Dating-to-Marry

Pt 2. Nice-to-Haves, Wants and Deal Breakers

This piece is part of an ongoing blog series, Dating-to-Marry, which aims to share practical tips and resources to help Muslims embark on finding love and marriage. Bismillah!

I started thinking about marriage when I was around twenty-two years old. I was halfway through law school and beginning to crush on  random guys in my Con Law II class. I quickly realized a big impediment to finding a prospective match: there were no Muslim men. At the time, I was living in the suburbs of Boston where there were few Muslims and even fewer eligible Muslim bachelors. 

When I eventually found myself in the wild wild west of the matrimonial apps (Minder, Muzmatch and Ishkr– which doesn’t exist anymore), I got lost. Not having any specific parameters for what I was looking for made it much harder to wade through the slush pile of seemingly available men on the app. With no real game plan, I entered the chaos of the apps and often found myself frustrated because I wasn’t connecting with anyone.

What I realized years later was that I needed a concrete picture of what I wanted and needed in a spouse.  When people, especially men, would ask me what I was looking for I would say something fluffy like “I just want a good person–a good Muslim.” But as I started to do phone chats and coffee chats, I realized I needed a check list of sorts. I needed a system to weed out the bad apples. 

Some people do have lists for their ideal partners, and they go overboard with it. Right now the most popular Tik Tok song is “Man in Finance,” where a woman (mockingly) seeks a man who is in finance, 6’5, with blue eyes. While I don’t believe anyone is really using that type of criteria in their search for a spouse, I think people do have a laundry list of qualities they’re looking and it’s a hindrance to them getting married.

I believe there is a healthy, more balanced approach to the check-list spouse that can help you better understand what you’re looking for without preventing you from being open to other possibilities. 

Here’s how to create a solid list of qualities that will guide you in your search for a spouse.