Today was/is my first and only blogoversary.
Enjoy the posts below, and enjoy the archives. It’s been great; love you all; wish you all the best and everything you want in life.
One parting question, because I’m very curious: Why do you read this blog? What do get out of it?
Thanks!
~B4S
My younger sister saw this plate in camp and immediately thought of me. I tell ya – I’ve got a sister like no other. It’s currently hanging on my door, and will remain there until I find my personal penguin. Then I’ll tuck it away until my AARP membership card arrives, at which point I’ll probably have forgotten what it’s about will eat off it.
“You have to go to shadchanim. You should go to the Baltimore shadchan, Bad4. It’s an entire day’s trip, but it’s worth it.”
~ NMF #5, who was set up by a family friend.
“You have to tell everyone that you’re trying to get married. You go away for Shobbos and make sure to mention it to your hosts. You tell it to relatives at weddings. Everyone.”
~ NMF #4, who was set up by a shadchan.
“Board in Monsey for high school.”
~ MF #1, who met her husband at her landlady’s kitchen table while in high school.
“Daven a lot. It’s like, seriously, a miracle if you find the right one.”
~ NMF #6, who dated more men than she wants to think about.
“Have fun on dates. You’re at your most attractive when you’re having fun.”
~NMF #5
Have any of you come across strange criteria in your search for a mate? I’ve heard about or read the profiles of many men, and some have the strangest things therein.
Like the guy who only wanted a girl with an advanced science degree. Ph.D.s in astrophysics, anyone? Masters in marine biology? No medical doctors or Ph.D.s in psychology need apply, I guess.
Let’s not forget the guy who wanted a woman with a “sparkling personality” (can anyone define that for me? I’ve always wondered) who would support him for seven years while she helped him “develop his full potential.” I said no thank you; I wanted someone who had more potential than could be developed in seven years, and also someone who didn’t just think about his wife in terms of what she could do for him.
Must be willing to move to Puerto Rico. For all you guys out there struggling with too many suggestions, this is a great way to narrow the field. No woman is willing to move to Puerto Rico. Though people will still offer to go out. People are always telling me to go out with guys who say they want to move to Somalia the day after the wedding. The rationale? “If he likes you enough he’ll change his mind.” I’m not terribly comfortable with that, because if he was open to not moving to Somalia, he wouldn’t claim otherwise before agreeing to go out.
“Family oriented career woman.” If that’s not an oxymoron, then it probably describes most women. Don’t we all want a career as long as it doesn’t interfere with our family? That’s why we’re in college and dating.
Then there was the guy who wrote, “Must like visiting the sick.”
“That one’s not for me,” I said firmly. “The only sick I visit are my friends when it’s not contagious.”
“That’s good enough,” my mother replied. “I’ll tell the shadchan Monday night is ok?”
Anything for a date. Well, almost anything. Cross off Puerto Rico, but if I have to, I’ll get that advanced science degree. I’ll even take a course on coruscating. Just marry me already, somebody!
Every now and then I log in to my gmail and/or gchat and find a friend morose because of shidduchim. Sometimes it’s because they have no date, sometimes it’s because they have a date, and sometimes it’s because they’ve had a date. And then there are the times it’s because they or someone else no longer wants to date.
Half the time it’s something like “My parents are mad at me for saying no to this guy after four dates because I don’t have a good reason to say no; I just can’t think of any good reason to say yes, which I think there should be by the fourth date.”
The other half of the time it’s something like “My friend just said no to a guy for a really dumb reason; I think she should have given him another chance. I hope she’s not ruining her life.”
There’s something that seems wrong about all this to me – after all, if you’re not going on the date, you don’t really know what happened, and you’re hardly capable of judging the wisdom of a “yes” or “no” answer. And yet at the same time, the reason these people know is because their friends tell them (or they tell their parents) for advice and assistance in deciding to say “yes” or “no.”
Shidduch dating is a pretty muddling experience. You go on a date with someone who sounds right. You know that perfect isn’t likely to happen, and you should be happy with almost perfect. But where does “almost” end and “not really” begin? No idea. You know there shouldn’t be any love at first sight, but at which point should the feelings begin to spark? No idea. You know you’re going to have to accept certain hashkafic and background differences, but which ones? No idea. Then you meet this other person and have to figure out if they’re almost perfect enough, if you like them enough, and if their goals are alike enough within the space of about 8 jam-packed dates. It’s enough to make a girl chew down her manicure.
So people recruit their friends and family, who have greater and more varied experience, to help them decide. I once thought this was a drop obscene. I mean, dating gets pretty personal. People tell each other things they don’t really want broadcasted publicly. So what right do you have to pass it along to other people? Which is why dating my first guy was a truly miserable experience. I had no idea whether I could reasonably say no if after the second date I had neither anything positive nor negative to say about him. Luckily, he said he thought it was mutual. Phew. After that I slowly started hashing over some the parts that troubled me out loud to my parents. “He tormented the busboy. It bothered me so much I actually told him to stop, and he made some snide comment about it still being better here than Mexico. Am I allowed to conclude that he’s a jerk?” “Is saying ‘whatever’ to something I’ve said on a first date inconsiderate or just rude?” “Is he just a bit too laid back if he’s 27 and still has no idea what he’d do to earn a living if he had to?”
