Best of West & East in Matchmaking – 30 Day Matchmaker Miracle Q&A With Jasbina Ahluwalia
Jasbina Ahluwalia adds a unique contribution to the Matchmaking industry – she has pioneered an approach to matchmaking, which blends the best of The East and West.
She is an is an Indian American Attorney-turned-Entrepreneur, Relationship Expert, Radio Show Host and Matchmaker/Dating Coach.
She is the Founder & President of Intersections Match by Jasbina, the only Premier Full-Service Selective Search, Dating / Relationship Coaching & Online Dating Support Firm – For Indian Singles.
Jasbina is also the host of Intersections Match Talk Radio – Jasbina Lifestyle Show, a monthly holistic lifestyle show – conversations with published authors/experts on relationships and health and wellness.
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Kristina Lynn
(00:07): Good afternoon, everyone. This is Kristina Lynn. We are here for day 11 of the 30 Day Matchmaker Miracle. I am your host and also the CEO of FinalMatch.com and Love Revolution Matchmaking. We have our co-host, Denise Levy, who is the owner and operator of Matchmaker International in Destin, Florida on the Gulf Coast. Hi, Denise. Good afternoon.
Denise Levy
(00:39): Good afternoon. I’d like to welcome everyone to our call today. I’m very excited to hear what Jasbina has to say. I’m going to turn it over to you, Kristina, for an introduction to her.
Kristina Lynn
(00:50): Thank you. I’m so excited about Jasbina. She is one of the very interesting women who are in the matchmaking industry. She’s a former attorney-turned matchmaker. She deals with Indian-American singles, and works with clients of other backgrounds as well.
She has established this wonderful niche. She combines Eastern and Western approaches to matchmaking. She’s also a guest speaker on national tour with the Great Love Debate. She’s traveling all over the country, talking to people about love and giving her advice.
Jasbina, I heard you were a runner-up in a competition to replace Oprah, which is really interesting. We’re all really excited to hear more. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into matchmaking? What is your philosophy?
(2:14): Thank you so much, Kristina and Denise. I’m excited to be here and share my perspective with your listeners. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I, like many other Indian Americans, grew up with a refrain that sounded like this, “Don’t date, don’t date, don’t date. Okay, get married.” This means that I didn’t date in my teens.
Instead, I focused on school, sports and other extracurricular activities. I spent a lot of time with friends and family. I spent most of my twenties focused on education and starting my career. During that time, I went on dates with guys that I happened to meet while going about my life. My focus was on my studies, training, career, family and friends. I wasn’t really ready to think about settling down at that point.
Fast forward to my late twenties, I found myself single with no interest in an arranged marriage and no clear path to a partner in sight. I decided it was time to get really serious. As my studies and family and friend relationships had been a focus for me earlier, my personal search became a priority for me. Once that became a priority, I didn’t want to limit myself to chance encounters through which I’d previously met guys.
I really bought into the idea that finding the right guy for a serious relationship was worth the kind of focus that I had applied to everything else before. I embarked on what I called my dating adventures. I spent a couple of years meeting great guys, both Indian and non-Indian. That culminated in marrying my husband. At the time, I was practicing law. I enjoyed practicing law. But I didn’t see that as my life’s work.
As a woman, I had in my head that I wanted to have children. I think this is a very personal decision for every family to make. How I thought of a lifestyle with having kids didn’t connect with my lifestyle as a lawyer. I’d always had this entrepreneurial bent and the idea of wanting to do something of high impact, creating a venture to do that on my own.
From my personal experience, I found that it was a blend of Eastern and Western approaches to finding a life partner, which is incredibly empowering. I decided to design a service to support others who wanted to navigate that blend. That is how I ended up doing what I’m doing now.
Kristina Lynn
(5:24): You brought up arranged marriages. That is a part of the Indian culture. You did grow up here in the US, correct?
(5:35): Absolutely. I was born and raised in the States. My parents emigrated from India.
Kristina Lynn
(5:48): In dealing with your practice, do you have people who come to you and say, “I’m interested in an arranged marriage? Will you do that for me?” Or are you really encouraging people to date and take more of a Western approach to dating?
(6:09): The people who self-select into our service are looking for an alternative to an arranged marriage. With an arranged marriage, your family would find your partner. The people coming to me are similar to myself. They are people who have decided that they do want to get married but they don’t want to take the arranged marriage route. They want a choice in their partner.
