As part of market research, I like to look through what our competitors are doing and I will admit that there is a particular newspaper that I dearly wait for every week. Why? Well it's not really for its editorial content but more for its classifieds section. Yes of all the sections, I like to read the Classifieds. Pourquoi? Because they have a matrimonial section that makes me chuckle every time. Every ad is based on superficial needs. So, every candidate, be it male or female, they all have to fit the common bill of being the following:-

1. FAIR – sorry that trip to the mac counter or your local department store brand foundation just wont cut it…though this should help the fair & lovely business…
2. TALL – specifically it says, taller than 5'6", though once in a blue moon I do see a 5'2" tall women being appreciated. I guess desi woman today are getting their share of "Bournvita", which makes them taller these days. Sorry shorties!
3. MUST BE A LEGAL CITIZEN – as if scraping for a job for an H1 visa wasn't hard enough
4. Must be a highly educated professional that is either in finance, law, medicine, or engineering – All marketing, entertainment, arts, in-house culinary need not apply
But last but not least (and my particular favorite)
5. MUST WEIGH UNDER 120 LBS FOR FEMALES AND MALES N/A – so all u 125lber fatties go find yourself another fat blob.

So after many weeks of reading pretty much the same ad over and over again, one ad really caught my eye. There was a mother looking for a bride for her son who is 34, 5'1", 185 lbs, looking for an immigration sponsor and is useless. What?? Am I reading this right? The boy is useless? Wow!! And here I am thinking that this must be a joke, which is like something I would do. Send a powerpoint presentation to one of
the candidates of how every slide describes my perfect qualities and when they eagerly wait for a picture, it would be a monkey smiling and showing off buckteeth-LOL!! Ok I know I should not be making fun of people who post their ad because it isn't much different from those who post their ad on shaadi.com or
www.iamsingleandyouaresinglesowillyoumarryme.com. Yes, I've paved my path of eternal spinsterhood by sheer karma- Actually what's probably worse is that as I write this journal, one of my parents (or both), or some concerned relative of mine has already or is putting my profile on, on one of those sites. Note to self: must do research to confirm further humiliation is not W-I-P. I'm sorry to all my friends who have
actually found matches on these sites. I truly am!

Anyway so back to the story…So here I was convinced that this ad was a joke, I called a dear friend, colleague if you will. Of course get asked if I'm interested instead in the bloke…And I of course say, he's too good to be true, no really!?!...lol (yes I'm going to hell I know) Only to my dismay that this the guy is not useless but issueless. (Is that even a word in the Bangali Dictionary?) I sit and do nothing and
drama finds me. SO I READ IT WRONG?!?!?!? How is that possible? I read it the same way twice…Yeah I read it wrong and it wasn't a typo just in my paper. So there is a guy out there 34, 5'1", 185, non-resident alien, who mind you is issueless looking for his pari. Bottom Line, there goes my fame of being a Jay Leno's funniest Headlines contributor. Oh well life goes on...

Comments From Facebook

Akkas Al-Ali (London) wrote
at 3:09pm on August 29th, 2007

i think my mum's been advertising for me again...