I still don’t discuss the particulars of dates with friends, but I know for many—particularly those out-of-town singles crammed into attics and basements around NYC independent of any parents—it’s a staple of evening conversation. First they all dress the dater up, choosing her shoes and critiquing her makeup. Then they send her off and eagerly count the hours until her return. After which, of course, they want to know how it went. A friend of mine in such an attic would always hint about the dating news flying about up there. Someone had broken up yet again after the 5th date. Another person couldn’t get set up with anyone normal because of some background issues. And then someone else had gone out with a guy for a month and liked him fine, but didn’t “feel” anything; should they break up? That was the hot topic for a full week. (They broke up. She was engaged 4 months later.)
Deciding to break up is a very difficult decision. Nobody wants to be accused of being “too picky,” and yet neither does anyone want to be stuck in a decidedly unloving relationship for life. Friends are supposed to help, but they don’t really know enough to do the job well. Besides, they don’t either want the responsibility of their friends’ future happiness on their conscience. So how do they discuss dating?
Very carefully, I gather.
I called an expert date-discussing friend of mine, who, it seems, always knows the particulars of her friends’ dates to find out how a pro does it.
She said a friend has to understand that she’s not really being asked her opinion. She’s merely being used as a sounding board. Her entire purpose is to grunt “mhmm” occasionally and ask leading questions when the dater pauses for lack of direction. If she has enough information to form an opinion, she can inject a smidgen of it into her leading questions, but nothing more than that. “It’s not your life,” she explains. “It’s not really your business.” If you think she’s wrong, keep it to yourself.
Or grumble about it on g-chat.
Ever wondered where your type of guy is hiding?
You’re not alone. One Humble Jewish Opinion sings about it here…
And since her blog doesn’t let you link to individual posts, it’s also here.
Let’s fix the system. In my opinion, it doesn’t need more than a bit of tuning. The only people who are frustrated are the ones who aren’t married yet. Duh. It’s like a manual – it gets you frustrated, but that doesn’t mean we should do away with manuals. Or traffic lights. They can be calibrated better, but we still need them. And don’t jump on my metaphors because that’s just nitpicky and there are many more where these came from. Any system is going to frustrate some people (though Mac users won’t admit to this). You can do things to widen the standard deviation, but at the end of the day, some people are going to get caught in the left corner of the bell curve.
“What Men Really Want, Never Mind What They Say They Want” or “What Women Really Want, Never Mind What They Say They Want.”
- I have no idea what men really want, never mind what they say they want, not being a man. I do have the privilege of being a woman, and I suppose I really want someone tall, dark, and handsome who utterly adores me to sweep me off my feet… But yeah – is what I want so different then what I say I want? I don’t know. When I see what I want and answer him “yes” I’ll then be able to compare him to what I’ve said I wanted and let you know.
“Not sure if you’ve mentioned this, but guys who are late on dates. On that note, perhaps a list of turn-offs.”
- I actually started a post on how to be a gentleman date, but the list of “musts” was so short (I couldn’t even reach four without help) it hardly seemed worth posting.
“Also, perhaps you’ll disagree, but I do NOT see a shortage of young women seeking working guys. Like that letter on Yeshiva World, I was surprised by it, because I think there are plenty of young women seeking working guys, don’t you?”
- Every time a guy writes in somewhere that he’s an ehrliche worker who gets no dates, a bevy of females write back that they want to date him. In fact, I do, too. I don’t know how we can get these guys and girls together, but clearly there’s a missing link.
“How about a post on being yourself, not being what other people want you to be, because the right person will like you for who you truly are? Or have you already written about that?”
- It’s an overall theme, but these are the more obvious posts…
“Maybe something on what it would take to actually get the frum world to convert to the B4S ideology?”
- Like please just chill? Nah. If there weren’t people in Shidduchville, who would we laugh at?
“Singles who feel this have oft been burned by an NMF who ‘fell off the planet’ the minute she had the wedding band on her finger.”
- I have never felt abandoned by married friends (topic touched upon here). It should be noted: I invited six people to my house a recent Sunday: three single, three married. The first person to show up was married, and early. The second person to show up was married, and on time. The third person was single, and late. The fourth person was married, but just dropping in to show solidarity. The fifth person was single, and late. The sixth person was single, and forgot all about it and never showed up. ‘Nuff said?
“How about a list of top places to go on dates and what to talk about – for all those new to dating.”
- See the Mikomos.com and Yaron’s Dating Guide links in the blogroll on the right side of this page.
“i think a list of yeshivas and girls schools and what type of people go there. ya it’ll be generalized but i think it would help the so called shidduch crisis!”
- There’s always a bit of a range, and any attempt would land the attemptee in the virtual stocks. When I want to test my friendships, I’ll give it a shot.
“maybe it’s time to discuss some valid, more reasonable yet effective ways to get one’s name into the International Pool of Available Young Ladies (IPAYL). Or IPAYM, if applicable. …NEF/NMFs, … Formal Shadchanus… or more natural meeting of the genders. Or shidduch shabbatonim (Gateways, etc).”
- Some people get married off by relatives and neighbors, a few by friends (though I don’t know any), and doubtless some do meet at shabbatons. I know a few out-of-towners who married themselves off via assiduous application of shadchan. I think, like any good strategy, diversity is key. I could see getting a full post out of this, actually… On the serious note, there’s also this “Shadchan Magazine” thing – definitely a way to get your stats out in the open.
“You still haven’t posted “my” post. Email me if you need me to jog your memory 
.”
“the frustration of making decisions (tips appreciated also)”
“How about whether or not to speak to friends about dates?”
- Hm… All the same thing, essentially. Will get to it.
