Re: 30 year old Pakistani women
Anyhoo, the girls here who came from Pakistan to marry their husbands in the west did so by family connections and rishta aunties and rishta networking from within the culture. This works great in Pakistan, because you're SURROUNDED by your own people. In Western countries, it's very easy to slip out of the social loophole, especially if you're busy with work.
The girls I know who are still single in their 30's are not so because they're bad people or have bad personalities, or ugly or not fun. They're still single because they spent their 20's working and studying, building their lives and their careers, and having life experiences. And in the process, they are not able to meet guys not only because of a time issue, but also because of constraints that are totally out of their hands.
-Like ISNA meetings are in one major city per year, and you have to fly out and stay there - not feasible for everyone.
-To attend your friends weddings, who are now scattered across the states in different areas for their jobs/trainings/education - you'd have to fly out to the weddings to take part in them. Works ok if the wedding is on a weekend, you have that time off, and you can afford to fly out and take a hotel. And if your family is open about that. You think most conservative desi families with their girls in college are ok with them flying out and staying alone in a hotel room?
-You might, like me, find yourself needing to put yourself on a dating site for ease. In the process, you need to meet these people in real life. I found the hardest part was arranging meet-ups. One, I had to ensure safety, that the guy wasn't going to be a creep. I had to ensure privacy, so that people didn't gossip. I had to make sure my parents were ok with it. For example, one guy I met at a stopover in Chicago when was flying from one city back home. I arranged for a flight that had a stopover there, and the stopover had to be JUST for enough time that I could get out of security, see him, have coffee with him outside the security gate, talk a bit, and then get back into the security line, make my conecting flight, and then get back home so that I could be at work the next day. This sort of thing gets complicated and difficult for anyone.
-dawats - that's where most people will go to show off their girls. Again, this is logistically complicated. I, unlike a lot of girls I know, do not fly to Pakistan yearly to get a wardobe made. Nor do I have an aunty in Pakistan who can send me over stuff. My aunt does, but she usually picks fashion designs from the 80's and everything has to be loose otherwise, ya Allah, I am sinning by wearing kameez's that are too fitting. Plus my weight is up and down all the time, so sending clothes from Pakistan where the tailor can't measure you directly gets complicated, and when something is sent over and it's messed up, it's hard to fix it. Not to mention, you're not there to pick out your own choice of clothes. So, there are a lot of girls like me that just do not have the wardrobe for dawats. I have a lot of lawn, because that's what I can afford, but I stick out like a sore thumb when I go to parties where they're dressed like dulhans at a bloody 2 year old's birthday party. And then to top it off, because I am not so baller in my fashion, desi girls wont talk to me even if I try to start up a conversation with them - they literally look at my clothes, roll their eyes, and walk away.
-Network with other educated non-paindoo families and young adults you say? Ok, where do I find them? I have now lived where I live for a few years, alone, and I have YET to meet many people. I went to one fashion charity show, where I sat at a table where I made a girlfriend, and she lives an hour away from me, so we don't stay in touch MUCH, plus she is 8 years younger than me and has 100 friends. Plus, I get one day off in the week, and that's spent doing all my laundry, cooking, cleaning, errands, studying, etc. The rest of the time, I'm pulling about 100 hrs at work per week.
So please save the suggestions and the commentry. Unless you've been in situations where you are living abroad and you know how the desi scene is, and you are separated from other desis considerably in distance and you have to deal with their materialistic nakhraybaazi when you do go to a dawat, then talk to me. Otherwise, if you fetched your American Visa Husband sitting in Pakistan, waiting away while you went to school at LUMS or Karachi Grammar or whatever, then don't talk. You guys have a network that we do not have. It's simple as that.
As in the spouse MUST be Pakistani too. For a educated, Muslim woman who is capable of rational reasoning and critical thinking…isn’t a educated Muslim man who will make a good husband/father enough?