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OPINION: Finding perfect mate can be like navigating minefield

They say the best of hook-ups and marriages are as a result of people who have met each other through close and reliable associates.

Indeed, chances of meeting the love of your life are favoured by the gods more if you have access to their background, character and pedigree, which, of course, includes their bank balances.

Besides basically eliminating chancers and serial murderers, because it can get deadly out there in the dating game, it makes sense that one is more likely to be happier with one of their own, or a partner that one can quickly get information about from trusted sources.

This kind of love story is so much more fabulous and hassle-free when one can say this about their partner: "He was my brother's best friend from Wits University before we fell in love", or "Our parents play golf or were in exile together".

This means that one already knows the beast that you are dealing with and how to tame it when it starts spitting fire.

These modern arranged liaisons still happen in higher echelons of society where offspring of the Ruperts and Motsepes will marry into the Oppenheimer and Sexwale families.

And this leaves us ordinary mortals with a huge gamble, where the odds are stacked higher than the chances of winning the lotto tonight, when it comes to who is most suitable to couple with.

One can end up using superfluous characteristics like looks and popularity to attract a mate, only for these to fizzle out faster than an opened cola can, sending many relationships into disarray.

To emulate the rich, one is left with asking friends and relatives to hook one up with reliable mates, but what is most funny when it comes to friends becoming match-makers is that they often end up being noticed by the same dish they had originally reserved for you.

This can lead to an awkward situation between friends.

In another scenario, the hook-up master ends up with egg on the face when the interest is not reciprocated.

A friend had to recently negotiate a minefield when the guy she was trying to match with our other single girlfriend explicitly told her, in very rude terms, that our friend, who is a size 36, was too fat for him.

Apparently, his hands can only hold sizes 30 and 32.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our friend was practising a new signature as she was preparing for the universe to grant her her wish to be the new Mrs Ngobeni because after one date with charmer boy, she felt like she was head over heels in love.

She claimed there was palpable chemistry across that restaurant table when the opposite was true for the guy. He rated our friend a three out of 10 in looks, intelligence and wit in WhatsApp updates he sent to the matchmaker throughout their date.

It took weeks before our match- maker gained the courage to tell her that the guy was simply not interested.

My take is that with the Motsepes, if Sexwale's son is not interested, there is always a Zuma, Maponya or Motaung's son to pick from. You have more opportunity to choose from the wheat and not the chaff.

Every day is another good chance to strike it rich in the lotto stakes that is love when your status is right.

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