Singles seek love at capital meetup

Bring mothers along at 'Baat Pakki' event hosted by Muslim matchmaking app

ISLAMABAD:

Whether it is the best of times, or the worst of times – or as some would say both – the marriage matchmaking market in Pakistan stays in business.

Curated meetups for singles in the city appear to be the latest creative take on finding rishtey. Muzz, the matchmaking app for Muslims, recently hosted a Baat Pakki event for single candidates looking for a marriage partner in Islamabad. Around 70 eligible men and women attended along with their mothers, who were also invited to the event.

The meetup was more than just a gathering; it was styled like a reality TV game show where attendees were given name tags that specified only their name and age, before they were divided across zones based on age groups. To start off, candidates who were closer in age were seated at the same table with nudges from the staff and icebreaking prompts to encourage discussion. Prompts included intriguing questions such as "Which of your five senses would you give up?" which had candidates agreeing with each other and more divisive ones like "What are your thoughts on dressing modestly?"

Every 20 minutes or so, candidates were asked to switch tables, ensuring that they got a chance to meet the different people at the event. At the same time, the mothers, who were differentiated by Team Boy and Team Girl stickers, socialised with each other in a separate zone. The staff remained hands-on throughout the event, facilitating matches by providing interested candidates with a space to chat one-on-one and informing candidates of any potential matches their mothers had identified.

"This is actually much better than the arranged marriage rishta process," said the mother of a male candidate. "I personally do not like going to people's houses and giving them an evaluation on whether we liked their daughter. It's better that youngsters meet and decide for themselves." Maheen, 27, who was able to find a match at the event and has continued talking to him since then, said, "My mother kind of forced me to come here. I don't even use the app. I just downloaded it to purchase the tickets, so, I didn't have high hopes, but it was actually a nice experience." Several candidates remarked that the in-person meetup was a more effective alternative to finding matches through the app.

Requiring participants to bring their mothers and purchase tickets priced at Rs7,500 made it more likely that serious candidates attended the event. It was also apparent that the Muzz team had vetted the profiles of the participants beforehand. "We have introduced a number of changes to our app to ensure the candidates' legitimacy. We now verify their identity, age and salary, and we have added a lot more filters, so that people can find genuine connections based on their own preferences," Muzz CEO Shahzad Younas, who was in Pakistan for the Baat Pakki event, told the Express Tribune.

Muzz, the Muslim-owned app for matchmaking, is active in over 190 countries and has 12 million users. "We have had a lot of new users join the app lately, and thousands have reached out to us in 2024 to share that they got married through the app," said Muzz PK Marketing Lead, Nayab Nazir, pointing towards her sister-in-law who had found her husband through the Muzz app. "What's most amazing is the cross-regional matches we have seen as people from different cultures and backgrounds, like those from the Middle East and the UK, are able to connect despite their differences," she added.