Traditional marriage industry fails completely. It’s not only that the number of classic agencies drops - places where people leave their offers with a photograph and a description and look for a partner for the rest of their lives, they nearly completely disappeared from the market. Only the bravest idealists are still struggling.
Wrong number?
Wrong numbers: inactive fixed line telephone and mobile numbers or numbers given to new users – this is the outcome of searching in Wroclaw for a contact to marriage agencies. “I don’t run the agency anymore”, says the owner of “Two Hearts” (“Dwa Serca”), an agency which was operating for 4 years at the Grunwaldzki Sq. 12. “Have Internet methods of mediating between two people destroyed us? To a certain degree maybe yes, but the first reason for our closure was that people are not serious. Especially men: they would like to have everything without giving anything in exchange. And a woman is supposed to offer everything! It is not anymore about meeting a person who may change our life permanently, now it is all about fun!
Honey, show me what you have in your head
Mrs Beata’s history seem to confirm this difficult task connected to “candidates” for life partners. “In the beginning, Leszek assured me that he treated our relationship very seriously, otherwise he wouldn’t lose money on marriage agency and show his face there. He also said that out of several offers he had had, he picked me immediately. He didn’t even want to check the others. He had a hunch that with me he would finally have a serious relationship”, the woman says. The “husband-to-be” first assured her about his serious plans, next, he mentioned them less frequently and finally he decided that life is too short for such categorical declarations.
I ask Beata if she came back to the agency for a new offer? “I think I would be ashamed to the point where I would try to hide from the view completely”, she admits. “I signed in to a date website. In fact, it was my friend who did it for me and together we look through men I would potentially like to meet. But I don’t know if it will work.”
The industry got entangled in the web
Another woman, who wants to be anonymous, assuring us that for many years she used to run an agency in Wroclaw, provides more precise explanation for the collapse of classic matrimonial agencies. “We had our golden times before the Internet era. The service was not cheap and everything was treated perfectly seriously. Even creating the portfolio of a candidate was profitable – we earned our income on professional photo session in times when it wasn’t even called that way. We simply encouraged women, as women worried about their portraits to be seen by the potential candidate, to entrust us with the task of preparing them for a photograph and selecting the best and most favourable one”, the owner of a matrimonial agency describes. “Nowadays, nobody would like to pay for something which may be done at home at no cost. Even a mobile takes great pictures, and anybody can use free of charge dating sites. Well, exactly – dating, nobody explicitly says that it is for searching a husband or a wife, it is only to counteract loneliness, for the time being, temporarily. Many people say that they have made an aware decision to remain single, as it is called today.”
Today, we even have guides on how to find a husband using the computer. The truth is that majority of them are naïve idle talk, but it happens that a person “in need” reads them, even by accident.
We are still alive
Mrs Ewa Świętuch, running the “Ego” agency, persists on the market with her classic agency with paper folders consisting of photographs, descriptions, lists of virtues and vices and expectations from the future partner. However, after 14 years of experience and achievements in the form of several marriages between clients, she concludes that we cannot afford a living from this domain only and that we have to look for alternative methods of earning money. “During the year we used to have the “harvest” season, for example in May. We knew that we will have lots of work. Now it is not the case anymore”, the boss of “Ego” says.
Unethical relationships?
There is nothing surprising that the sinking domain tries out all possible methods to survive. Several years ago, in Wroclaw, a marriage agency was offering assistance in entering relationships between young Polish women dreaming of a stable, wealthy life and citizens of Germany, trusting that money can produce miracles. Germans arrived in buses for trips to Wroclaw and their travel bill comprised hotel, sightseeing and a meeting with the candidate.
Young women had one thing in common: they were very pretty, they were good housewives, young home birds. Their meetings didn’t have any ambiguous meaning and they took place in cafés and restaurants. However, it all boiled down to easy to reveal procedure: girls received PLN 20 in cash for every initial meeting with the candidate for a husband and then they didn’t want to get married. The client was offered another trip and other candidates. The shady business was revealed by one of the employed by the company girls. She came to the conclusion that it is simply unethical.
Małgorzata Wieliczko, Barbara Chabior
phot. www.sxc.hu