I have 321 posts on shidduchim, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t covered half of what there is to kvetch about. What did I miss that I shouldn’t have?
I’ve written this post around seven times in about as many different styles and angles, but never found one that I actually liked enough to put up. Yesterday, ‘Sad’ asked about, well, sadness associated with being left behind. It’s a subject touched upon in “Soft Gloom“, “Zoom Zoom…Cough Cough“, and “An Insensitive Question,” and also in this post, which is why I finally decided to stick one up and let you people fix it up with comments.
It’s 1 a.m. and you’re surfing the net in a cloud of gloom. You just got home from a friend’s wedding and you know you should be happy but…
But…
But why not you?
You’ve watched your friends parade past, becoming NEFs, then brides, then NMFs, all of them accomplishing what you can’t seem to do – find a mate. They all spent the night texting their husbands, gazing adoringly across the room, and beginning sentences with “My husband says…” or “Me and my husband…” You want to do that! Why can’t you?
It isn’t for lack of trying. You’ve dated, or tried to date, as much as they. You’ve visited shadchanim and appeared in public primped and smiling and told all and sundry that you’re “available” and you still aren’t getting dates – or at least not good ones. What’s wrong with you?
Probably nothing.
Look at people you know who got married. Whoa – hey, if they can find a match, why not you? Now look at the single people you know who are hanging around reading shidduch blogs – some of them are just great. God only knows why they haven’t been snapped up yet. And look at the elderly 24-year-olds and even 31-year-olds who get married every now and then. See – they found someone who appreciated them finally. It’s really incredible it took so long for some of them.
And despite what people say, it has nothing to do with how you are or what you’re looking for. The saying is that every pot has a lid, and if those pots found their lids, gosh, anyone should be able to. Snippy sarcastic people, goggle-eyed air-brained people, ugly people, domineering people, people who like to talk about anything as long as it’s themselves, even people looking for the impossible (right wing yeshivish with a job) have all successfully married themselves off while some of the sanest, intelligent, mainstream, and attractive people have not.
Who can account for it? Not I. But it gives one hope. Because the right guy must be out there. And who knows? He might be the next one you meet.
Us poor, deprived singles have little to put light in our life. One of our few cherished pleasures is snickering at our NMFs (newly married friends) and NEFs (newly engaged friends). NMF #7 alerted me to yet another thing to poke fun at while we waited for the chupa to begin at NMF #8’s wedding.
If you ever speak to an NMF at a wedding, you may noticed that their attention is not quite as focused on you as it could be. Whenever a hat or pair of pants wanders by, their eyes flicker, their face turns, and sometimes, their entire head twists. This is the NMF Twist. It is caused by the anticipation of seeing their Very Own walk past, and the possibility of exchanging goo-goo eyes with them as they do.
For the lonely, insecure single friend who isn’t sure if she is really likable, this constant peering over of one’s shoulder by one’s conversation partner can be a blow to the self-esteem. It does seem very much like they’re looking around for someone more interesting to talk to. Know and be relieved: they’re just being young couplish. One day you’ll probably be doing the NMF Twist yourself, so be indulgent.
Yesterday, at the Shobbos Kallah of SMF (soon to be married friend) #8, I had the audacity to say that I thought dating was fun.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t like dating. I hate the research and the buildup and the prepping and the wasted time and the anticipation that inevitably precedes disappointment. I don’t like most of it. But I do think it can be, like many time wasters, fun.
“Nooo,” protested the friend and purpose of the get-together. “Maybe for the first date or two, but afterwards, no way.” She has the luxury of holding this opinion because she’s getting married tonight.
I disagree. I think the first date or two are the most miserable. They’re the ones where you’re not sure what to wear, what to do, what to say, how to act, how to react, how to feel, when to say no, and what is good grounds for saying ‘no.’ People get pretty messed up on their first ever dates.
Case in point, a sorta quiet guy was set up with a more-than-sorta-quiet girl. Which is to say, she said maybe a half dozen words the entire date, and they weren’t consecutive. The shadchan convinced him to take her out again and again, and he chose locations he thought she ought to enjoy, based on what he heard about her. Didn’t work. By the seventh – yep, that was seventh – date, he knew about as much about her as he had before they started going out. Afraid of facing his bully of a shadchan again, the guy walked her to her front door and said, “I don’t think we’re meant for each other.” He later heard that she was expecting a proposal.
Yeah, that’s what we call a learning experience type of first date, and also a miserable experience type of first date. That’s not even the type of story that makes a good bad-date story. Most first-ever dates don’t. It’s only later, once you’ve learned to relax, be yourself, and not care that you can begin really enjoying yourself.
And there’s plenty to enjoy. You’re getting a pretty personal snapshot of a human being, a bit of entertainment, maybe something to eat or drink, and in the worst-case scenario, a good bad-date story. You can look at the goings on with an ironic detachment because you don’t care as much.
Like the time I was sipping my carrot juice when a woman who looked ten months pregnant walks into the restaurant. She needed about 2 extra feet of clearance in front. Not only was she walking, but she was very nicely turned out in a baby-blue outfit with ruffly stuff on the collar, cuffs, and hem.
“Did you see that pregnant lady?” my date giggled after she passed. “She looked funny.”
Naturally, I was taken aback for a moment. Then the humor kicked in. “If Gary Larson drew a dating comic strip…” I thought. And mildly amused, I turned the conversation elsewhere.