I designed my service to blend what I see as the best of both cultures when it comes to the idea of dating and mating. My parents came to America with the mindset of blending what they saw as the best of the Indian culture from which they came to the American culture to which they chose to join.
It’s this mindset of consciously blending the optimal of both cultures. The optimal is subjective. It’s determined by your core values. What I determine to be the best is determined by my core values. The blending of East and West is at the heart of my matchmaking and dating coaching services and how I designed them.
Kristina Lynn
(7:35): What are some of the things that you can tell us about the Eastern approach that we might not be aware of and how you blend the two?
(7:46): I’d like to share with our listeners six insights from the East that I believe can help everyone, regardless of ethnicity, navigate their way to finding a life partner in an empowered way. I know we are speaking to mostly women. I’m a big fan of men and women living in an empowered way. I’ll start with the six concepts of the East. Then I’d like to blend that with two insights from the West. I think that combination is extremely well-serving.
I’ll start with the first insight from the East. Since there is no tradition of dating in the East, who you meet becomes who you marry. The insight here is that, who you date is who you’ll eventually marry. It’s well-serving to be conscious and deliberate in choosing who it is that you are going to date. The way to do that is to come up with a few essentials that you seek with your long-term goals in mind. You have a vision for your long-term goals. That flavors how you determine your essentials.
Let’s say that you’re in your late thirties and you see kids in your future. That’s one of your life goals. You learn on the third date that the guy you’re dating wants to focus on his career for the next five years, and after five years, he’ll consider whether he’s ready to have kids. The choice to date him at that point is a risky one, regardless of how cute or interesting he is. That’s how you choose your essentials with your long-term goals in mind.
In addition to helping you choose who to date, coming up with your essentials also has the valuable benefit of prompting you to consider whether you are being the person who is attractive to a man who has your essentials. For example, if a partner living a healthy lifestyle is essential for you, you need to ask yourself if you’re letting exercise or healthful food choices slide.
All of this is in the mindset that dating a Mr. Right Now who doesn’t have your essentials is preventing you from marrying your Mr. Right. To come up with your essentials, ask yourself if you have what someone who has your essentials would be seeking in a partner. This is a very empowered way to go about it.
The next concept dovetails with the idea of dating with your essentials in mind. The second insight from the East is that sharing your life goals, values and approach to life is far more relevant to choosing who to marry than shared interests.
As a couple, the choices you’re going to make on a daily basis are going to determine the quality of the life you share. The choices are driven by your goals, values and approach to life more so than whether you both enjoy tennis or skiing. Sometimes, I find in the West, people tend to lean too much on interests. They feel that those are really what should drive your decision about the choice of a partner.
I feel that’s secondary to your values, life goals and approach to life in general. You’ll notice that this dovetails with keeping your essentials in mind. These can be somewhat interrelated.
This insight about shared life goals and values trumping your shared interests is related to the third insight from the East. That is to be wary of unrealistic expectations. I’m referring to the expectation that your partner is going to fill your every emotional need. They will make you feel happy or rescue you from an unfulfilling life. I believe that this is an unrealistic expectation.
In the East, there is a recognition that certain needs, including the need to feel happy, can never be met by anyone but yourself. Each of us has to take responsibility for our own happiness and create meaning in our own lives. The Eastern view of taking responsibility for that does not include making your partner be the one to provide that.
This view is in contrast to what I term the Western “Cinderella rescue story.” This is where someone will swoop in and take care of that for you. Again, it’s not a very empowered way to think. Sometimes, you hear the stereotype that the women are submissive in the East.
You’ll see how this turns that completely on its head. These are very empowered ways to approach it. Doing this will get you in a relationship where you can be empowered within that relationship. Being empowered in your relationship will probably speak to your listeners. It’s pretty universal.
The fourth insight from the East is the importance of commitment being a decision more so than a feeling. Once you and your partner decide to commit to each other, that is really momentous. Both people then feel secure in the relationship. No one feels like the other person has one foot out the door. Both people feel safe to express themselves without worrying about someone leaving because of that. It’s a commitment that both people have decided.
