Compatibility still holds a firm place in the marriage mindset of Koreans.
“Representative Lee, they say the doctor you recommended last time is not compatible with my son. We had high hopes this time, so it is very disappointing. You always take such care with us, and I am sorry to send you this kind of reply again.”
I answered,
“I fully understand. I will look for another candidate and recommend someone again.”
It has been more than 14 years since I exchanged messages like this with the man’s mother. He was 28 then. Now he is 42. During that time, I must have recommended more than 300 to 400 women. He probably met at least 20 of them in person.
Still, there was a reason I continued to arrange introductions for him. Even while insisting on their own requirements, they never made the person making the introduction feel uncomfortable. They also never spoke carelessly about the women they rejected.
The women who met her son rarely said anything bad about him either. He had many human charms. He had been raised well in a good family, worked in a professional field, and had ability, dignity, and character.
They could have looked at many different things in a marriage partner. But what the mother and son wanted most was compatibility. In marriage, everyone has values that deserve respect.
Some people want a slim figure. Some value financial strength. Some look at personality, and some look at appearance. For this family, it was compatibility. If the compatibility was not right, they rejected the match no matter how good the other conditions were.
He had two older brothers. I had arranged marriages for both of them, and both married within six months of being introduced.
But the youngest son was different. If the compatibility was not right, that was the end. Determined somehow to help him marry, I once again prepared a list of 10 women.
Soon after, I received a call.
“Representative Lee, what should we do? There is someone who reads compatibility, and they say not a single woman is compatible with my son.”
“All 10 of them? Not even one?”
So I searched again. Another 10. Then another 10.
The result was the same.
“Representative Lee, they say none of them are compatible.”
I was stunned.
“You must have spent a lot of money checking compatibility all this time.”
“We spent tens of millions of won.”
Even after all that, he kept waiting.
A woman with the right compatibility.
Then one day, we finally found her.
She was a woman born in the United States. Her Korean parents had gone to America and later returned to Korea.
She was smart and worked in a professional field. Her educational background was good. The atmosphere of both families was also good. By many standards, they seemed well matched.
And above all, their compatibility was right.
It was not just good. The compatibility expert trusted by the man’s family confirmed it. They said it was the best possible compatibility. They said it would be difficult to find a better match.
He had waited 14 years. He had gone through hundreds of women. At last, it seemed he had found his destined partner.
The wedding was beautiful.
I had been invited by both families in advance and received a considerable success fee from both sides. I felt proud. I thought I had gained one of the representative successful marriage stories I would remember for a long time.
But about four months later, the man’s mother contacted me.
When the family of a married member contacts you only a few months after the wedding, it is usually not good news. Small complaints began to show in her words.
“It seems a little different from what we expected.”
More time passed.
Six months.
The two began living separately.
Once they actually lived together, things that did not fit began to appear one by one. Their lifestyles were different. Their ideas about housing and how to manage married life were also different from what each had expected.
Eventually, they began preparing for divorce.
The two people who had once been called a match with no equal in the world had now become two people legally arguing over each other’s problems.
Then one day, the man’s mother said something to me.
She had asked the same person who had said they had the best compatibility.
“Sir, how could this result happen? You said they had the best compatibility in the world, the only one of its kind.”
The person who had read their compatibility reportedly answered,
“Ah, that woman was born in the United States, wasn’t she? If she was born in America, we should not have applied the U.S. birth time…”
— Woon Jin Lee
CEO, Couple.net