Despite the view of SMF #8, I think most girls take their dating relatively lightly – relative to guys, I mean. Girls expect some bad experiences before they find The One, and will more casually go on a date just to see/just in case. Guys don’t, and it’s not just because of the travel and money. I mean, my brother is dating in Yerushalayim. He dresses, she dresses. He travels, she travels. He pays for a drink. He talks she talks. He goes home, she goes home. At the end of the date, he’s invested a grand total of 10 shekel more than she has. And he still finds dating more frustrating and jading than I do.
“Girls figure they’ll date a little and eventually find their bashert. Guys decide to start dating when they want to get married,” claimed the mother who interviewed me on behalf of her jaded dater son, who, it seemed, was sick of dating without making progress (whatever that would mean) and therefore required this sort of thorough research before any date could happen.
There’s certainly evidence supporting her statement. I don’t know many girls who really thought they’d marry the first guy they’d date. I was rather hoping I wouldn’t. But both my brothers hoped they would, and one even did. Girls tend to think there’s a certain amount of dating you have to do before you get married, so they want to start early. Guys push it off until they’re ready, be it with a degree, an income, or whatever. And when they’re ready, they want to do it. When you enter with that kind of expectation, you get frustrated pretty fast. And that takes all the pleasure out of it. Instead of thinking, “At least I got a good salad and a great bad-date story,” you just think, “Another evening wasted on a lemon.”
Which could be why, despite having dated the same amount of guys as jaded-dating-guy has dated girls, I’m not jaded, and he is.
My mother should be grateful.
PS: If this theory is at all accurate, I ask the readership: does jadedness eventually peak, drop, and plateau? I mean, a person can’t be exceedingly jaded forever. At some point you get used to it, and apathy kicks in, right? I ask only because I feel another chart coming on… It would look something like this, I think:
Today someone asked me if my parents are applying the pressure now that my sister is engaged. I don’t understand this “pressure” thing, actually. I should probably be glad – I get the impression that it’s not the sort of thing you enjoy if you feel it. But I don’t know what it is, exactly.
Is pressure when people say things like “what are you waiting for?” or “just marry someone already”? I wouldn’t call that pressure; I’d call that idiocy. If you could marry without a second party having to agree to it, you’d probably have done it years ago. If anyone says that to you, answer, “I ordered him last week, but shipping takes 10-14 business days.” Alternatively, pull out a photo of the most unlikely guy and say that you’re just waiting for him to propose tomorrow night. They might just feel relieved when they don’t see you on OnlySimchas.com.
Maybe it’s when your parents ask things like “Why don’t you give him another chance?” when you’ve just explained that he blew his nose on the tablecloth. Or when they stop trusting your “I just know it isn’t going to work,” because how can you just know something like that? Especially when the neighbors’ daughters don’t know such things about their dates—look, another one got engaged last night! That could be pressure – it could also be borderline emotional abuse. When a date is really bad, blow your own nose on the tablecloth. Then you won’t have to worry about being the one to say ‘no’.
Or is pressure when your parents have another date lined up for you every night and you can’t remember the last time you weren’t wearing lipstick at 8 pm? Definitely time to tell your parents, “He’s going to say ‘no’—I kept forgetting he wasn’t that other Dovid and asked about his rain dance in New Guinea.” When they blanch, “Rain dance in New Guinea?” it’s your cue to feign delirious dreams and potential psychological side-effects of constant dating. If you’re unsure how to be mad with a method, read Hamlet.
Or maybe it’s when they don’t let your forget that your current tafkid in life is to get married? “Like this new recipe? I’ll teach it to you for when you get married.” (Answer: Heaven forefend I should cook well before marriage.) Or “You’re coming to my uncle’s neighbor’s wedding! There’s going to be a shadchan there. I think.” (Answer: She’ll get a great impression of me sulking at a wedding I don’t want to be at.) Or “There’s a yeshiva shabbaton going on down the block. Want to stroll past and see if anyone looks interesting?” (Answer: No, I was planning to walk cross-town with an Available sign on my back instead.) Or “I hope you don’t eat like that on a date.” (Answer: Yes of course. I want him to see me how I really am.)
Or is it when they shove you out the door in the morning and say “Don’t come home without a diamond ring”? That would be pressure indeed.
I’ve never experienced any of the above. What I have experienced is relatives, family friends, and other strangers saying “So now it’s your turn!” and “So now there’s nothing in your way!” and “Now I hope to hear the same about you soon!” as if something drastic has changed.
Nope – the closest I’ve come to feeling pressure regarding marriage from my parents was when my father threw up his hands and suggested I just bring a suitable guy home for dinner one night. Now that is pressure. I mean, have you tried looking for suitable guys recently? They’re not exactly a dime a dozen. I’m glad it’s not my primary responsibility. I don’t know how my parents manage it—for both me and my brother. Now that must be pressure.
Received via email:
My grandparents came over on Father’s Day along with my three cousins on my father’s side, one of which is married and has a ten month old baby. As we were playing with the baby…
My grandmother (completely serious, not joking – she doesn’t really joke too much): “Erachet, you should get married and have a baby. I think your father would like that.”
Me: *wordlessly trying to figure out what you say to a comment like that*
He: “So, do you like animals?”
She: “Only ones that are small enough for me to run over with my car without damaging it.”
The discussion: retirement communities (where the houses are mostly one level and the criteria for entrance is over 50 and with no children under the age of 18).
The lead-up: Daughter comments to mother: “You can’t retire there yet – I’m only 16.”
Mother to daughter: “Oh I don’t think those places are such a good idea. A person needs different types of people around them.”
