How to find “The One you can’t live without”
Global matchmaker Anuradha Gupta understands the formula for creating life-long partnerships
Barn owls, those heart-faced meme stars who look like they arrived on a spaceship from another planet, are one of the rare species from the animal kingdom who mate for life. They return to the same nests every year, where Mr and Mrs Barn Owl engage in elaborate courtship rituals, the avian equivalent of those ‘surprise’ proposal videos that have taken over your Instagram.
If you’re thinking, “Wow, I hope my future partner is this romantic”, we won’t begrudge you. But unlike barn owls, who win over their life partners by holding screeching competitions and depositing fresh prey at the feet of their beloved, humans have developed a more sophisticated system for hunting down ideal mates. Enter the matchmaker. Part therapist, part curator, part truthteller, the personal matchmaker is enjoying a renaissance in our digital world.
On a dating app, a bunch of potential suitors are thrown at you like al dente pasta at a wall, to see what sticks. When it comes to luxury matchmaking services like Vows For Eternity, founder CEO Anuradha Gupta reminds us that their “matchmaking happens only after we spend time truly understanding our members and the needs of each one, not ever via an algorithm or any other cookie-cutter method.”
With an established presence in New York, Mumbai, Delhi and London, Gupta has her finger on the pulse of modern romance, responding to the needs of her high-profile clients. She adds, “Our members realise that the match we have made for them is not just a person they can live with, but someone they can‘t live without. This, in my mind, is the point where most people commit to marriage and finding a future that will bring happiness, companionship, friendship, and above all, love. “
We sat down with the globally renowned matchmaker to understand exactly how the process works, and what you can expect from a bespoke service that takes pride in being “purely offline”.
How is your approach at Vows for Eternity unique in comparison to other matrimonial sites and services?
While we have a website and social media presence, all our matchmaking happens only after we spend time truly understanding our members and the needs of each one, not ever via an algorithm or any other cookie-cutter method. Access to someone on the internet and finding someone you truly connect with is two very different things. It takes time for something meaningful to evolve and unfortunately, there are no quick fixes to that. So much of who we are gets lost when we describe ourselves on paper, that’s why we don’t work with biodatas. Through numerous interactions with the team and myself, we help members narrow down on what is most important – shared values, upbringing, and personality fit.
People talk a lot about ‘the modern marriage.’ What is that, according to you?
To me, the modern marriage is one that is based on the four pillars of friendship, trust, respect and loyalty. This hasn’t always been the case in traditional relationships and it’s heartening to see that more individuals are valuing these elements over biodatas, or other ways in which matches used to be evaluated, in the past. We’re finding that our members also know their minds – and therefore can be quite specific about what they are looking for in their life partners. This is also a change from the way things used to be in the past, where people would rely solely on their parents to find them a match.
Do millennials and Generation Z view relationships entirely differently from their older counterparts?
Financial independence, education and greater global exposure have changed how young people view the world now. Moving away from home to live and work in other countries has meant that a significant number of people are choosing to get married much later, which has its pros and cons.
On the one hand, they get to experience life and discover themselves but on the other, the longer they wait, the more they get set in their ways and become less adaptable. Stereotypical roles in a marriage no longer resonate with our younger members, especially given that women have taken giant strides forward as far as their education and careers are concerned. They’re no longer willing to settle for what was traditionally expected of them as wives and mothers. We’re straddling the more traditional expectations of parents and families who approach us for their children, and the youngsters themselves, who have a keen sense of how they want to approach modern-day matchmaking.
As the world is slowly inching back to post-pandemic normalcy, what do you see as the dating and marriage trends, post-Covid?
Because we lay such emphasis on deep and meaningful bonds between people looking to get married, we have always attracted members who are serious about settling down. Numerous reports and global trends are showing that in a post-Covid world, people are ready to get serious about dating and finding The One. At Vows for Eternity, we have always encouraged our members to think about romantic commitments seriously, so for us, we aren’t seeing any seismic changes, specifically.
Who are your members? And what do you think draws them to a service like yours?
Industrialists, celebrities, entrepreneurs, and successful corporate professionals make up our global pool of members. What binds them together is that they’re all seriously looking to get married, and experience the magic that comes with finding The One. I think there comes a time in the matchmaking process when our members realise that the match we have made for them is not just a person they can live with, but someone they can‘t live without.
This, in my mind, is the point where most people commit to marriage and finding a future that will bring happiness, companionship, friendship, and above all, love. I also believe that is why they gravitate towards us because we have always been very candid about how we work – and that’s why our members choose us over other services, because of our extremely personal, bespoke, and tailor-made approach.
To have a heart-to-heart with Anuradha Gupta, tune into her podcast
For More Information:
Call: +91 98210 83382
Office: +91 11 3044 6450
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://www.vowsforeternity.com/