The Grass is not greener on the other Side

I wasn't necessarily planning on broaching the topic that follows now, if a blog can be considered "planned," but a comment from a reader moved the topic up. Don't consider this as the "last word" on the topic.

The reality is that not all of Klal Yisroel shares the same dating and shidduch practices, and many times members of one "klal" in Klal Yisroel look at another "klal" and say: "They have it easier then I do." If that were truly the case then the group that "has it easier" should have virtually no singles of marriageable age "left" in their group. This is not the reality.

We have, today, a large number of single people across the whole spectrum of Klal Yisroel. The more "liberal" or "modern" members of Klal Yisroel aren't doing any better then the members more to the right. In fact, in many cases and areas, they are doing worse. Why?

Those more to the right, the "frummies" if you will, are being suffocated by a shidduch process that has gotten too institutionalized, too rigid, too out of touch with reality, too demanding and too full of "chumras." The process has become more important than the participants. Furthermore, this group has no idea what to do with its "older" singles except to keep repeating what it said to them when they were younger. I guess they believe that "practice makes perfect" and if you do something long enough you will eventually "get it." Of course, teaching them how to play the piano when what they have is a violin just might be counterproductive.

What about those more towards the "center"? Their shidduch process is not as institutionalized as that more to the right but it is there nonetheless. Maybe they do not have "official" shadchanim, but they have lots of "unofficial" ones--their friends, family and the lady who works behind the counter at the corner grocery store. A "fix up" is the same as being "red a shidduch." The term "blind date" originated outside of Klal Yisroel and means "two strangers who are introduced to each other by a third party." Sounds like a shidduch to me. What they have that the more right-leaning groups don't have is more opportunities to find themselves in groups of singles.

Countless organizations and shules have "singles events." This may be a lecture given in a shule. This may be a dinner at a restaurant. This may be a visit to a museum. This may be a weekend or holiday in a hotel. This may be a "speed dating" event (and in my personal opinion, a pox on whoever thought up this "mishigas"), where you sit and talk to someone for 10 minutes and then move on to someone else and then someone else. Sometimes there are people at these events whom you can speak to to facilitate getting "set up" with someone you have met at the event. Other times the singles themselves are expected to approach someone who interests them, find out whatever they need to find out, and ask the person out on a date. In the less "frummie" circles, even when there has been a "shadchan" of some sort, the shadchan is not involved in the dating process beyond the first date. After that, the people involved have to talk to each other. The boy either does call the girl again or he doesn't. The girl either says yes to another date or she doesn't. There is no middle man.

Sometimes singles in this group will see someone in shule who interests them and ask around until they get an introduction to the person. Sometimes singles become involved in Jewish organizations and committees and meet someone at one of the meetings who interests them. Mostly these groups are not segregated--only females or only males. And yes, sometimes you may meet someone who works in the same place you do. You speak, you like what you hear, you go out on a date. Sometimes singles will meet on a college campus.

In one community in particular, in New York, singles provide their own "meet and greet" opportunities by inviting a large group of other singles to a meal on Shabbos. Presumably, over the course of a few weeks or months, singles will have met dozens if not hundreds of other singles, one of whom just might be their bashert. I am not the only observer of this process who comments that a lot of new "best friends" are formed in this way, and very few shidduchim.

So why does this more "relaxed" method not work better than the "stricter" method? One reason might be this--no matter where you are in the religious spectrum you want to marry something more than a "face." When singles are put into a room together and left to choose on their own, their first tool in winnowing down the field to one specific person is looks. After all, they know nothing else about the person. They are not "predisposed" to think well of a person, having heard no wonderful things about them, so all they have to go on is the physical. He asks, she says yes and the dating process has begun. One to six dates later they discover they have absolutely nothing in common with each other, don't share the same lifetime goals and that ends the "shidduch process" and they can start all over again. This is one area where a good shadchan could have saved them time, money and aggravation.

Please don't misunderstand me--looks play an all too important role in the frummer circles as well. But when a shadchan reds a shidduch and neither party has seen the other, the decision to go out on a date is based on something more than "chemistry" alone.

There is also this: when a single has to do all the "work" alone, weariness and disillusionment set in faster. There is no one to give the single chizuk, to cheer them on.

Another problem is the "let me check with my friends" scenario. A single sees someone that appeals, finds out a name and then does want some information about the person. Who do they ask? Their friends. "Chaim, did you ever hear the name Malka_______?" "Oy, avoid that one. I hear she is looking for serious money." Or maybe "Yaakov went out with her a few times and he wasn't enthused." And if the friends should happen not to know the name, the single may find himself at a dead end and the shidduch is never born. This happens to a more limited extent in the circles to the "right," but it does happen.

I am not going to discuss the dating practices that occur when you go far to the left except to say that picking up someone at a bar or a gym or at a cocktail party or on the subway can bring someone a whole lot of grief and frankly, my experience of this kind of dating is zero.

There are pluses and minuses to the dating practices and the shidduch practices of all the various groups in Klal Yisroel. On one end of the spectrum the process is too rigid; on the other end of the spectrum the process is too relaxed. Instead of saying "they have it so easy" and leaving it at that we need to see where we might borrow elements of each others practices, where we need to get rid of certain practices all together, where we need to find something new.

Far, far too often we blame the singles for being single--the problem must be with them. And the older a single gets the more likely that people are going to wonder just "what is wrong with them." What is in dire need of fixing is the method, for the right, the center and the left of center.