Johannesburg -
A meddling mother goes behind her daughter’s back and posts an imploring ad in a newspaper in a quest to find her a beau.
It could be the plot of an epic romcom - but this is no storyline.
It’s what really happened to Cape Town fashion designer Ilse Meintjes, 28.
And if history repeats itself, the saga that has left her red-faced could see her walking down the aisle as a blushing bride.
Meintjes told Independent Media she was shocked to find out what her mother, Tilana, had done.
“It’s a nice gesture. But it caught me off guard. I wanted to crawl into the ground and throw sand over myself,” she said.
Meintjes said she had gone through a break-up and had been single since then.
Her mother had, meanwhile, kept trying to find her a partner, even suggesting she enter a popular Afrikaans television dating show.
Unbeknown to Meintjes, her mother then posted an advert with a photograph in a daily newspaper calling on suitable partners to e-mail her daughter.
The advert said: “She (Ilse) called me yesterday and said: ‘Mom, I’m tired of being alone.'
“She said she also wants to meet someone she can talk to and do things with.”
Meintjes’s mother said the man her daughter was searching for would care for her, enjoy life with her, would not smoke nor drink, and would be a child of God.
“Ilse said to me on Friday: ‘Mom, I also want to marry and have children’.”
The advert ended with Meintjes’s e-mail address.
Meintjes said she had received some interest, and had replied to some potential suitors. But she remained unsure about whether she’d meet anyone in person.
Meintjes said her mother and father, Jan, had met via a magazine placement page years ago.
“My mom told me that my dad was everything she wanted, tall, blue eyes, nicely built. My dad would do anything for her, I think that is the love I want to find. Someone who genuinely cares and wants to be with me, protect and love me,” she said.
Pretoria News Weekend