Daughter to mother: “Then I can stay 16 forever. Phew.”
Mother exclaims: “Chas vishalom! Im yirtza Hashem you’ll get married.”
Me, eavesdropping: “????”
Some people can ruin every conversation.
“So…?”
“Oh, he’s great. As far as I can tell, he’s everything he’s touted to be, just what I ‘want’, and everything else that’s good and desirable—“
“But…?”
“Everything but a good conversationalist. Communication between us was just short of nonexistent.”
“And…?”
“If he wants to go out again, I’ll give it a shot, but I doubt he will.”
I’d be curious to know what percentage of matches make it past the first (and second) date.
Just being sensible for a moment, there’s no point in (a girl) doing the FBI-caliber background check until after that first date.
Just from my experience, the extensive research rarely disqualifies a suggested match. Usually you can tell from their shidduch resume if they’re in the ballpark, and if they are, you’re not likely to hear much that doesn’t support that from the handpicked references, or even the references’ references. No – the big disqualifier is the First Date.
The first date is when you find out that the guy who seemed to be a perfect match in every point you asked about is an irreconcilable non-match in the one area you didn’t think necessary to ask about. Like the guy who had the same general goals and even some of the same hobbies as me. We forgot to ask how he handles education in women (and could anyone have answered that anyway?) and yeah, I don’t think he enjoyed the date much, for which I’m still a bit sorry.
The first date is also when you find out that all the flattering details you heard about him from his friends and neighbors were either misrepresented or misunderstood. The most egregious department of misinformation, in my experience, is a guy’s college experience. If they say he got into an Ivy League, you reserve judgment until you know it wasn’t something like NYU’s for-profit division, where anyone can enroll providing they’re eligible for financial aid, or Columbia’s engineering school, where anyone can enroll, providing they’re rich and not a complete idiot. And if they say he’s got a degree at all, well 10-to-1 it’s something his parents forced him to get, is in a field he hates, and is something he never intends to use, ever, even if he goes to work. Or else it’s something like “sociology” because he never intends to use the degree, so why not enjoy the experience? But I’m digressing a lot. Pardon me.
My point is, since the date itself is more likely to disqualify a fellow than the research, why not spare yourself the anguish and skip the research until after the first date? Chances are good you’ll never have to do it! The point of research (I think) is to see if the guy is what he appears to be, which should be close to what you want him to be and also what you perceive him to be. So wouldn’t it make sense to do it after you’ve seen what he is?
Disclaimer: I guess this doesn’t apply as much to guys, who get many more unlikely suggestions, and who also have to dish out the cash for dates. I imagine they’ll want to do just enough research to be able to emphatically cross off anyone utterly wrong.
I told Bas~Melech she had two days to write this post before I wrote it myself, and she made the deadline, so permit me to direct you to her blog for today’s entertainment.
(My personal addition: the only boys who seem to like me don’t even have their baby teeth yet. Maybe the Baby Teeth Shadchanim are the ones I should be going to.)
(As a bit of an excuse for not posting – I’m in middle of cleaning up my room, which means it’s a larger mess than usual, and my USB is somewhere under it all. Bear with me.)
It was one of those urban legends that high school girls gasp and get indignant about early in the a.m. on shabbatons. That your high school graduation picture is your official shidduch picture. That mothers dig up yearbooks to find your face before approving a date, that yeshiva guys spend late afternoons flipping through the “Graduates” section choosing their favorite mug shots, that no men’s dormitory is complete without a stack of yearbooks for dating purposes.
Naturally, we were indignant. We were still naive high school girls, confident that our marriages would be based on something more elevated than appearances. Plus, we found the idea of guys looking at photos of girls a bit obscene.
To a great extent, and for much the same reasons, many of us still do. The idea of having to surpass a minimum threshold of good looks makes us indignant. Beauty is only skin deep, it’s what inside that counts, and how can you judge someone by the color of their eyes? we argue. Ugly people deserve a fair shot, we protest. There are many (fat) guys happily married to overweight girls who they swore they wouldn’t date for weight reasons, we point out. Would you like it if we asked for pictures of you? we demand.
I, personally, don’t care to know what my date looks like beforehand. There’s a pleasant element of surprise in the process without it. Especially if there’s a phone call first – then you build up some preconceived notion based on the voice which is nearly always wrong and just heightens the fun.
But another point is that nobody really looks like their picture. A picture is a frozen moment in time – usually a posed, fake moment frozen under strong lights. When you look at a real person, they’re animated by personality, and after time, your perception of them becomes clouded by what you know about them personally. I’ve actually failed to recognize some people in photographs because they’re just not the same when they’re not moving.
Of course, I have a personal bias against the photo thing, because I don’t have a single photograph of me that I like. The quest for the perfect shidduch photo has been ongoing since I threw my high school graduation pictures in the trash. Whenever my critics (read, family and friends) assure me that I look presentable, we snap a few pictures, but they never like the results. Whereas, the one picture that everyone seems to like is one where I don’t actually look like myself – I’m wearing a hand-me-up jacket from my sister, have straightened hair, etc. The fact that people preface their comments on the photo with “Is that you?” kinda clinches it. It’s enough to make a girl lose confidence and enter a convent. Or just refuse to date guys who request a photograph. Hey – if they want to know what I look like, they can just find themselves a yearbook.
Quick question while I whip up a post on the subject:
Do you ask to see a photo before arranging a date? If so, why? Please ID self as male dater, female dater, parent (male/female), or shadchan.
