The first snowfall in Beijing, 798 Art District held a “985 matchmaking bureau”. This event has strict barriers: participants must graduate from prestigious schools and elite circles. Young men and women, expecting to meet their matching halves here and raise a more elite next generation.
1
A tightly walled matchmaking bureau
The “Museum of Love” restaurant is located at the corner of North Street in Beijing’s 798 Art Park, where young men and women with umbrellas gathered at 2 p.m. in the rain and snow. They came to participate in a high-end dating bureau, and the dating agency had chartered the restaurant.
At the entrance of the restaurant, participants are given an event guest information sheet and are given a number plate corresponding to their number. This fine form contains information about 100 male guests on one side and 100 female guests on the other.
Among the 200 people who participated in the event, masters and PhDs accounted for 90% of the guests, who are all, without exception, graduates of 985 universities or, in other words, have degrees from the top 100 universities in the world. The high end of the participants is reflected in the industries they are engaged in, with nearly half of the guests working in the financial industry. In terms of gender, most of the male guests came from the Internet and consulting industries, as well as central enterprises and institutions, while most of the female guests came from universities, research institutes and hospitals.
The upper and lower floors of the restaurant are divided into different areas, in addition to the “eight-minute date” that occupies most of the space, the restaurant private rooms, guests can freely team up to play board games. Face-to-face communication is obviously more direct, I walked towards the eight-minute dating area.
The eight-minute date consisted of three girls and three guys, and after eight minutes of free chat, the girls would stay put and the guys would move to the next table.
It was more like an interview, with the six guests at the table taking turns acting as candidates and interviewers. The male guests start by saying their number, then introduce their graduation institution, career experience and what their career entails, and finally hobbies, usually sports that are good for health such as marathons, tennis and swimming. The remaining five people at the table picked up the form and, with the clatter of turning paper, swept their eyes in unspoken agreement, secretly weighing his school and career.
A girl at the table with me is a doctoral graduate of Tsinghua University, and after implicitly revealing her excellence through self-introduction, she did not speak again. Compared to her silence, Xia, who was born in 1994, was very affable. Xia, who graduated from a QS-ranked Hong Kong university with a master’s degree and works in the education industry, seemed a bit sloppy and often corresponded to the wrong basic information of the boys. Most of the female participants were between 1993 and 1988, but Xia was on the younger side and was curious about every male guest, showing her interest in other industries without shyness.
Xia’s naivety enlivened the atmosphere. But before the 8 minutes were up, after listening to the three girls’ introductions, one of the male guests picked up his coat and cell phone and politely said, “Excuse me, I’m going out to take a call,” and never came back. never came back.
The awkwardness began to pervade, and I was surprised that no one asked about relationships at the matchmaking bureau. After I asked a few questions about my relationship experience, one of the male guests seemed offended and muttered, “It’s rare for people to ask this at a dating bureau,” and got up and left. He got up and left.
The successive departures of the male guests brought the atmosphere to a freezing point. After the table broke up, I talked with Xia. In private, Xia had a different kind of sanity than she had shown earlier. Xia Xia said, “I’m still a single mother, I think this age has not been in love too failure. These two years began to have marriage anxiety. There are a lot of people chasing me, but I think they have something in mind, only looking at my material conditions. “
The relationship experience blank Xia expects the dating platform to help her screen boys. For Kate, who was born in 1991, attending a dating bureau was her only chance to meet someone of the opposite sex.
Kate’s undergraduate and master’s degrees were from a 985 university in the southwest, and after returning to her hometown of Beijing, she continued her doctoral studies and now works in a research institute. Kate confessed: “I am more interested in image and character, a man should be at least 180cm or more. “
“Just 8 minutes plus I have a lot of boys, but I am not very satisfied with the size and age. When I was in school, I thought there were a lot of guys over 180cm. Kate sounded lost, took my hand and asked intimately, “Did you just meet a good-looking little brother? Tall or not? Can you bring me to know? “
The room was hot, and at the last table before the end of the “eight-minute date,” some men were already impatiently playing with their phones. After repeatedly introducing my graduation school and career experience to three groups of men, I felt as if I had gone through three leadership group interviews with a tense body and mind, and I could not catch my breath. I met L, who also had overseas study and work experience, while taking a breath outside. 8 years in the UK, 6 years in Singapore and currently teaching at a university in the south. He was well-dressed and his cologne smelled calm and collected. During a conversation with L, I accidentally discovered that we had climbed the same mountain. The atmosphere was cordial, and just as I was jumping for joy over it, he asked me my age and began to become distracted.
