Chapter 169 - 165: A Little Online Matchmaking Show
[How dare you! Does reading novels not count as reading?]
[To be fair, guys who like historical novels are actually pretty decent.]
[There are levels to historical fiction, you know. The Ming and Song Dynasties don’t have much depth—they’ve been studied to death. If you want real depth, you have to go for the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, or the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period.]
[I know a guy with that kind of depth, and he’s also in Chengdu. The question is, does this woman have any depth herself?]
"My friend, someone in the comments just said they know a guy with depth, and he happens to be in the same city as you."
"But he’s pretty skeptical about your own caliber."
"Why don’t you tell us? What are you usually into? Music, movies, poetry, prose? Or philosophy, history, astronomy, physics... or maybe semiconductors?"
"I..." The woman hesitated. She guessed Zhang Zhe might press her for details, so she had to pick the topic she knew best. It would be terrible to get stumped.
"I like music."
"Okay, music it is. To be honest, I’m quite the aficionado myself," Zhang Zhe said with a sly grin.
"That being said, do you know how many movements the Pastoral Symphony has?"
"Huh?"
"You’ve never heard of Beethoven?" Zhang Zhe chuckled. "Well, do you listen to Bach? How many variations are in the Goldberg Variations?"
"Uh..." The woman was starting to crack. "Actually, I’m more into Chinese folk music."
"Is that so? Then do you prefer Zhou Yunpeng or Zhong Lufeng? Or maybe Wan Xiaoli?"
"..." The woman fell silent again. After a moment, she said, "Brother Zhang, I give up. Please stop teasing me."
"Haha, my bad." Zhang Zhe reined himself in. ’That was a little pretentious of me,’ he thought.
It was all just an old trick from his younger days. There was once an article titled "A Hipster’s Guide to Being Pretentious" that laid it all out perfectly.
Showing off was secondary. Zhang Zhe’s real goal was to make the woman understand that "deep communication" wasn’t necessarily for her. She herself lacked any real depth.
"I was just giving you an example. Having a deep conversation isn’t always a good thing. For one, your own shallowness might make you feel more and more insecure the longer you talk."
"For another, when you truly dive deep into a field, two people can end up on completely opposite sides. For example, if you both study philosophy, but you like Hegel and he likes Schopenhauer, you’d end up better off not having talked at all."
[Now that the host put it that way, I feel like she’s a bit of a poser.]
[Basically, she’s rich and wants someone ’different,’ but she doesn’t know what she’s looking for, so she’s started pursuing this ’rich inner world’ thing.]
[To put it bluntly, she’s 28 with the mentality of an 18-year-old student, desperate for a deep, emotional connection.]
[Adults shouldn’t overthink things so much. Just find someone and make it work.]
[People like her become really difficult and conflicted when they get older.]
"Host, I’ve actually thought about what you said before," the woman confessed. "I did once meet a guy who was like a Bai Yueguang to me. But he was a little too perfect, and I felt like I wasn’t good enough for him."
"When was this?"
"About six years ago."
"Oh, so in your early twenties?" Zhang Zhe shook his head. "My friend, honestly, when you’re on a blind date and the other person starts talking about their Bai Yueguang, my advice is always to run for the hills, regardless of whether they’re a man or a woman."
"But, seeing as how conflicted you are, I can tell you what your biggest problem is right now."
"What is it?"
"You’re not giving your dates a chance," Zhang Zhe said calmly. "There’s no way all fifty of those men had no substance. They only talked to you about wining and dining because that’s all you presented to them."
"If you had just tried sharing some music with one of them, and he was genuinely indifferent and only wanted to sleep with you, then it wouldn’t be too late to write him off."
Zhang Zhe practiced what he preached. He and Xia Yi often shared TikTok videos they’d come across, from compilations of mishaps so funny you’d lose karma for laughing, to weird animal clips, and even the occasional historical commentary.
A blind date is only ever the beginning of a relationship.
If you want a high-quality marriage, one that’s more than just a partnership of convenience, you have to use your everyday time to deepen your understanding of each other.
"My friend, you’re a woman. In the matchmaking market, you often have an invisible advantage."
"If you take the initiative to chat, guys will usually respond. That’s already starting with a huge advantage. If the genders were swapped and a guy tried to share things with a girl, he’d probably get put on blast on Xiaohongshu immediately."
[I feel like normal matchmaking relationships are so rare these days.]
[Nowadays, blind dating is just a wishing well for both men and women.]
[Host, why don’t you play matchmaker for us? I feel like the people my Matchmaker introduces me to aren’t normal.]
[Yeah, yeah! It’s getting boring just watching you talk to one person at a time. Can you host a proper matchmaking event?]
[Teach us how to chat on a blind date live on stream, Brother Zhang, I’m begging you!]
"Thank you, Host. I get it now. I just need to chat with them more, right? Like when I was actually dating someone." The woman wasn’t completely clueless; she understood Zhang Zhe’s subtext.
"Exactly." Zhang Zhe nodded, satisfied. ’This girl isn’t a lost cause after all.’
’Though it would still be very difficult for her to get married.’
Her requirements were the kind one was meant to find through a relationship, not a blind date.
But due to the nature of her profession, she was mostly surrounded by women, leaving her with no choice but to rely on a Matchmaker for blind dates.
Therefore, if she wanted to fulfill her wish, her only option was to treat these blind dates as chance encounters, chat more, and try her luck.
In truth, finding love on your own is also a matter of luck. Given the woman’s requirements, it was hard to say which method was better or worse.
"Host, I see the comments are telling you to host a matchmaking session live on stream."
"They’re spamming the chat. Are you pretending not to see it?"
"Heh, what do you think?" Zhang Zhe gave the camera a polite smile. Based on his years of surfing the internet, online shows where men and women went on call together either devolved into gift battles or arguments.
And since this was Xiaohongshu, it would definitely be arguments.
The truth was, the viewers had expected Zhang Zhe to give this woman from the medical aesthetics industry a harsh dressing-down. But it turned out she was self-aware, so there wasn’t much to criticize.
But someone had to make up for the lack of drama.
That’s why they’d come up with the terrible idea of letting viewers join the stream.
"Host, how about this? I’ll sponsor a show." The woman on the call suddenly had a burst of generosity. "I’ve been to so many Matchmakers, and you’re the first person who’s genuinely tried to give me advice."
"I have to show my appreciation."
"No, no, that’s not necessary." Zhang Zhe waved his hand dismissively, but that level of refusal clearly wasn’t enough.
A dozen or so seconds later, the woman told him:
"That 1,000-yuan consultation fee? I just bought ten of them. That should be enough, right?"
"That’s more than enough. You’re being too generous." Zhang Zhe cupped his hands in a gesture of thanks to his new patron. "Since you’ve sponsored it, I’ll host ten matchmaking sessions."
"But if it’s the same show every time, people will get tired of it. I’ll mix it in with my other content. I’ll edit the recordings from each session into a video compilation that you can watch on TikTok."
"Alrighty, Host! I’ll leave the call now, then." The woman had clearly gotten the answer she wanted. "Thank you, Brother Zhang."
"Don’t mention it," Zhang Zhe said with a nod.
After she left the call, he watched the bullet comments for a moment and saw that everyone wanted to be next.
"Alright, how about this: Xiaohongshu has more female users than male users, so guys, start typing ’1’ in the chat. I’ll count down from five and take a screenshot. The first person who typed ’1’ in the screenshot gets to join the call."