There is another profound effect of 100% commitment. Once you’ve decided that you’re going to be with each other through thick and thin, it becomes a rational decision. It’s a self-preserving decision to focus on the positive in each other. It would be a very unhappy existence if you chose to be tied to each other for the rest of your lives and focus on the negatives about each other. That would be counterproductive. Since what we focus on expands, commitment tends to motivate us to focus on the positives in our relationship. You’re going to be together for life. Focusing on the positive makes that an entirely different experience than finding what’s wrong with each other. I believe that the decision to commit is pivotal.
There is a fifth insight that I’d like to share. This is the recognition of the importance of family. Indians traditionally view marriage as a union of two families more so than a union of two individuals. There are pros and cons to this. There is one aspect of this that I think is relevant to all of us, regardless of ethnicity. That is the influence that each of our families of origin have in who we are, how we think and how we behave. It’s important to raise your awareness of your partner’s family and how that might influence what your future might be like together.
I’ll give you an example. I recently had a consultation with a woman who is divorced. She is of Indian ethnicity. Before she married, her parents raised a concern with her about the way that her fiancée’s father treated his wife. She got married and had kids. Then he began treating her very similarly to how his dad treated his mother.
That unfortunately led to the divorce. The point is that there is an influence there. It may not be readily apparent while you’re dating in the early stages. That is your partner’s normal. That’s what they see. The idea that they would internalize it to some extent is not far-fetched. It’s more to be expected.
I recall a misunderstanding with another matchmaker that I was collaborating with. Many of our Indian clients are very open to meeting non-Indians. In those cases, I often collaborate with other matchmakers. With one collaboration, my client did not resonate with one particular religion. I made sure to ask the other matchmaker the religion of her client to get confirmation that it would not be an issue.
After the introduction, I did the feedback. My client mentioned that her match’s mother was of the religion that she was uncomfortable with. There is a nuance there. When I brought this up with the other matchmaker, she was completely flabbergasted. She said that she had no idea that her client’s family’s religion was of any relevance.
The idea from the East is that the beliefs, views and though patterns of your partner may not be the same as their parents, but they’re likely to be relevant in influencing your partner. It would be wise to be aware of that for now and the future.
There is a sixth insight that I’d like to share. Let’s go back to the couple who had the traditional arranged marriage in the East. They don’t really relate to the marketing messages of what romance should look like in the West, whether it be candlelight, chocolates and flowers. That’s not something that is in the experience of someone who has had an arranged marriage.
Instead of relying on those suggestions of what we constitute as romance, the concept in the East is that you have to define romance on your own terms. Romance might have a different flavor. Instead of expecting your partner to follow Hallmark or Madison Avenue in the vision of what romance should like, you’re helping your partner out by providing guidance along those lines.
Also notice the thoughtful gestures that your partner makes. It could be anything from bringing you soup when you’re sick, helping one of your family members, fixing your mom’s lights or picking up your favorite ice cream at the store. These thoughtful gestures speak to him listening to you, understanding you and keeping your preferences and needs in mind. I think it’s wise for all of us to redefine romance on our own terms.
It’s almost an epidemic that, on Valentine’s Day when we’re supposed to celebrate love, the number of break-ups and missed expectations are tragic. On a day that’s meant to celebrate love, people end up disappointed. You want to recognize romance and define it on your own terms. Be attuned to how he does things for you. That’s really important.
Those concepts of blending the East and West are some of the best nuggets that could help everyone as they navigate their way to a partnership. I think one of the most important insights from the West and something that I encourage our clients to do, our whole process is designed that way, is the value of time and interaction and revealing long-term potential and compatibility.
In a traditional arranged marriage, you don’t have that period where you spend time together before you make a commitment to each other. I think that’s very valuable. From learning people’s dating and relationship histories, it’s really critical to have that time to see how the two of you navigate together and how you resolve conflict together. I think that’s important. I don’t think there is any substitute for having that time and interaction together. That is a concept from the West that is very important.
There is another Western concept that I’d like to blend with the Eastern concepts. It is the importance that the West places on the dynamic that the couple shares. This is the importance of each individual in the relationship asking themselves, “How do I feel about myself when I’m with my partner?” The family is important, but at the end of the day, when the couple is united, the family comes in line. We lose sight of how we are as individuals. We are going to be making decisions in our lives.
I feel that blending these insights from the East and West can lend itself to an incredibly empowering way to find a partner to journey the ups and downs of life with.