“I’m looking for someone to marry with a background of living overseas. I’m not too young, but the girls at the event were either too old or too young. Like you, it doesn’t look like you’ll get married in the last two years. “L was born in 1983 and is a local Beijinger who flew back to Beijing from overseas specifically for this matchmaking event. But only halfway through the event, L went back to the restaurant, put on a scarf, took a long-handled umbrella, left a “I’m still a little disappointed”, and left.
2
Leftover women are nervous, leftover men are not panicking
Xia Xia told me that on November 12, she set her alarm clock for 9:30 a.m. and waited with her cell phone for the matchmaking public number to push, to grab a spot for offline registration. Usually, it’s hard to register for offline events at dating bureaus, and the spots for girls are snapped up within five minutes after they are released, while boys don’t have to grab them, and sometimes they even need to be invited by the organizer to make up the number of people for the event.
The total sex ratio between men and women in China has reached 104.45, with more men than women in the single group, and the ratio of male to female guests on high-end dating platforms in Beijing is about 3:7. Rumors that there are 800,000 young single women in Beijing have been repeatedly splashed on social media. In the marriage market of first-tier cities, quality men are the resource in short supply.
In contrast to the girls’ commitment and more outward-looking anxiety, the guys in the dating bureau seem detached, and Ziv is one of them.
After the event began, Ziv remained unhurriedly seated on the couch, sipping a cup of floral tea, not participating in the eight-minute date, and not playing games in the group. Most of the time, he stood alone at the railing on the second floor, leaning over and watching the men and women walking back and forth around the table downstairs.
After talking with Ziv, I discovered that this distant viewing did not stem from his discomfort with the occasion. On the contrary, he has long been battle-hardened in matchmaking activities. From the first offline event organized by Stranger on Tanabata in 2019, this is the fourth time he participated in the “985” matchmaking bureau. As for other blind dates, he has participated in no less than 50 since May 1, 2019.
Ziv mocked himself as a “small-town problem solver” from a small place in Anhui, but he graduated from a famous school and entered a glamorous industry with an annual income of more than 200,000. The company’s main goal is to provide a good service to its customers. “
“The economic aspect must be similar to me, too bad I will not contact. “Ziv, 31, is still single, but he does not have too much anxiety,” the boys can be downwardly compatible, the girls can not, they do not want to find worse than they are. For me, an ordinary undergraduate degree is acceptable, and it’s not hard to find a pretty girl to marry. “
Ziv can’t describe what kind of “feeling” he likes in a girl, but when it comes to the type he resists, his gentle tone suddenly becomes intense: “I can’t understand the kind of girl who is so formal. “I can’t understand the kind of girl who holds herself back. I’m tired of waiting for guys to contact you and asking me to accommodate you. “
“Last year I added a girl at the Stranger’s event, she was older than me, in 1987. I went back and sent her three weibo messages, she did not reply to me, I deleted her. Guess what, I saw her again today and she took the initiative to add me as a friend. In the dating group, but where a girl takes the initiative to add someone, it can only mean one thing – she’s really anxious. “
Three unanswered messages brought Ziv a sense of humiliation that he has not been able to forget for a year. Most participants were similar to Ziv in that they were good, but passive, picky while anxious, and cared about reciprocity and equivocation. After demonstrating their high value, they put themselves on the high ground of indifference, while actively probing downward they suffered a loss.
Only when it comes to the hukou, Ziv reveals a rare lack of confidence, “I recently liked a girl who seemed to value the Beijing hukou, and I was afraid she would reject me for it. But after a few moments, Ziv is at ease again, “But the hukou doesn’t matter, it’s useless if you can’t afford a house. I already plan to buy a house in Beijing, and I can afford it. “
Some ignorant Xia, facing love also keep sober: “to say that I like the type, in addition to the hardware of good school, good family, sunny personality, three views are also very important. “
Xia Xia is looking forward to someone who can sincerely pay for her, “I think the economic conditions are a plus, not a necessity. If I like him enough, even if he does not have a Beijing residence, house, income is not high, I do not think it is a problem. Because the hukou and house, I have both. But Xia quickly retracted her girlish imagination, “I am still most interested in the boy’s school background and whether the door is right for the family. “
In this evenly matched game of love, no one wants to look down. This is a consensus: not dragging each other down is the minimum requirement. People in the dating bureau try to reconfirm or enhance their competitive position in society through marriage, whether the label is wealth, occupation, account, or study.
