AZ – I guess it is apples and oranges then. We have gone months without appropriate teachers when a vacancy came up and different substitutes would fill in as needed.
When my daughter went oot to the tri state area for a chasuna, she was given a list of more than plenty shadchanim to get interviewed by. We have several local ones as well. I never thought of there being a shortage.
I have found though, and this may be a completely tangential topic, that many of the shadchanim are “not interested” in helping you if you don’t want to do things the way “everyone else” is doing them. Meaning, if you can’t afford to give monthly support and are looking for someone like minded, some shadchanim aren’t interested in helping you find your bashert. There are many different kinds of people out there and the shadchanim should be willing to make matches of all these types (unless they are in a highly homogenous area) if their goal is to help singles, shouldn’t they? But we have had shadchanim literally screaming at some girls for being who they are instead of “playing the game” as it was put. I DO agree that that is the road for some, but there are so many like minded people who need something else, still well within the yeshivish-ish crowd, and I wonder why they don’t deserve advocates as well.
For myself, I don’t buy things that I can’t pay for, and if you tell me it will cost me $3000 for a shadchan, I will have no choice but to resort to word of mouth to marry off my children, not because I don’t value the shadchan, but because I apparently am not worthy of the privilege.
I do believe that your respectful and clear responses on this thread have given people a better sense that there are decent people out there who really are in it for the klal. Thank you for that.