Eavesdropping on a conversation at a coffee shop the other week, I overheard something that had up until that point only been a rumor – the practice I’ve started calling the ‘mating interview.’ The setup: a man and woman (~late 20s) sit across from each other sipping tea – the woman asks a series of questions: “what’s your monthly income? is that after taxes? you said you lived alone, right? what’s the square footage on your flat? Is that construction measurement, or usable space measurement? you have a washer and dryer, or just the washer? …” 

So I did a little research. Good thing, since on the train ride back from Liaoning I was talking to my roommate and a new friend – a pretty girl from the university. About five minutes into our abnormally Tony-centric conversation I realized that my roommate was facilitating just such an interview. With me as the target interviewee.*

My roommate had previously proofread my Chinese resume, so he knew all the gory details; being a local, he also knew exactly what resonated with the women-folk: ”Tongli had a job – in the American capitol city!” Pragmatic, provider type stuff. He kindly neglected to mention the fact that I can barely remember to feed myself most days.

This practice at first comes off as rather crass. During the course of my investigation, I brought the topic up with my cultural go-to professor. She explained, “oh – yeah. I did that – it was really important, since when I was getting married I had to make a decision in a hurry. If you’ve just met a person, you can save a lot of time being really clear about their status, motivations for a relationship / marriage, and goals.” After talking for about 5 minutes, I admitted that it was probably a useful practice, commenting that we in the U.S. will sometimes go for a long while without bringing up any these topics (some of us anyway.) I explained that among my people and the ability to read into mixed signals is a prized virtue in most social interactions, especially the romantic sort. 

Part of me wants to describe these practices as having a direct relationship to material wealth – in the West, we usually assume people can feed and clothe themselves, lifemates, and prospective children. As these very pragmatic concerns becomes less important, we’re more interested in other factors of compatibility – like complementary “passions” regarding obscure interests and hobbies.

Of course there are also cultural differences about certain types of privacy. It’s pretty common to be asked your income and relationship status by complete strangers – does this openness have to do with mores that have adapted over generations of higher population density? But seriously, what fun is examining multiple angles when it’s just as easy AND more remunerative to reduce complex problems to a single sterile variable? 

* As of this writing, the author remains single.