I'm not sure if anybody can help a friend of mine – preferably a Muslim - but help and advice from a non-Muslim is also welcome.
My friend is 39 years old and unmarried. He has been trying for a wife for over 10 years with no success. He is a very intelligent and intellectual person with a degree in engineering. Currently he works as a medical devices engineer earning just over £30k a year.
He was born in Britain from a white British revert mother and a Muslim father who originates from a small and obscure country. This has effectively prevented him from finding a wife through his family because they know of no suitable people.
The majority of Muslims round my way are south Asian and if they are unable to find a spouse themselves then there is always the family and a cousin either in Britain or their home country. This explains why most are married in their early 20s and single Muslims from these communities over the age of 30 are quite rare unless they are divorced or widowed.
My friend has met a few Pakistani sisters – including a divorced home educating mother of young children (he likes home education) – but their fathers will not allow them to marry him because he isn't Pakistani. The culture which runs deep within the Pakistani Muslim community is for sisters (and in many cases brothers) to marry a member of ones tribe or clan and they are reluctant to marry outside of it, especially a non-Pakistani.
Both myself and my friend hold the view that his very unusual and non-standard background goes a long way to explaining why he has struggled so badly to find a wife.
He has asked, and asked, and asked, and asked, and asked at two different mosques that he regularly attends for many years but without an ounce of success. He is a very well known figure in the community. On the majority of days he goes to the mosque for fajr in the hours of darkness and almost always attends for isha. Therefore he is certainly not an isolated or cut off person from the Muslim community.
To complicate the matter further, he has Asperger syndrome which he only found out about in his late 20s. School was a difficult and unpleasant experience for him as a result of having undiagnosed Asperger syndrome. Issues resulting from Asperger Syndrome were viewed as wilful bad behaviour and lax standards back then. At the time he lived in a very white and British middle class suburb with only a small handful of Muslims. This meant that social skills he acquired and required were social skills for non-Muslim middle class British society rather than for a Muslim society. He only really started associating with other Muslims after the age of 20 and later moved to a city with a larger Muslim community. The Muslim community is very behind the curve when it comes to Asperger syndrome (as well as other autistic spectrum disorders and mental health conditions) where even prominent figures in positions of influence have never even heard of it.
He is an introverted individual who feels that he lacks the social skills for attracting women and is too abrupt in communication to be able to charm them effectively. He has never really had many dealings with adult Muslim women due to the strong gender segregation and his mother is a British revert. Therefore he feels that he has a poor understanding and knowledge of the psychology of Muslim women and the etiquette involved when trying to attract one for his future wife.
Speed dating is not for him. He has attended several Muslim marriage events but he finds them overwhelming events where success is always based on first impressions. Only by spending time with another person will it be possible to enable them to get to know each other and determine the potential for a long term relationship. Another problem is the lack of diversity in the cultural background of the sisters attending these events as they are overwhelmingly dominated by Pakistanis.
He has tried marriage websites like SingleMuslim. They have been his best bet so far but they are still far from successful. I think it goes back to the lack of social skills issue even online. From my perspective (I am not a Muslim and I am not married) the Islamic way of attracting a future spouse is a very specific and offbeat area of social skills that will not be covered by 'western' social skills and dating books and websites.
Looks probably aren't a problem. He is a reasonably attractive person with no physical impairments. Apart from his hair starting to turn grey he doesn't look 39. If he dyed his hair he could easily fool anybody that he is 29 years old.
He fears that once he hits 40 (this year) then he will be past it with the chances of finding a wife of child bearing age being very slim.