When I found myself suddenly single at 24, I didn’t think it was a big deal. We all mourn the end of relationships in different ways – going on a “Eat, Pray, Love”-type vacation, deleting all social media, or shaving the side of your head.

I used the newfound freedom as a way to find myself again – except one problem. As the eldest daughter of Bangladeshi-Americans, I was a cause for concern.

“Who is she supposed to marry now?”

I didn’t think about wedding vows at all by this point. I just always assumed I’d marry whomever I was in a long-term relationship with at the time. I mean, that’s love right? You like someone, you date each other for a few years, he proposes by the ocean and then you over share pictures of your massive princess-cut diamond on social media until the wedding is over.

But love is much more complicated now, and it’s even more complicated when you’ve grown up in an immigrant community, like I did. As an American, my idea of a husband was a person who completed my sentences, shared similar interests, and was my lover/best friend/soulmate. As a Bengali, a husband was someone I was supposed to marry to help meet society’s standards of what a South Asian woman should do by her mid to late twenties. This didn’t even include the man himself, but included his parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and late grandparents.

“Bushra, akta notun chele ke kujenao, aste kore khujo”

“Bushra, find a new boy – slowly find a new one.” – a soft-spoken command from my mom, which was essentially a euphemism for finding a new potential husband.

I was forced to join Shaadi.com, an online dating community reserved for South Asians looking for the chai to their latte – it was an arranged-marriage dating site. To keep myself slightly sane, I joined Tinder too – the hookup app that required me to shallowly swipe right or left on a person’s face. In the months that followed I connected, matched with, and rejected almost a thousand different potential suitors.

The World's No. 1 Matchmaking Service

Bengalis are incredibly hospitable, extremely hardworking, and apparently do very well in groups to find you the right partner.

My mom was sitting next to me when I opened Shaadi.com and began my profile. I was immediately uncomfortable with the information they suggested I include.

“What is your skin tone? Very Light, Light, Wheatish, Dark, or Very Dark?”

To some people, skin tone wouldn’t matter, but by South Asian standards, the lighter, the better. We are the largest consumers for skin-lightening creams, so by Asian beauty standards, my caramel complexion is considered slightly acceptable at best. I left that answer blank, because my melanin levels are not indicative of my beauty.

“What is your salary?”

I kept that blank too. Unless I am discussing my salary with a co-worker or negotiating rates with a potential employer, suitors have no business in knowing how much I make. One of the ways I weeded out mates was by deleting anyone who included their pay.

I randomly got a text one night that said, “Salaam.” I responded with “new phone, who’s this” when Ali* explained that he and I matched on Shaadi, which is why he was texting me. I didn’t know that the person on the other end immediately had access to your contact information once you accepted their request.

We texted for a about five minutes before he sent me a picture of himself at Hajj, the holy pilgrimage Muslims make annually to Mecca, the birthplace of the prophet. Ali then followed up with a shirtless picture, flexing his biceps. He asked me how much I could squat and if I had any pictures of myself at the beach. I immediately blocked him on Shaadi and his number.

In the months I had my Shaadi profile, I rejected about 500 different profiles. I had a few specific guidelines for whom I wanted to date or be matched with.

I preferred someone from the tri-state area, or grew up in the United States at the very least. A lot of my suitors were from Bangladesh or the UK, and I don’t see myself traveling for love in the future, so I immediately clicked delete.

My final straw with Shaadi was when I had gone on a coffee date with Samir*. He grew up in Colorado, worked in midtown, Manhattan and was seemingly normal when we met. So when he texted me around 1 AM the same day of our Pret-A-Manger date, “I can’t stop thinking about you.”, my naivety took stronghold and I gave him permission to meet me in front of my apartment building.

I told my mom about the suitor when she immediately grabbed a bottle of holy water, poured half into a Poland Spring bottle, and filled the rest with tap. She prayed over it and told me to give it to him as soon as I met him. Now imagine her surprise when I came back upstairs 15 minutes later because he pulled his fly down and looked at me like “¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

Swipe Right If You Feel It

At first I was excited about Tinder. I would swipe on the train, on the bus, and even during lunchtime. I asked suitors to guess my ethnicity. I was always impressed if someone got it right, because it means they actually knew where Bangladesh was.

As the matches increased, so did my disdain for online dating. There were too many conversations to keep up with and I almost always forgot who to follow up with. I wasn’t interested in texting right away or meeting anyone in person immediately because I wasn’t sure who could’ve been the next Ted Bundy. The small talk was always the same, “What do you do?”, “Tell me about your hometown.” “What do you do for fun?”

The few dates I’d gone on were nice, but nothing felt meaningful. There was no chemistry most of the time, and usually the conversations fell after the initial meeting. There were also these gems.

Online dating exposes you to different kinds of people; even the bigoted and prejudiced as there are no filters for those. By the end of my run on Tinder, I had already had about 500 matches, and it seemed nothing was going anywhere. There were too many options, too many “What If’s”.

I Do, but I Won’t

I was more at ease with myself when I deleted all of the dating apps I could think of. I even ignored requests from family members to meet men who expressed interest in marrying me. Simply put, I was being told to focus on an exterior facet that had no reflection of my happiness. I sensed my worth was based on my marital status.

Single is "bad", and marriage was the only answer, and for now I’m opting out.

Marriage doesn’t terrify but neither does being alone. Just because I am alone does not mean I am lonely. The difference is that when you’re forced to get married to meet some patriarchal structure that was built centuries ago, there’s an inherent fear that you will still be lonely. I don’t want to rush into an unhappy marriage. I want to love myself first and find the person that is meant for me whether it’s on line in a Starbucks waiting for a cold brew or in a grungy, underground club on the Lower East Side. I can’t predict my future but I do know that whenever I am ready, there won’t be swipes necessary.

Note from Bushra: An earlier version of this included images of Tinder mataches that were uncensored. Their faces are now blurred.