Phew! It's done. I just completed my dating questionnaire, uploaded two flattering images, clicked 'profile complete', and am now anxiously awaiting my matches. Once I receive "today's harvest", as it's called, I will begin the process of swiping left or right. Please let me rise above my shallow nature and judge not on looks alone.
Because my son is depending on me as his new online matchmaker. A mother gone haywire, you wonder? Nah, I thought it would be funny.
Truth be told, I became intrigued last month when I met the founders of MotherHenDating at a blog conference. A mother and son duo, (he went to Harvard and is too busy to swipe for himself) they have set out to create "the mother of all dating sites" based on the premise that once in a while, mothers know best. Their slogan hit home for me: "Where moms go to find their busy kids true love. Because after all, moms can find anything." So true! I'm a mom and I can definitely find anything. It's quite shocking how good I am at finding anything.
I thought it would be an entertaining blog post to set up a profile for son #3. He couldn't be too annoyed because A.) he is single, B.) I birthed him; and C.) I've been at this blog business for well over two years and have heretofore left him alone.
He wasn't annoyed. He was delighted! His exact words were "I would be up for being subjected to this." Can't you hear the excitement vibrating off those words?
So my little lab chick now has his own profile which, interestingly, he cannot access. I had to answer questions about him as a little kid, like what he wanted to be when he grew up (U.S. Attorney General), whether he was rebellious (only on a daily basis when he suspected we were wrong), and did he grow up in a boisterous household (we are a bunch of Colombian-Iranian shrinking violets).
The toughest question required me to describe his ideal match. I wrote, "Smart, funny, patient, flexible, open-minded, honest, ambitious." I realize now as I type those words that they are descriptors any mother would apply to her child. He's going to get a million matches. I should have written, "Criminally-inclined, brazen, sexy, attention-seeking, and nervy with the scars to prove it."
Next, I had to answer a couple of questions about myself as well. Because the app is playing into the trope of parents evaluating a person's credentials against the parents' standards of stability, success and potential. One can discern so much by reading between the lines of what a mother writes about her darling angel. The mothers viewing my son's profile might glean that my sarcasm is a crutch for insecurity -- insecurity that manifests as controlling behavior. And those bitches would be wrong.
So now I'm deciding who my kid can date. Or who my kid can't date. I'm feeding these candidates to my kid and then he takes control. The choice is up to the him but the candidate has to get past the gatekeeper first. I'm a troll sniffing out bad eggs.
I asked my son if he thought this experiment could potentially go wrong. "Like maybe you set me up with someone who I like and who you end up hating?" he conjectured. "And then you blame yourself if I'm miserable for the rest of my life? I'm sure there are funnier ways this could go wrong."
Oh really? What could be more hilarious than lifelong guilt for meddling? I'm chickening out. Unless a potential match can lay a golden egg, this mother hen might keep her beak shut.
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If you enjoy reading about matchmaking, here's a post about my almost-arranged marriage. And if you never want to miss a post, subscribe below and you and I shall be a match made in email heaven. :)