Researching potential shidduchim?

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  • #1200404
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    I think that posting in the Coffee Room is both a good test of one’s middos as well as good practice for working on one’s middos! πŸ™‚

    #1200405
    Abba_S
    Participant

    Researching via the references listed in the resume is useless. They have all been primed to give a good report. Either find an independent source or just go out. What Rav Moshe said about smoking “Hashem watches out for the uninformed” is applicable here also. Go out you may find the love of your life or Hashem will show you that it’s not for you. Don’t use the fact that you can’t get the answers for all you questions as an excuse not to go out.

    #1200406
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Abba_S – I usually get a lot of critical information from references! Granted, I have a lot of experience and know what to ask and how to get information from people. By asking references, I have been saved from going out with and possibly marrying people with very serious problems. It sometimes happens that I am not able to get useful info from the listed references. In those cases, I ask around until I find people to speak to who can give me useful information.

    It is critical to check people out before going out! It is basic hishtadlus. There are many stories of people getting married and then divorced because of information they were not told on time. A friend of mine had a friend who nearly got engaged (or maybe was engaged) to someone before she found out he was a child molester. Boruch Hashem, she found out in time before she married him!

    #1200407
    thebabbler
    Member

    lilmod, you sound like you really have your head on straight. I am impressed! I am impressed by a lot of people here, But I just “met” you.

    #1200408
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Thebabbler – thanks so much for the compliment!!! You also sound like a really special and impressive person!

    #1200409
    Person1
    Member

    LU I’m curious could you give examples of critical information you got in research that you wouldn’t have found out on the firstsecond date?

    #1200410
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Person1: Some examples I can think of off-hand:

    1. A divorced guy whose wife divorced him because of physical abuse.

    2. A guy who was bi-polar

    3. A guy who was on medication for depression

    4-6. Two or three cases where the reference/Rav (same Rav all 3 times) didn’t specify what the issue was since he felt that halachically he wasn’t allowed to and it wasn’t necessary – he just told me the guy wasn’t for me. I think that in one or two of these cases, this was after I asked if the guy had any problems and after the Rav asked me to tell him about myself (since he didn’t know me so he had to first make sure that I’m normal and that someone who has serious issues wouldn’t be for me).

    In the third case, when I mentioned the guy’s name, the Rav got very concerned and kept asking me if I had gone out with the guy yet and if he had my phone number (I hadn’t and he didn’t). Apparently, the guy had serious issues and there had been at least one instance in which he went out with a girl who broke up with him and he kept harrassing her.

    7. There was a divorced guy years ago whose reference told me there were three reasons he was divorced. I no longer remember all three of the reasons, but one was that he was self-centered, and I think the rest were worse.

    Those all the ones I can think of off-hand. Does that answer your question?

    #1200411
    Mussar47
    Member

    Some of the answers were right on! It’s better to ask someone you know or someone who knows someone you know in the community the potential date lives in. References can be used for basic info: how many siblings, what do parents do, how tall is he or she-the rest you have to take with a grain of salt. To the nonreferences I would ask about midos, good idea as said above to ask if the person is calm, has a happy demeanor, level of frumkeit. Chesed is hard to judge since, as someone correctly pointed out, the best chesed is done quietly-if you boast about it and everyone knows it, you may do chesed and be a baal gavah. Now here’s a novel thought: why go thru so much initial checking before the first date-if the boy and girl are old enough to date and get married, don’t their own instincts count too?

    #1200412
    Person1
    Member

    (LU I was going to answer you right after I read it but then forgot and didn’t remember again until now)

    Yes it was a complete knock-out. I didn’t expect you to come up with all this.

    Seeing as I’ve never got any information from references that was half as critcal, I can just imagine what kind of girls I must have already gone out with lol.

    About point 7, why on earth would they give that person as a reference? or what methods did you use to get this information out of them?

    #1200413
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Person1, sorry I’ve been so late in responding to you. I wanted to qualify my last post. After I read your last post, I realized that you might be assuming that I found out all of these things from the references given to me by the guy. That was not necessarily the case – I just meant they were people I called. They could have been references given by the guy, or references given by the references, or people whom I figured out on my own that they might know the guy.

    Regarding #7, it actually may have been a reference given by the guy as I remember being surprised by that myself, but I can’t remember for sure (if not a reference, then a reference given by a reference).

    In #4 -#6, in at least one of those cases, the guy himself gave the reference. #3 happened at least two times. In one case, it was the guy’s reference, but it took a while to get the info from him. In another case, the guy himself called the shadchan and asked her to call me to tell me (although that wasn’t the case I had in mind when I wrote the list).

    #1405715

    Smartphone?

    #1407703
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Shoppping – what?

    btw, welcome back! I don’t think I’ve seen you around for a while.

    #1408158

    Thank Lilmod! Baruch Hashem, I was in sem, and then I found other forums that don’t have moderation, so they are much more exciting. Also most of my old friends in the CR are gone, and suddenly everyone is anti chareidi here. I never agreed so much with Joseph before about everything!

    I mean you should ask if he has a smartphone, what apps, how he uses it, etc.
    I actually just got rid of my smartphone baruch hashem.

    #1408315
    Joseph
    Participant

    You see how my influence rubbed off, Shopping? Baruch Hashem!

    #1408417

    Yup! It’s good to hear from you!

    #1408493

    and then I found other forums that don’t have moderation, so they are much more exciting…
    and potentially much less appropriate….

    #1408525

    Hey 29! Long time no see. Not necessarily, don’t make assumptions….

    #1408560
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    “I actually just got rid of my smartphone baruch hashem.”

    Yeah!!! Mazel Tov!!! Shkoyach!!! πŸ™‚

    Someone once told me that he felt like a rock was removed from his heart when he got rid of his smartphone.

    #1408559

    Potentially, yes; probably, not. Also, I’d assume she means that posts go through
    without prior moderation, not that there are no moderators. Am I right, Shopping?

    #1408599
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Randomex – what does that mean? If there is not prior moderation, what do the moderators do?

    #1408601
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    Curious as to what these forums are… not because of the lack of moderation, adraba, I’m assuming that they are kosher sites if you are going there as a frummed-out post-seminary girl.

    #1408820

    Hahahaha, don’t worry, they are good. And yes, basically we can post and there are moderators who are online looking things over. We are all mature (sometimes) adults (depending, more or less) so they expect us to act like them. You can also email a moderator if you have any issues, and you can report posts, there’s an icon above every post to report it to a mod.

    I’m also on some frum email groups too, which again, have the same type of moderation.

    Baruch Hashem.

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