Dealing with Parents Concerns

I've been on this subreddit for quite some time now, reading various members posts and sometimes adding in my 2 cents worth. I've been in the same position as many of you when it comes to AM and it takes a toll on one specially when you've gone past the "acceptable" age for marriage in our extended Desi society and this becomes especially problematic as time goes on. I'm currently taking a break from AM and dating profiles, basically taking a break from finding a life partner till next year for my own mental wellbeing and peace with a focus on living my life for the time being before getting back into the game if you can call it that. Unfortunately, regardless of where I am in the whole process of AM, this is still a very sore topic in my family, and now, also extending to my extended family and friends. Everyone's concerned, and I need to have a bit of a rant - not looking for advice or anything, I just can't discuss anything without it coming back to me in some way.

My parents are currently staying with me. For what was originally assumed to be a 6 month stay, has since turned into almost 2 years and will be 2.5 years by the time they return back to their home in January 2026. I never thought they'd be with me for this amount of time, and it's been a bit of an adjustment learning to live with them again after having lived away from "home" since 21. There are days where I do value them being there and know that I wouldn't get this time back with them when circumstances change.

Still, there are significant frustrations with them staying with me - and the Number 1 sore topic in the entire family is the subject of my marriage/finding a life partner and settling down. I won't express my other frustrations, they're not relevant, but I do need to vent my frustrations about AM:

• Started AM in October 2019 and considered both options chosen by myself and parents, sure some of their choices weren't what I would choose but you give everyone a chance at least, and if not, it's not meant to be - happened with me, even with some girls I did manage to have decent conversations with and went to India to meet, didn't pan out.
• March 2020, we went into COVID lockdown and so the prospect of finding someone could only be via calls/texts - ultimately, got fed up during COVID and stopped looking in October 2020.
• November 2020, parents found a girl based in the US on BharatMatrimony and we started talking - things progressed to the point where we agreed that we'd take things forward conditional upon us meeting - met her in February 2022 after the COVID lockdowns had been lifted and was allowed to travel from AUS. Unfortunately, meeting her, spending a week with her etc. led to us realising we had different ideas of how the relationship would go forward towards marriage and for myself, there were certain red flags I hadn't even been aware of until we met, so we broke up in March of 2022.
• Since then, it's been a constant process of connecting, talking, not going anywhere - not feeling the interest, not being interested, not getting the time, getting rejected and so on...I've seen girls that were there on matrimonial profiles back in 2019 still being on there today (not literally today but as of January 2025 when I deleted all my profiles), so it's not like there's a dearth of options, it's just that I think some of them, just like myself have reached a point, if it's going to happen, then it's up to the almighty ones to do their "work". Not saying that's literally the case for me, but just a way of saying "it'll happen, when it happens".
• After the frustrations, the emotional toll, the whole outlook gets to a point where it's too depressing, I let my parents know I'm taking a "break"- it's never a break, I've just turned off notifications and what not for a couple weeks, before I'm right back in the search again - creating new profiles again on platforms that I might have deleted during the "breaks".

Anyway, that said, after my last meet with a girl, where I travelled to India and literally paid for every date that we had, while there were signs she was not interested after the 4th date onwards and ultimately her saying we're not compatible while I was on my return flight, I told everyone: "I'm taking a break from this whole process, I just want to focus on myself and my goals for this year." I was quite clear and quite respectful.

Nope, this last weekend:

• "You outright rejected ALL the matches that we've presented!" - YES, I've rejected matches outright but not ALL. Also, when the extended family gets to know about a potential match before I even do - how is that even going to work...
• "You don't care about getting married!"
• "What is your plan about getting married?"
• "At least keep looking, you don't have to fix something this year..."
• "There's a certain age and time for marriage...you're not getting any younger..."
• "You need to think about your biological clock" - I'm not getting any younger and nor would my potential life partner hence the reason for this statement.
• "No girl is going to talk with you unless you allow us to talk with their parents" - this was a doozy, specially given that it's 2025.

Anyway...my rant is over...apologies for laying this out on whoever takes the time to read this but thank you for reading it regardless.