Indonesian Women Take Dating Into Their Own Hands

In the past, women were expected to wait around for a man to choose them. But that image of the princess sighing out the window of the tallest tower no longer applies in Indonesia. Educated Indonesian women know what they want, and with the help of modern technology they are going out to get it.

Armed with a list of characteristics that they look for in a partner, more women are signing up to online dating sites to find their very own Prince Charming, with varying degrees of success.

We talk confidentially to three women about their experiences with Internet matchmaking and the factors they think can make or break a relationship.

Via, college student

Via looks for three things in a man: proximity, piety and a proposal. Better still if he’s a fan of Japanese cartoons and comics.

The 24-year-old college student began her search for love online when she was browsing a site for fans of all things Japan. She noticed a column advertising a dating service, and decided to click through and join.

“I thought, who knows? I may even find someone who likes Japan as much as I do and we can have our honeymoon there,” she said.

Via gave her real name and a link to her website. She tried to be as honest as possible about herself, because she was looking for a husband, not a boyfriend.

“If I date someone, it’s with the intention of getting married,” she said. “I want that to be clear. In the past, I have ended relationships with guys who aren’t clear about whether they want to get married.”

She is also upfront with her prospective partners about the importance of having the same religion.

“For me, religion is always No. 1,” she said. “And I don’t mean just as something on their identity card. I want them to really understand the teachings they follow.”

Via believes that differences in background are complicated enough without throwing in a difference of religion. She wants to find a Muslim husband with the same values as her, so they can build a life together.

But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t broken her own rules in the past.

Via once developed an online relationship with a hotel owner from India. Once they got chatting, the pair found they actually had a lot in common, despite their distance.

The more they chatted, the closer they felt to one another, until finally the man said he wanted to come to Jakarta to meet her.

Via said that was fine, so long as he wanted to get married and stay with her in Indonesia. She was afraid to go with him to India, where she had no friends or family and couldn’t speak the language.

“He was really broken,” she said. “He cried and said he couldn’t believe it. He was angry with me. Meanwhile, I didn’t know what to do, because that was the reality.”

After that, they stopped chatting and Via avoided going online. But her search continues for a husband closer to home.

“My parents told me that a difference of culture within Indonesia is difficult enough, let alone trying to find someone overseas,” she said.

Ajeng, public relations officer

After her best friend married a man she met online, Ajeng thought she might give it a go, too.

The 30-year-old public relations officer set up a profile on indonesiancupid.com and started searching for men in the age range of 30 to 40, preferring those with a good-looking profile picture and a steady job.

She tried to be honest about herself in her profile, disclosing that she enjoys the occasional drink and cigarette, but didn’t give her real name.

“I think if you met a guy on there, you would expect that he would do the same,” she said.

Ajeng would like to find someone to start a relationship with, but is also happy to just get to know someone and see how things go. Some of the people she has met online have turned out to be lasting friends. But some have turned out to be more than friends, too.

“There’s this one guy I really like, he lives in Pakistan,” she said. “He really caught my eye among the other profile pictures, so I clicked the heart icon to show interest. About a week later, he sent a message to me and we started e-mailing back and forth.”

Ajeng ended up chatting to the guy on a regular basis before they decided to “meet” over video chat.

“I felt so excited, but a little bit worried. I wondered if he really looked as handsome as he did in the picture,” she said.

When the video connection was up and running, Ajeng was impressed by what she saw — until he started to smile. The first thing she noticed was that he had a front tooth missing.

“I told my friends, ‘He’s so hot ... but toothless!’ and they burst out laughing,” she said.

But Ajeng didn’t let a small detail like that get in the way. The pair have already made plans to meet up in Jakarta next month.

“I think he’s a really nice guy, and maybe I shouldn’t judge him by his looks,” she said.

The only trouble is, in some of their conversations, Ajeng herself feels like she is being judged.

“He told me he doesn’t like girls who smoke or drink. He said it turned him off,” she said. “It sounds like he’s the one who’s judging without noticing that on my profile, it’s clearly shown that I do those things.

“For now, I’m just going to consider him a friend,” she added.

Pradnya, professional writer

When Pradnya signs up to online dating services, her first mission is to sort the straight-talkers from the scammers.

The 35-year-old writer is selective about who she opens up to, and keeps only a small number of people on her chat list.

Pradnya has profiles on Oasis.com and AsianEuro.com, a site that promises to help “Asian singles find their true love” and Europeans find “the Asian woman of their dreams.” But so far, what she has mostly found is friendship.

“Out of like 10 guys — all of whom were overseas — that I ever chatted with, I finally met two of them in person. We never started a relationship, as we didn’t feel fit for each other as time went by, but we remain very good friends until now, and it’s been years,” she said.

Pradnya uses an alias online, though she will often reveal her real name after chatting for some time. Chatting is really what she is looking for: She writes on her profile that she wants to meet “someone who is real, honest and whom I can feel comfortable being around.”

