I love leading an online community. Today Widowed Village received the following application for membership:
I am intended to marry with widow/divorced woman. Their status, age, (having children) doesn't matter, only virtue (pure heart)is important.He is only 26 and yes, I turned him down (we only allow widowed people to join).... I mean, for membership, of course.
I can promise I will be responsible person to make our family always be happy.
I think if we are doing something really right then we have to do this. This will my prominent decision of my life.
Widow/divorced woman are isolated from world, therefore i want to turn my wedding decision to right way and we both will be respectable for each other..
I am Aamir H. from India, as above given is short description, but it is truth. Actually, i am single but interested in to marry with widow woman .. so can you help me? Give me suggestion too...
Is Aamir doing a good deed? (Can we assume he's very ugly, ill, impotent?) We've all heard horror stories about being widowed in India. Even though the sati is banned, remarriage is supposed to be rare.
It just looks so, so bad in this country where soliciting online for a bride is a business and arranged marriages are considered an injustice beyond anything. Amir's request sounds... cheap. It seems... an ugly sort of business transaction. But if I read it... well, it seems like there's a man with a heart there. I don't really mean to make fun of him (though it would be easy to).
This is the third or fourth request we've had like this. They're all quite clear about their intentions. The first one made me queasy. By now, I sort of respect their honesty and wonder what is up. Do these fellows want to move to the U.S. or another English-dominant country? Do they think our community has many Indian members (we might, someday, I suppose)?
Can someone explain to me what is going on? I know I have readers in India....
5 comments:
I have belonged to an internationl penpal website for about a decade. In recent years, it has become overrun with members - both male and female - who send notes that sound almost word for word like the example you have posted. Most long time members have run into people who want to scam people out of money, etc. (send money to help my family, send money for a plane ticket, etc...). I hate to generalize and come across as such a cynic, but would say it is a safe bet that this is a scamster looking for a new venue.
I read the blog entry and as an Indian settled here in the US wanted to leave a comment. To me it seems like someone testing the chances of coming to the US easily. For me and many of my friends who have got the green card we had to come the hard route give GRE finish PhD in a top tier US university, get a faculty job here...I would like to mention that the economy in India is booming with better paid jobs in India than here but they are limited to well educated people. BTW widow marriage and remarriage after a divorce is very common place now a days. But still there are people who feel that as soon as they step in the US life will change immediately. They should get a dose of living pay check to paycheck and job insecurity many face here to get a realistic taste of how life is here.
Bev, I trust your instincts, it just sounded substantially different from the "looking for romance" scammers I see on Facebook, who also have a formula. I think your explanation is very possible.
Anonymous, thank you for sharing your experience and comparatives, which are useful in understanding! (I'm also glad to hear widows remarry in India now!). I think your explanation is probably correct, and I'm not quite comfortable calling folks who want to come to the U.S. "scammers" (Bev s NOT saying that above... but some people do) even if they are using methods that we think are inappropriate.
Thank you both!
Hi, I too am an Indian, recently widowed, living in UK, this sounds like a scam, wanting to move to the West.
By the way your blog is great, its so hard this widow stuff to cope with it just seems so unreal. i was married for 37 years from us to me, we to I, just does not seem right.
Anon2, thanks for your comment, so sorry for your loss.
Post a Comment