It seems to be a growing trend for mothers to date prospective daughters-in-law before their sons are forced to waste time on the girls. I can’t help but wonder, based on what I hear about the results of such interviews, if this is such a great idea… for the guys.
I mean, let’s face it. Every mother thinks her son is just perfect. Therein lies the problem. Since nothing the little Prince can do is ever bad, Mom is less discriminating about what she says about her son. I know one person who sat through a 50 minute interview where the mother felt so bad for her son because of all the terrible circumstances that brought out the jerk in him. She didn’t say it like that. It was more like “he’s surrounded by idiots therefore he sometimes can seem a drop impatient” type of exoneration. The girl wasn’t impressed, and ultimately turned down the guy. She later admitted that she was glad of the interview – it’s less effort to date Mom than to date Prince.
Another girl was forced into a viewing session because Mom wanted to make sure Prospective Date wasn’t lying about her height or photoshopping her picture too much. During their little meeting, while waxing lyrical about her wonderful progeny, the mother pulled out a picture of the most hideous man since Quasimodo and was practically teary eyed as she presented it to the girl.
“Oh how nice!” the young lady exclaimed. “Where was it taken?” For lack of anything more central to smile about, she complimented the background.
“At least I didn’t have the buildup and anticipation followed by the disappointment,” she said, claiming to be quite happy about the interview.
I did a telephone interview myself, mostly out of curiosity, and actually liked it. Instead of stuff about me being filtered through half-a-dozen references who are never quite sure they know the answers to the complicated questions, I answered them myself in full color and hi-def detail. And in return, I got a glowing portrait of the young man in all his flawed glory. Definitely not the stuff you hear from friends and roommates. It was so entertaining and enlightening that I confess, I would consider doing it again. But guys – if you demand this kind of research from your mothers, or if your mother is doing it of her own volition, beware. There is nobody who knows you better and can give a more honest description.
I once read about a study which said that people tend to marry people who are of comparable appearance.
Meaning, handsome guys marry beautiful girls, and ugly men pair up with hideous women. No, this wasn’t a summer movie summary, it was a real live, supposedly scientific study probably costing oodles of money. Don’t ask any questions – not about how the study was designed, who rated appearances by what criteria, or whatever, because I don’t know. I don’t know where the article is or where I saw it, but I’m repeating it for one obvious reason: it’s a fun idea. And because it’s another great reason to look forward to meeting your future husband – so you can see what he looks like – and by extension, yourself. Now isn’t that a good reason to get married?
Of course, for legal reasons, I have to insert the proper caution about not taking this as a binding law, etc. Definitely don’t reject girls just because they’re not up to your self-evaluated hotness standard, and girls, if he doesn’t look like a Disney prince, it shouldn’t be a blow to your ego. After all, it’s what’s inside that counts, beauty is only skin deep [insert standard speech about inner beauty here].
…while doing some surfing on the subject this morning, I came across this article which contradicts the above, and this article which suggests that women are better off marrying down in the looks department. Oh well. It was a nice theory.
If you love answering questions about your dating prefs, here’s the place to go.
No alternative links offered this time.
Last night someone told a story about a girl who came home from a speech and told her mother, “That’s it! No more phone calls. Rabbi So-and-So says the only necessary histadlus is davening.” Her mother smiled and said, “Sounds great. You daven. I’ll make phone calls.”
The storyteller then went on to say that many girls do wonder what sort of hishtadlus they should be doing in terms of shidduchim.
Well that just bowled me over, because the question has never, in my two years of dating, ever occurred to me.
In a more abstract form, the question of hishtadlus comes up often enough. I mean there was the time my mother mentioned that the hill going up to YU is steep, which immediately invited speculation on why she knows the terrain around YU. We concluded that she must be spending her spare time parading in front of it in a sandwich board alerting the attendant young men to her eligible daughter. It was roundly agreed that I wasn’t quite that desperate yet, and my mother was brought around to say that she would never been seen parading my name in front of YU again.
Of course once you enter such territory, it’s difficult to get out, and soon we were thinking that better than a sandwich board would be a hotdog stand in front of Beis Medrash Gavoha. A small picture next to the rotisserie and my stats on the grease paper that wrapped the hotdogs would be more than enough publicity to marry me off. However, my father has a day job and really the whole thing made me feel a bit uncomfortable, so we never took it further.
I would give both those examples as the sort of extreme hishtadlus you really don’t need to start with – and most people don’t. On the other end of the spectrum, I don’t know of any female who wants to get married who is just sitting at home saying Tehillim. Most of them are Being Seen, meeting shadchanim, and even dressing up before they appear in public. They’ve got some sort of list of stats and can spout What They’re Looking For upon the slightest prompting.
So what’s the question about hishtadlus exactly? If you should you go to every man, woman, or child who calls him- or herself a shadchan? Er, really no. We’re talking about how to do hishtadlus here, not how to lose the will to go on. Should you do your hair before taking out the garbage? If it makes you feel efficacious and gets the garbage out before the truck passes, I reserve judgment. Should you be hounding everyone you know on a monthly basis to “find someone” for you? No, I should think every other month is often enough.
But this is all common sense. It just seems like the sort of thing you should know without asking. If you feel like things are going just fine, then they are. If you’re not getting enough dates for your desirability quotient, step up the hishtadlus. If you’re getting too many, go kvetch to your teddy bear because you’ll get no sympathy anywhere else.
