[30M] My 2 year journey in the AM process

​​I am a 30 year old Mallu guy whose family is based in Kerala, and I have been navigating the arranged marriage scene for about two years now. Right off the bat, my situation acts as a massive filter: I work in Chennai, and I earn just enough to comfortably support myself. In the AM market, that combination of my location and my current salary bracket is an immediate red flag for about 90% of the proposals that come my way.

​Because of that, I am skipping the endless stream of ghosted profiles and the matches that never made it past the initial family screening. This post is strictly about the remaining 10% which are the women I actually reached the talking stage with. ​Here is a breakdown of those interactions and where things eventually fell apart.

​1. The Practice Run: My very first match was an awkward 20 minute chat with a data professional earning 4x my salary, and we mutually called it quits almost immediately because she was dead set on moving abroad while I want to stay in India.

​2. The Confidence Booster: Riding the confidence from my first attempt, I managed to keep a conversation going for a solid hour with a girl finishing her teaching degree, only for her to reject me right after the call because of my job location.

​3. The Supervised Screening: I survived a deeply awkward speakerphone chat and a video call entirely chaperoned by her mother who kept warning me about her daughter being short, but as a short guy myself I did not mind that at all, only to be ultimately rejected because I honestly admitted to having an occasional social drink when they strictly wanted a teetotaler.

​4. The Elite Rollercoaster: I canceled my train ticket to visit a literal mountain mansion where we clicked so perfectly that she actually said yes, but right after her elite family rejected my middle class home she casually confessed over Instagram that she was in an active situationship with a coworker and somehow liked us both at the same time.

​5. The Government Job Veto: We grew so close that she actually booked a flight to come meet me, but her father vetoed the match at the absolute last minute because I do not have a government job like her, leading to a bizarre aftermath where she blocked me everywhere while her parents kept adding me to random WhatsApp groups until I had to call her from a friend's phone just to beg them to delete my number.

​6. The Unnecessary Body Shamer: Our families forced a connection even after a leaked audio clip caught her mother saying "ayyo" at a picture of my long hair, and while I told this high earning architect I just wanted someone simple, her flashy Instagram proved otherwise right before she rejected me by literally body shaming me over our similar height and weight instead of just politely saying no.

​7. The Ghost of Matches Past: I broke my one rule by forgetting to ask if she was actually interested before traveling to meet her in person, which led to a painfully average conversation that ended with her dodging my Instagram request and texting me on my way home to confess she was still completely hung up on her last match.

​8. The Hospital Date: I actually went to a hospital to meet a prospective match whose father just had a sudden cardiac arrest, but after things were going surprisingly well she asked for my salary and an hour later her family rejected me for not owning a house in Chennai even though my entire family lives in Kerala and they clearly just needed an excuse.

​9. The Unsaved Contact: I had a surprisingly good hour long chat with a Canadian educated HR manager who even sent me extra photos after recovering from a cold, but I quickly realized I was getting ghosted when she outright refused to save my contact for a regular phone call and completely disappeared after promising to reach out a week ago.

TL;DR: 2 years in the AM process taught me that my salary and location are massive filters, and the few matches that make it to the talking stage are a wild mix of secret situationships, supervised calls, uncalled for body shaming, and bizarre rejections.

P.S. I used AI to help shorten and polish these stories so they are easier to read, but all the pain, awkwardness, and rejection is 100% real and mine.