Another evening in the Shidduchim household. Subject: the current girl under scrutiny for Also4.
Mr. S: I thought he ruled out girls from B’nei Brak?
Mrs. S: No, he seems very interested in her.
Mr. S: Well I’m pretty sure I remember him saying he wasn’t interested in B’nei Brak.
Mrs. S: I guess not because he wants to go out with her.
Mr. S: (frustrated) It’s so hard to keep up with the latest whims of our dating children.
Bad4: (gently clears throat)
Mr. S: Yes, both of them. (pointed look in Bad4’s direction)
Mrs. S: Yes, I have to keep checking with Bad4 that we’re on the same page.
Mr. S: So, what sort of guy are you looking for today, Bad4?
Bad4: Forever learner, minimum 2 foot long beard.
Mr. S: (choking noise)
Mrs. S: Well, we’ll have to see what we can do.
Bad4: It’s a limited time offer, some restrictions may apply. Offer ends oh-two-oh-eight-two-thousand-ten.
Mr. S: Then we’d better move fast.
Okay, yes, I have retrenched a little since my first date. But I don’t think I’ve changed my criteria much in, oh, a year or so. And I don’t mean the beard length – I’m not that detailed. But sometimes we debate the details.
I mean, I have said things like “Yech, nobody from LA,” or “No pre-med, please.” But that doesn’t mean I really want anyone with those characteristics to be rejected outright without my examining their stats for redeeming factors. And sometimes the parentals will rule out a potential for reasons of their own. That always freaks me out a bit, even though they’re usually right.
Because, a guy can’t help where he was born; at the very least, you know the guy from LA is going to look pretty sharp in his suit and you’ll get an encouraging wink from the waiter instead of the usually sympathetic smile. Pre-med… can’t think of anything offhand that could redeem that, but you never know.
So… yeah, it does pay for the parents to double-check with me – not once a month, but with each particular guy. Is that so unreasonable?
“I mean, I have said things like “Yech, nobody from LA,” or “No pre-med, please.” But that doesn’t mean I really want anyone with those characteristics to be rejected outright without my examining their stats for redeeming factors.”
In my experience people almost always remember the offhand comments like that and completely forget the parts that you actually care about. This is a big part of why I started dealing with shaddchanim directly and only telling them the things that I’m not willing to compromise on (for the most part).
Bad4, what’s so bad about pre-med? (In case you’re wondering; I’m not in pre-med)
Another, “ha, I can relate to this post” but from a guys perspective.
J
Why have the parents be involved?
I want my parents to be involved because if I say “no,” I want my mother to do it, not me. If a girl says no, you get attacked by the shadchan. At least my mother (better yet, my father; no one messes with the Totty) can parry the blows better.
GuessWho (no, I have no idea) – because if he’s premed it means I’m going to be supporting him for the next 8 or so years, and for that price I can get a long-term learner. Yeah, I know, it’s not an exact parallel, but the tradeoffs cancel out (heaven vs income, studying vs helping out at home, massive debt vs college later on). I’m not interested in either.
Ezzie – because everyone contacts them anyway, and I prefer that they do the dirty work so I can do my homework.
This is why, IMO, the best shadchanim are friends. They know you well enough to know that although you might have had a certain thing on your list last year, you either:
a. realize now that that thing is not as important as you thought it was, or
b. you never ‘really’ meant it to begin with
For example, a friend of mine said (before she was married) that she only wanted a boy who did not want to live in Brooklyn. She is a strong-willed person, but I know that she could have been swayed on the issue because it stemmed from her view of the proper environment for children to be brought up in. If I would have convinced her to go out with a certain boy who wanted to live in Brooklyn but had the same hashkafa as her on raising children, I’m pretty certain she would forget about the Brooklyn issue. A regular shadchan would never dare redt her a boy from Brooklyn because “no Brooklyn is no Brooklyn.” They wouldn’t understand why she’s saying that or what she really means when she gives that blanket statement.
But this is all a hypothetical situation, since she is now happily married and settled in the far out city of…Lakewood.
What’s wrong with boys from LA?
“What’s wrong with boys from LA?”
Hopefully a lot, I don’t need any LA boys getting in the way of my plan to marry an LA girl.
that’s not nice
although you’ll often hear boys/girls over here saying no girls/boys from new york
No judging people by where they come from! I’m from a Chassidish family in Boro Park and my husband is a convert from Holland, and we got married! (Check out that story…
)
I like sarcasm as always.
But may be you need to be more flexible than you are now? I mean as long as there’s nothing that really bother you in the guy – continue going out with him no matter what?
Not every pre-med is going to be saddled with debts or having the wife support him entirely. Some parents are more than eager to shell out the tuition for med-school over the possibility of full-time support while he sits in kollel (not to make a judgement call on either position). In fact, a friend of mine’s parents put it exactly that way to him – they’d be quite willing to pay for all his med school bills, but not for is regular expenses should he drop out and decide to learn full time. A better excuse would be the rigors that accompany being the wife of a pre-med and doctor – my cousin’s wife told us that for the first year of her husband’s residency she felt like a single mother.
It’s certainly not easy being the wife of a pre-med/doctor, but the end benefits – including the chesed of being a doctor: a job which is totally l’shem shomayim (if a person has the proper mindset) where every moment is a potential mitzvah, he’ll earn a good living that will hopefully prevent any tuition/living costs concerns, and with the right perspective, will hopefully be a ba’al tzedaka as well. If you’re interested in pre-med/med students, then Einstein guys are probably the way to go – they have a wonderful frum Jewish community there.
Bad4 – Have them defer to you. And what dirty work? In the end, they ask you all the Q’s and tell you all the ones you care to actually know anyway. All it does is add a confusing middleman.
Try it for a few months.
Dirty work – n – speaking to shadchanim, calling references, calling back references, and setting up a date.
In the beginning I get a brief out line, in the middle I am asked for a time, in the end I’m given one. Definitely easier than what they do.
If you did it yourself, you could skip 1 most of the time (and ask about what YOU care about in the process), skip 2 and 3 always, and 4 wouldn’t require as many steps.
That’s assuming there’s anything I care about or know what to ask. I’m usually satisfied with “does he breath” “where’s he from”, “what’s he doing,” and “why.” My parents come up with all the interesting questions, including some that make me go “Oh yeah, that might be good to know.”
And I don’t want to call references. Yech. Yuk. Eyuw. ‘Nuff said. You will never persuade me, Ezzie. You can save your fingers.
?? I said you can always SKIP 2 and 3. They’re a waste of time!
The other questions your parents ask – if you saved them for a date, it might make it that much more interesting.