Kristina Lynn
(24:07): This is an absolutely amazing list. I’m taking notes. I want to go over your six insights and list them for people who might want to write them down. The first is, who you date is who you marry. Number two is, when you are evaluating a partner, look at their values, not their hobbies. That’s something that we see in matchmaking all the time.
If you’re spending a lot of time playing golf, tennis or traveling, that’s fantastic. But it shouldn’t be the first criteria on your list for evaluating a partner. Number three is having realistic expectations about getting your needs met. Ultimately, it’s your responsibility, not your partner’s, to get your needs met.
Number four is that commitment is a decision, not a feeling. Number five is family importance. Number six is defining romance differently than we do in the West. That’s based on someone making an effort that is more thoughtful when it comes to meeting your needs. I think this is such a beautiful list.
Can you tell us how this might be a different viewpoint in the East? We could probably call it a little more practical. How does this affect the longevity of relationships and marriage as far as the divorce rate? More importantly, do you see that people are happier? Maybe they’re not getting divorced. Maybe that’s because it’s taboo. Are those relationships really happier?
(26:19): As you mentioned, the divorce rate is significantly lower in the East. Because we’re dealing with Indians in North America, it is considerably lower than the general population. However, it is a taboo in the culture. Is that the reason? We have that lens where we can see the good and bad as valuable. When commitment is a decision, divorce is not an option. That is the attitude.
There is good and bad in that. The good is that you focus on the positive. You’re riding out the good and the bad. You’re riding it out as a team. The people who come to us are not opting for arranged marriage. They’re choosing another avenue. One thing that is mentioned over and over again is, “I want someone who has the viewpoint of how important commitment is, how you go through the thick and thin together and how you don’t run out when things get difficult.”
That’s a very common thing that’s mentioned during the consultations with our clients. I think that viewpoint is internalized by people who grow up with parents in this culture. There is also a generational shift. This generational shift applies to Indians and non-Indians in terms of the opportunities that are available to women right now are unparalleled historically. It’s not only that these opportunities are available but that women are seizing them. They are things like education and career. We’re at a really fascinating time historically and the implications that it has with respect to family dynamics.
I know we have women of different age groups on the line. They tend to be high-achieving women. I know that this is something that probably speaks to their heart. I want to tell you a little bit about one of our clients. I think it will give a lot of hope to women, especially those who are high achieving and are looking for a partner who can support them in that. This is just like how women have historically supported men in their professional endeavors.
Kristina Lynn
(29:36): I think that we do have a very high achieving population of women listeners. We have gotten a lot of requests for advice on women’s empowerment. I think that you make an excellent point.
Historically, we’re at a place where we’ve never really been before. As a result of that, I see some growing pains in the collective consciousness. Among men and women, there is this confusion of, “What are my roles in a relationship?” You look back at the traditional roles. That doesn’t really seem to work. At the same time, there hasn’t been a real agreement among us collectively as to what a new paradigm looks like.
One of the things that I see are lots of power struggles and confusion. I am thrilled that you would like to delve into this topic. We have people who are on the edge of their seat saying, “Tell me your insights, please.”
(30:55): Empowerment is a mindset that I really internalize. Part of that is knowing what you want in terms of lifestyle design. I did that when I decided that I wanted to parlay my skills into something that gave me more time flexibility. That was my decision. Someone else’s decision might be very different. Go back to your essentials. What is my long-term picture? Where are my values in terms of my compass? Where are my values pointing me towards in terms of what is essential for me?
That is something that’s very important for a woman to start thinking about before they choose a partner. If you know what’s important to you, communicating with your partner is very important. There is no one right choice for all of us to make. The choices that we make are very related to the partners that we choose. You want to choose a partner who will be aligned with that.
Through life stages, there can be a back and forth. It’s not that one person has one role throughout their whole marriage. There are a lot of circumstances and opportunities where that baton is switched between partners. I think it’s important to also have a viewpoint of how smooth things can be. Also be expressive in terms of what’s important to you.
I want to read some things that one of my clients said. She said, “I’ve always had luck in finding great dates but not in finding the elusive one, the right fit. Through Jasbina’s guidance, I’ve learned to embrace all aspects of myself and start building a deeper connection with someone.
While still early on in the process, I’m already seeing a dramatic difference in my approach and thought process with great results. Jasbina’s questions are very thought provoking, introspective and insightful. She’s very diligent in every aspect. I’m so happy to start on this journey to finding a life partner with her.”
