not that uncommon that people over here have at least 2 or 3 sexual partners before marriage in India today. And of course technology has helped with that.

I met a girl a month ago, from the stat Kerala, where most of the people are very religious. She is very fond of Indian tradition and very technically aware. She did not at all think that it was a bad thing that her parents found her a suitable mate. She told me that when they are introduced to each other they date for about 6 months and after that time they decide if they want to continue or if they want to go their separate ways.

Indian parents, like most parents, do want the best for their offspring and therefore they choose very very carefully who the introduce to their children. And to bring a boy/girl back to your parents for the first time must be the easiest thing ever in India for they have already pre-approved him/her. I would be very very interested in seeing who my parents would choose for me. It would make my life much easier than to always be on the lookout for my perfect spouse. I’m going to think it over and I just might give my parent the mandate to hook me up with a good girl from the same cast as I am.

For websites like Match.com India is the perfect marked. It might go a bit slow in the beginning but when the traditional methods are over these already implanted names will make millions upon millions of dollars on the Indian marked. This generation and the next will think totally different than the generations before them. You will see, as I see it today.