Religion is not an issue for her, and neither is location.

When she was assigned to write a story overseas in the city where one of her online friends lived, she met up with him while she was there.

“Both of us felt as if we had known each other for a long time when we first met,” she said. “That is quite normal when you are communicating with someone online, as you feel that you can tell them everything and are somehow very open with them.”

But the friendship never became anything more than that.

“As we spent time together we realized that we wouldn’t be good in a relationship, but we would be very good friends,” she said.

Pradnya does not feel disappointed that none of her encounters turned into love stories.

“A lot of people may think the online dating concept is ridiculous, but I’ve tried it myself and I think it’s just fine,” she said. “Yes, there are scammers, or people who are not real out there, but there are people who are sincere, too.”

Dating After Brain Surgery

When a sudden brain bleed left her with facial paralysis and disability, Louise Krug wondered if she’d ever be able to find a boyfriend again ...

After a bleed in my brain rendered me with sudden disability and facial paralysis at the age of 22, perhaps I should have found it troubling that my biggest concern was how I would find a boyfriend. Relearning how to walk, dress myself and drive - sure, that was important, but I thought the key to feeling “normal” was being desirable romantically.

Going from not having to think about finding a boyfriend to wondering who would want me was painful. I began looking for someone while I still walked with a cane, the shaved part of my scalp was still growing back, and I had tape over one lens of my glasses to correct my double vision. Small wonder it was tough.

Before my brain surgery, I’d always had a boyfriend. In college I dated the different stereotypes: the fraternity boy, the guitar-playing hipster, the future politician, the left-wing activist - I even had the ill-advised fling with a teacher. Eventually, I got serious with a fellow aspiring journalist and we moved out to California after graduation to start our careers, but after the operations we broke up.

After recovering from the surgery for a summer I was well enough to move out of my parents’ house and into an apartment. Everyone became a possibility. I wasn’t picky. That guy who just lit my cigarette? Was he flirting? What about the bag boy at the grocery store? Didn’t he linger at my car?

I tried to make sure my jeans covered the tops of my orthopedic shoes, and went through phases of trying to distract people from my taped glasses and paralysed face with dangly earrings and interesting necklaces. I practised smiling in the mirror in a way that my face would look most symmetrical, which meant I smiled very slightly.

My first plan was to look up an old college love. We had had lots of fun - impromptu road trips! Drinking at dive bars! Music festivals that stretched on for weekends! He had once said that walking down the street with me felt like being with a movie star. He would know I was still the same person even though I looked different. But after a few uncomfortable outings throwing myself at him, it was clear it wasn’t going to happen. “I’m sorry,” he said one night. “But no.”

My friends were supportive of my goal, and I used their shoulders to lean on after nights in bars when I’d had too many beers. Someone with balance issues shouldn’t drink as much as I did, but alcohol was one of the only tools I had that made me brave enough to try and flirt.

Inevitably, there was the point when the guy I was hitting it off with would ask about my taped glasses, or why I used the wall for balance when I walked. When the phrase “brain surgery” came up he would back away ever so slightly, and would soon be gone.

My next serious attempt began with a guy I call Hat Guy, because he always wore a baseball cap to cover up his premature baldness. Our relationship evolved like most - we talked late into the night and met each other’s friends - but what wasn’t normal was the ever-present voice in my head that wondered why Hat Guy liked me. I was looking for some reason he was with me instead of with a “normal” girl. Did he just feel sorry for me?

He always insisted that I made too big of a deal out of my disabilities and differences. He couldn’t admit that although I had difficulties, he was OK with that; rather, he pretended they didn’t exist. He even tried to get me to go skateboarding with him ... I ended up breaking up with him because he was flaky. He often called late, sometimes not at all, and broke plans at the last minute. Hat Guy helped me realize that, although I did want a romantic partner, I wasn’t as willing to settle as I thought.

Eventually I met the man who is now my husband. We met at a party while I was still desperately trying to get my old college boyfriend to notice me. I was out on the steps of a crappy apartment building, wobbly because of the beer, and he took my arm.

We got to know each other through email, sending each other links to funny websites at first, then talking about our lives and forming a real friendship. We had the same wide circle of friends, and saw each other once or twice a week for months before we kissed. That’s what made our relationship different. Unlike my other attempts at romance after brain surgery, I didn’t rush things with him. I didn’t try to attach myself to him just for the sake of having a mate.

My husband accepts how I feel about my situation - my anger, my sadness, my wonder - and he treats me better than I treat myself. Isn’t that what we all need? As I was getting to know him, I learned about some trials he’d been through in his own life and got some perspective, something I desperately needed.

I started to realise that even though it often doesn’t show on the outside, we all have experiences in our lives that damage us and threaten to hold us back. Mine just happen to be visible.