I want to fast forward to her second update. She says, “This is not directly relationship oriented but I wanted to share a professional win with you. I thought of sharing this win with you because I don’t think I would have had the guts or conviction if it hadn’t been for the wonderful and supportive relationship that I’m in. I know I didn’t need him in my life but it has really brought out the best in me and continues to do so.”
The last update is a picture of a cake that says, “Marry me.” They got engaged. I want to hone in on two things here. One is this idea of picking the right partner to support you in your aspirations. If you have professional aspirations, there is a certain kind of guy who would support you with that. That’s the kind of guy that you want to attract. You don’t downplay that at all.
We want that to come up. As time and interaction reveals itself, it’s something that we want to express. It’s a part of us that we want to let shine. The right guy will be good with that. If someone is not, he’s not the right fit. Then there is the idea of embracing your whole self.
I know you’ve had great matchmakers on your show. Sometimes people think that matchmaking is all about just putting two people together and making an introduction. I believe that the whole matchmaking process is far more involved than just putting two people together.
There is a lot of coaching and helping someone to navigate things. Many of the listeners don’t have a hard time finding someone, but it’s about, once you find someone, taking it to the level that you mutually want to take it to. That can be challenging. So many different things can come up.
One of the things that we do is something called 360 degree feedback. We initially do a very lengthy consultation. During that time, with this particular client, I noticed that she had some conflicting thoughts when it came to religion. On one hand, she thought that the religion she was raised in was important to share with her partner. That was very important to her.
There is nothing wrong with having that as your criteria. You narrow your pool with respect to other things when you do that. There was another part of her that seemed a little conflicted. She realized that her lifestyle and mindset was different than others with the same religion. That can become a conundrum. You’re narrowing the pool. Then you’re further narrowing it due to thought processes.
I knew that I had to ask her about this and take it a bit deeper and wider. She put me in touch with a couple of her close friends and exes. I spoke with them directly. I saw different perspectives on how she has presented herself. From there, I put it together and determined that exploring the possibility of her being in a relationship with someone of a different religion would be worthwhile. It’s a dynamic process.
Ultimately, the partner that she’s with meets her essentials, but he is of a different religion. It turned out that sharing her religion wasn’t really one of her essentials. That doesn’t mean may not be the case for someone else. Hopefully, that gives listeners an idea of how matchmaking is so much more than merely making an initial introduction between two people.
It’s also about helping someone navigate their way and figure out who might be a good introduction based on the work we do at the outset. There is the idea that it’s not unrealistic to find a partner who will support you in your professional success, if that is important to you.
Embracing yourself is a huge part in attracting the right partner. Own who you are. If there is anything you want to change, change that. Own who you are and that will be magnetic to the right partner. I wanted to share that story to bring those points out for everyone.
Kristina Lynn
(39:42): Jasbina, I’m so happy that I am jumping up and down right now at something that you said. It’s okay for women to talk about their accomplishments and their goals. They shouldn’t hide that professional part of themselves. It makes me so happy that you said that. I think there is a pool of dating experts out there in the world that advise women to downplay their professional accomplishments and goals.
At that point, you might find yourself in a relationship where there is conflict. You’ve downplayed it at the beginning but you really are a go-getter. You want to go out in the world and accomplish things. The other person says, “Wait a minute. I didn’t realize you would be traveling so much for work, working so many hours or going to all of these networking events.”
Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I think there is a real void of advice for professional women that is in alignment with this. I think a lot of it is counter to this. It’s not really serving us.
(41:05): I agree. I think there’s a nuance here. Let me give you an example. Rachel Greenwald wrote a book called Why He Didn’t Call You Back. She interviewed about 1,000 men to find out why they didn’t want to go out with a woman again after a first date. What was the reason they decided not to call her back after the first date? They were from all different backgrounds, ages and ethnicities.
What she found was the number one reason that men didn’t call back was something she called the Boss Lady. The Boss Lady is a woman who needs to prove her intelligence. She’s domineering. That can take the form of being very competitive or one-upping someone. If someone were to listen to that, they might think, “That means, if I want a second date, I should downplay my intelligence.”
That is not the message. I’ve yet to talk to a man as a matchmaking client who does not see intelligence as an asset when it comes to women. It’s not the idea of being intelligent but the concept of trying to one-up or be very competitive. That is a turn-off for men.