Every person has to find that not-too-unhappy medium between inactivity and insanity. Because that’s one thing you shouldn’t have to do hishtadlus for – making yourself miserable, I mean. If God wants you miserable, he can very well take care of it himself, without your assistance. Then again, laziness is appreciated by nobody – human or deity.
So what’s the right amount of hishtadlus? After all this maundering I would say, just a bit more than you’d like to do. Which is probably what you’ve been doing anyway, and why you’ve likely never had this question either.
So who asks it?
I never cease to be amazed by the things people tell me about myself based on my blog alone, not all of them very gratifying. The most common assumption, you will be amazed to hear, is that I’m shidduch-obsessed. People presume that just because I post something with near daily frequency on the subject of shidduchim it means I think about little else. I can’t say I follow this line of reasoning. It seems to me that, if anything, I’m obsessed with posting about shidduchim on a near daily basis, which is a very silly obsession when you put it that way, but only slightly more harmful than an obsession with shoes, and far less expensive. Dating obsessed? I don’t think any aspect of dating has ever kept me awake at night, but then again, that’s an unfair test because very little does. If I’m not in Never-Never Land by 11:15 then it’s a late night. I did once crawl out of bed and grope for pen and paper when I thought of a better way to phrase a sentence for a post, but that was a long time ago. I’m on a 12-step plan and proceeding nicely.
I still dare not tap out the words ”I am not shidduch obsessed” because people will just laugh. Instead, I will attempt to demonstrate true shidduch obsession as displayed in the people around me.
This conversation has occurred too many times in various permutations:
She: So, anything happening?
Me: Nah, how’s things with you?
She: Really? Nothing?
Me: Well, I bought a pair of shoes yesterday. Is that a headline?
She: Very funny – you know what I mean.
Me: I thought I did but now I’m just confused.
She: I mean are you busy? You know…
Me: Course I’m busy. It’s vacation!
The first few times this happened I was completely baffled until she stopped using euphemisms, but now I cruelly string such people along until they just admit ”I’m asking nosy questions about your dating life.”
Then there’s the ol’ “Hey I called last night and you didn’t answer.”
”I was at a bar mitzvah.”
“Oh, that’s all?”
I long ago learned not to use the phrase ”going out” to mean ”leaving home for some other venue,” and that ”a date” with girlfriends must be immediately specified as such. I have stumbled many times in such matters because I do not immediately assume that all excitement in my life should be tied to dating. Sometimes, holding this view feels a little like ordering a steak in Berkeley, California. People think you’re very weird and even a bit degenerate.
And don’t forget those conversations where you mention enjoying something random like “I love making radish-seed necklaces while hanging from a tree by my knees,” and someone’s eyes go wide as they say, “We’ll have to find you someone who likes that too,” and they immediately become intrigued by the challenge while nodding knowingly about your persistently single status. Not only should such people be blacklisted from shadchanus, but they should be gagged at social events to prevent them from ruining conversations. I mean – we were talking about the elevated art of making radish-seed necklaces. Do they have to drag the tone down by discussing my non-existent love life?
Once, when I complained to a group of friends that we couldn’t seem to get together without discussing dating, one quipped, “All roads lead to shidduchim.” She compared it to 12th grade where people seem incapable of speaking about anything but seminary.
But that isn’t true. I rarely found myself in seminary-oriented conversations in 12th grade. Maybe because people were trying to tip-toe around my supposed grief at not having been accepted anywhere – or maybe not. Whatever the reason, the people around me then didn’t seem to have seminary on the brain in quite the same way that people have shidduchim on the brain now.
It seems that some people, when they look at me, don’t see Bad4, they see A Single Girl. But honest, folks – when I look in the mirror, I don’t see A Single Girl at all. I just see a single girl – me. (Unless my evil twin is behind me making faces.) And that’s why I think about tons of non-shidduch-related things throughout the day (and night): growing spinach, eating durian monthong, tutoring earth science, Shakespeare on the Run, melting curves for DNA, arranging bridal showers, planning road trips, reading good books, roller blading/bicycling, keeping up with married friends, posting on BadforShidduchim, buying shoes, dating clothes, visiting shadchanim, checking out guys, preparing for dates, going on them, recovering afterwards…
Obsessed? You gotta be kidding.
G’s been hard at work again. Does anyone else see the irony in using a song about the horrors of marriage to describe the horrors of a shadchan?
I’m in middle of preparing a bridal shower for a friend who plans to invite our entire high school grade to her wedding. Her sister surreptitiously sent me her guest list, which was beautifully ordered alphabetically with everyone’s last name and married name in their own columns along with the requisite telephone and address. This gave me the unprecedented opportunity count the exact number of my high school classmates who are married. It looked like most of them, but when I did the math, I found that at the youthful age of 21/22, a whopping 28% of my class is still single.
(Just to annoy the people who don’t like this stuff: I would love to see the statistics and histogram for our engagements. I mean, the engagements haven’t been steady. I’m pretty sure there was a large explosion when we were turning 20, but I don’t have the dates to back that up. I’d love to find a wedding-invitation collector from my class so I can plot the graph and see if it’s near sigmoidal. Then it would be fun to predict the rate of engagement until it hits 10%, because of course it’s asymptotic, since, according to the shidduch crisis statistics, 10% of us will never marry. If anyone has collected invitations from their class – can you send me the dates? If you’ve recently graduated, keep track – this could make a great research paper for college.)