3
The love that is being performance-based
The full name of HIMMR, which organizes dating bureaus, is “How I Met Mr. Right,” and the organization’s description is “dedicated to finding the best love for those who don’t want to settle. What kind of person should Mr. Right be? What does the best love look like? Neither the platform nor the male and female guests involved in it can say for sure.
But there is at least one thing that both the platform and the participants agree on: quality guests and efficient matchmaking are the best path to the best love and finding the right person.
Since its inception in 2015, HIMMR has served more than 10,000 men and women in total, and according to the agency’s description, the singles rate is over 35%. This efficiency in getting off the list can not be separated from the packaging of the platform redneck.
The platform will send out information about male and female guests, and anyone who sees it can send their own information to apply for the job. As long as you buy the services of the gold redneck, the redneck will help you dig the highlights, select the hair material, optimize the text, select the picture P pictures, to create a delicate listing post.
The girls who are able to hang out have almost similar “Versailles” copy: parents are highly knowledgeable, loving each other, and well-off. Although the parents’ requirements are strict, but the family education is enlightened and open-minded, so the female guests not only have excellent grades, bright work, but also have a number of talents such as violin, ballet, piano, etc., and never lack of warmth and love.
The same flawlessness and labeling online also applies offline. Unlike Ziv, who has a high posture, male guest Jonson is proactive and enthusiastic, and understands the importance of efficiency. In the eight-minute dating session, Jonson would introduce himself with a few keywords, “badminton, stock speculation, headline algorithm”, and extend on these keywords to dominate the chat The topic of conversation.
After the eight minutes were over, Jochen skillfully opened WeChat face-to-face to build a group, pulling all six people present into the group. Last year’s Double Eleven event, Jochen sent friend requests to all 100 girls in the group, and more than 30 passed. This year, he just added the girls who had met with him, and eventually passed a dozen of them. In the application introduction, Qiao Sen still note their nicknames and keywords: badminton, speculation, headline algorithm.
Qiao Sen said: “That kind of environment must label themselves, many girls self-introduction, I do not remember anything. Although the addition of so many people, but I do not know who is who. “
Qiao Sen worked for Baidu, and then jumped ship to another well-known Internet company. After his career path became clear and he got a Beijing household registration, he started actively looking for love. During the day on working days, Jochen was too busy to respond to messages, and we could only take advantage of the complete communication at 10 p.m. when he got off work.
“Is there time for love when your whole life is crowded with work? “Jotham was silent for a few seconds and replied to me: “It doesn’t necessarily take time to fall in love, you can still hang out together on weekends. “
Jochen talked about his previous relationship, which was filled with arguments, lack of understanding and pain that drained him of time and energy. After the breakup last year, Jochen felt relieved at last. Jotham says he likes tall, thin girls who love sports, doesn’t want negativity and just wants to have fun with simple girls.
In “The Death of Love and Lust,” Byung-chul Han writes, “The performance principle has ruled all areas of life in today’s society, including love and sex. This “love” can be seen in Josen in Jonson: actively meeting new people and making connections quickly. But at the same time, love is positivized as a form of enjoyment, and it must provide pleasure and be free from negative behaviors such as hurts and blows, choosing to retreat if a problem arises.
Whether it’s about the efficiency of the platform operation and setting placement, or the participants who refuse the negative side of love, in the flood of performance, men and women talk about account, annual income, house, family background and interests, the only thing they refuse not to talk about, is love itself.
After the event, it was already dark when we walked out of the “Museum of Love”. The snow fell on the still warm ground and melted into a puddle of dirty water, girls in high heels carrying designer bags carefully avoiding the possible splashes of mud. The unattractive-looking male guests roared away in their sports cars, and the men and women who had met each other so well hailed a car together for a dinner date. More people wrapped their scarves tightly around them and just walked towards the Wangjing South subway station in the cold wind.
I walked out the door with a new girl, Sasha, and cautiously asked her if she could talk about her views on marriage. 1988-born Sasha waved her hand, smiled bitterly and said goodbye to me: “After all these years, I have nothing more to say. “
Behind the “Museum of Love”, pink heart-shaped balloons have been removed by the staff, the keywords on the wall about love are still glittering. “Hormones, dopamine, selfishness, anxiety, madness, sincerity. “
A tweet popped up on the phone about the weather in the first snow, a quote from writer Nabokov: “Have you ever loved someone who looks like the sun on Christmas morning, the squirrels on the branches of the pine trees after the first snow, the mud spots splashed on the trouser legs of pedestrians on the rainy paths, and the most beautiful roses. “
It was a beautiful first snowy night and I witnessed a quality failure at the Museum of Love.
Recent Comments