Let me explain one-upping. Let’s say that he’s taking you out to a nice restaurant. Perhaps it’s somewhere you take your clients. You go there regularly with clients, so it’s not a new experience for you. When you get there, you say, “Yes, I was just here on Tuesday.” You can say that. Or you could say, “This is a great choice. I love this place.” It’s a different spin.
The first way doesn’t make anyone feel good. Instead, let him know you think well of his choice. There is that distinction. As a lawyer, I’ve found that people assume that, as a female lawyer, I was going to be someone who was hyper-competitive and argumentative. The idea isn’t that you don’t bring your brain on your date.
It’s not that you downplay your intelligence. But you don’t need to prove your intelligence either. That’s the distinction that I encourage our clients who are high achieving men and women to consider as they’re dating. Does that make sense?
Kristina Lynn
(45:10): It absolutely makes sense. I think that it goes for both sides of the fence. No one likes to be with a man or woman who is constantly trying to one-up them. That’s not fun. The mistake that’s been made in the past is when people try to genderize these things. They say, “Now that women have become successful, they’re acting like men.” That’s really not true.
There are some people who exhibit this competitive personality that isn’t fun for anyone. I don’t think anyone wants to go out with a guy like that who sits there and talks about himself the whole time, how great he is and gives you his list of accomplishments, accolades and awards. Everything you say, he tells you one better thing that he did. That’s not fun for anyone.
(46:14): I get that feedback from men and women, that the other person just talked about themselves the whole time. Here is my response to that. If that happens on a first date, cut that person some slack. If that continues, then that’s a different story. On a first date, sometimes I find that men get nervous. Sometimes, when they’re doing that, they’re trying to impress you.
I say the same thing to men. Don’t automatically assume that she’s self-absorbed because she’s talking about herself. She might be nervous. Sometimes women have a greater tendency to fill the silence. They will talk more to overcompensate for that silence.
I’m sure you get that feedback, as I’ve heard people complain about that. Sometimes, on the first date, it may be because someone is nervous.
Denise Levy
(47:58): There is also the difference between confidence and cocky. It’s important for men and women to have that confidence. But if they’re presenting it in a cocky manner, then that’s only a disservice. It’s not going to get you very far.
(48:18): I agree. Confidence is aligned with being comfortable in your own skin. Cockiness is the opposite of being comfortable in your own skin. To me, those concepts are very different. Someone who is comfortable in their own skin is magnetic. It doesn’t hold a candle to cocky.
Denise Levy
(48:56): We have some questions coming in. There is one thing I wanted to go back to. Jasbina, you were talking about defining romance. A lot of times, what we see in today’s society is that romance is taken from movies and the media. We blame Disney for our upsets. They set us up to believe in Prince Charming. I wanted to touch on that for a minute. Some of the people I work with have this false idea of romance, which leads to a failure when it comes to a relationship.
(50:01): I think it’s a very disempowering thing to subscribe to the viewpoints of Disney and Madison Avenue on what should be romantic for us. It’s like there is a checklist. Is there candlelight? Yes, that’s romantic. I encourage people to redefine romance. Romance is what’s important. A romantic gesture, in my mind, is someone recognizing what’s important to you and making some effort in that direction.
That could be anything. It could be that your mother is important to you and he goes out of his way to drive there and fix her light. That is a romantic gesture. To me, that would be far more valuable than receiving flowers. There is nothing wrong with receiving flowers. For someone else, maybe the flowers would be more meaningful. A romantic gesture is when you recognize what’s important to the person that you’re with and then make some effort in that direction.
Denise Levy
(51:25): That speaks to what you said about redefining it versus society’s view.
(51:28): Yes, you’re redefining it on your own terms.
Denise Levy
(51:38): Thank you so much. I just wanted to add that. Kristina, you have some questions coming in.
Kristina Lynn
(51:42): Yes. Thanks for that, Denise. I think that was a really important point. Jasbina, I imagine this question is something that you deal with on a regular basis because of the importance that is placed on family in the Indian culture. We touched on this a little bit but this question will take us into more detail.
This gal says, “I’ve been dating a guy for the past two months who is agnostic and he was raised that way. I’m Christian but more spiritual than religious. It’s not a deal breaker for me because he has all my other essentials. I’m worried about how my parents will react because they’re very devout Christians. My Grandpa is a minister. We’re getting pretty serious already. Is there any advice on how to break the news to my family?”