Back to the boring stuff – I was going down the list checking out who was what (in terms of marriage status). I was hoping not to find some common denominator among the bachelorettes. I’m glad to say there was none. The list included—if we must categorize—hot Chanis, super aidel maidels, Flatbush girls, sefardim, loud types, and an awful lot of the quiet girls. That last one was worrying, so I culled through the married people list, and was relieved to find a few who could potentially be described as quiet too.
Note to audience: this is really not my idea of awesome evening entertainment. I do many more exciting things, like clean my room. But this is entertaining—don’t you agree?
Anyway, based on this informal survey, I conclude that it’s too soon to consider me a crisis or a statistic or a nebach case. That’s what I get from reading the class list, but apparently not everyone.
Which might explain the latest high school service: in-house shadchaning. From LA to Borough Park, bais yaakov high schools are calling in professional shachanim to set up their graduates. I only became aware of this exciting new trend when I received a letter from my high school inviting me to fill out a form and meet with their personal shadchan one fine evening. A cute idea if I ever heard of one, plus they get to say that they guide their students right up to the chupah.
Eugh.
Still, for my part (or my parents, actually) it’s nice returns on all that tuition that seemed so emphatically gone.
Material Maidel takes a trip to the shadchan and wonders how to write her shidduch resume. Been there, done that. Still not sure what to put on it.
It’s always amusing to see what sort of key words people use to arrive at this blog from a search. People search for the oddest things. But today I was tickled to discover that I’m the top result when you Google “can you marry seals.”
The answer, at least according to the post that results, is a sort of yes.
I was disappointed and disconcerted by the lackluster male response to Apple’s shidduch resume.
The wise and all-knowing They have always told us that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. None of the men I know have ever contradicted this – though possibly because their mouths were full at the time.
But here is a young and eligible bachelorette (almost 21, thin, pretty, not dumb, going fast, come and get her gentlemen!) clearly demonstrating that she understands the gastronomic-cardiac route, and not a single man seems the faintest bit impressed!
Is this new generation of men pickier? More demanding? Is their gastronomic highway blocked by a gourmet tollbooth? Or has a new bypass to their heart been built elsewhere, rendering the stomach one obsolete?
Guys in the audience – please let us know. There are single women curious (read: desperate) to know the shortcut to your hearts.
Erachet contributes ‘Stick to the Status Quo’ to The Shidduch Musical.
It’s really quite shocking the sort of deep inner desires that eligible young men and women harbor… Follow the link at your own risk!
Hayley Mills singing in Summer Magic about what every girl should know/if she wants to catch a beau.
“You must walk feminine/Talk feminine…”
Well, this explains everything. Or almost everything. I’ve been trying to understand this business of femininity ever since I discovered that I was a girl, which was when they threw me out of the men’s section in shul at eight years old.
I know it’s tied to the color pink, to shrieking/squealing, and involves a spiritual connection to department stores. It would then follow, in my mind, that squealing in delight at a pink sweater in Macys should be the ultimate in femininity, but another well-documented characteristic of femininity is its unpredictable lack of adherence to logic.
Impracticality, I know, is part of femininity. We wear skirts that aren’t meant to be walked in, bathing suits that aren’t meant to be swam in, and shoes that kill the feet that wear them – first degree murder at that – and we’re supposed to be happy because it’s pretty. And we don’t have any pockets.
Pockets were eliminated from women’s clothing so that designers can sell more handbags. They could double their market by taking the pockets off of men’s clothing, but men are not yet ready to walk around with little bags dangling off their wrists. They would storm the bastions of style and tar and feather the designers and ride them on a rail to Harajuku to get their pockets back. Which is why they still have them. Women just squeal in excitement at the opportunity to accessorize and rush off to the nearest department store.
That just about sums up my knowledge, and as you can see, walking and talking feminine aren’t addressed.
“Smile feminine/beguile feminine.”
Beguile feminine – this I understand. It involves flattering the male ego, mostly.
Classic example: Scarlett O’Hara saying, “Oh, I never can make up my mind which of you two’s handsomer. I was awake all last night trying to figure it out.” to the twins Brent and Stew. (Hey wait – is that odd use of emphasis feminine talking? We’re making progress.)
“Complement his masculinity…”
Another classic: Many a woman who would sensibly take a shoe to a cockroach while home alone, will shriek and hop up on a chair when her husband is around to rescue her. It’s the clasped-hands-‘my hero’ thing that both men and women seem to love. Hey, the damsel in distress theme has lasted so long for a reason. Women feel special when they’re rescued, while men feel strong and virile when they’re rescuing. Think about what happens when Bambi first sees Falene – speaking of which, there’s a doe who knows how to smile feminine. You know – head tipped slightly down, looking up through the eyelashes, coy smile. If you don’t look like a Disney heroine (Ariel preferred), better practice in the mirror first. That probably also takes care of “Glance feminine.”
“Be radiant but delicate…Be demure, sweet and pure.”
I think this is where the average career woman trips over her corporate pumps – but there’s hope. A year or so ago the BBC ran an article on a woman who wrote a book suggesting that marriages would be happier if modern women abandoned their power suits at the door and went back to the 1950s housewife charade – soft, helpless at everything not traditionally feminine, great at dressing well and cooking meat and potatoes and saying ‘whatever you prefer dear’ a lot. The response was huge, and the comments ranged from “Yes! Women need to remember that their place is in kitchen, and they should stay there!” to “If my wife ever stops trying to get the last word in an argument, I’m divorcing her.”
Every pot has a lid.
But just in case, practice glancing through your eyelashes.
(Thanks O for the idea)