(52:39): Despite how important family is, I would put family aside for a second. First, I’d like her to process her own thoughts and feelings. The one thing that jumped out to me, in terms of being agnostic and Christian, I think it’s important to look to the future. If having kids is important to her, I would also want her to visit the thoughts of, “How do I want to feel? How do I want my kids to be raised? What do I want them to believe? What is important to me with respect to that?”
When people have kids, sometimes whatever direction they’re taking can be a bit amped up. I know she mentioned that she’s more spiritual than religious. Sometimes people tend to amp up the religion of their family once kids come in the picture. She should be clear for herself in terms of how she wants to deal with that. She should also engage her boyfriend in a discussion about it.
I think it’s very important for her to do alone and then with him. Typically, your family has your best interests in mind. I think they would take comfort in the fact that she has processed things on her own and done the due diligence with her boyfriend before even coming to them. They would feel like she’s taking this seriously before bringing them in.
Once she’s done her homework on her own and with her boyfriend, if she feels that she and her boyfriend are viable, then she can go to her parents and let them know. She can tell them that she processed this on her own. She’s thought about children and her future. She discussed that with her boyfriend and they feel they are on the same page. Conveying that to her parents is important.
Kristina Lynn
(55:12): That’s an excellent point. I know that Denise has something that she’d like to add to this as well.
Denise Levy
(55:17): Yes, I do. This hits home on a personal note. I want to give the listener some advice from my own personal experience. I’m more spiritual than religious myself. I ended up marrying a Jewish boy. I was really concerned if his family would be accepting towards that difference in religion. Once they got to know me, which happened pretty quickly, they realized what a good person I was.
They realized what a good couple we made. Those differences were irrelevant. They didn’t matter. It’s not necessarily a matter of thinking, “Oh my goodness. We’re different religions. How is my family going to handle it?” It’s a matter of presenting yourself as the best possible version of your authentic self. In my experience, it worked out perfectly. I hope that you keep that in mind when you take the next step.
Kristina Lynn
(56:37): I think that’s a great point. I think this next question is a great one for you, Jasbina. This gal says, “Do I need to feel that energy with someone to know that he’s the one? I’ve always chosen my past partners based on the electricity between us. It’s not necessarily sexual, but that energy that you feel when you’re connected with someone. I haven’t chosen a reproductive-worthy mate yet. I’m starting to date online. I’m wondering if I should rely on this factor anymore.” I think it’s an excellent question. When you look at the Eastern approach, I’m wondering if there’s as much of an emphasis on that. Maybe you can tell us your thoughts.
(57:27): I think that the listener’s awareness is raised. That’s going to be really well serving. Kudos to her for realizing that. We’ve all heard the definition of insanity. It’s doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. She is already beginning to change her results by raising her awareness of that. In the traditional arranged marriage situation, this would not be relevant.
The idea of electricity and spark would not have relevance in the traditional arranged marriage. The process that I’ve designed is not for arranged marriage. It’s what I believe is the blending of both the East and the West. I do believe that attraction and chemistry have a place. I don’t believe that it has to be instantaneous or something that reveals itself on a first date.
I’ve seen many examples of how someone has grown in attraction and sparks, and also how it’s diminished as time goes by. This is an example where time and interaction reveals things. I don’t you should use that as a barometer as to whether or not you should get to know someone. I would replace that with the essentials. I would not make having electricity be one of the essentials.
I would go back to, “What are my long-term goals? What’s important to me? What are my core values? How do I approach life?” These are the kinds of questions I would ask in terms of your essentials. Then I would let your essentials guide you more so than the electricity. Also realize, you’re looking for a partner and not a friend. Having that attraction is important. Let the essentials guide you in decision making in those early stages.
Kristina Lynn
(59:55): I think that is fantastic advice, Jasbina. We’re out of time. I’d like to remind you that if you submit your profile to Final Match that Jasbina, as well as all of our other wonderful speakers, can see you and consider you as a potential match for their clients.
Denise Levy
(1:01:58): Thank you so much, Jasbina, for your call today. It was absolutely amazing. You’ve given our listeners some really great information.
(1:02:04): Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
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What do you think?
Would you like to add to the insights shared in the ‘Best of West & East in Matchmaking – 30 Day Matchmaker Miracle’ interview with Jasbina Ahluwalia? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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