As regards the shidduch crisis, Hashem never sends a machlah without there first being a cure for it. The problem in my humble opinion, is that we are loathe to acknowledge a very real source of the machlah (in today’s times), which is the way in which shidduchim are conducted in this generation. I know there are people who strongly disagree with my opinion, but that does not mean there is no truth to what I believe.
In my own generation we did not have a shidduch crisis, not in the epic proportions we see today, where SO many people are still single in their 30s or more. Parents of young men and women did not typically check each other out to death before giving a “go” to a set up,the girls were often asked directly by the “fixer upper” if they would be interested in going out with “that nice boy I know from my shul” and the boys were given a girl’s number (no pictures) and called the girls up and asked them out after a conversation of at least a few minutes’ duration. If and when they did not want to go out again, they acted like the grownups they purported to be and told the other person directly. With the exception of chassidic circles or the like, where ONLY official shadchanim made the matches, and people met in a “beshow” or similar date, most frum couples that I know, either met on their own, or were fixed up by friends and family, who gave the boy the girl’s number and the rest was up to the young couple. No one did a background check on each other’s families, until and unless there was a real potential in the relationship. There were no such things as resumes (I DETEST that expression)or research (what is this – a term paper?), and no references (ditto)were called (unless they were our personal friends who knew the boy or girl).
We live in a time that has virtually crippled the process of boys and girls growing up in a normal environment, to feel comfortable in conversing with the opposite gender, and able to be themselves. I do “get” that we also live in morally reprehensible times and as a result need to be even mroe vigilant, but there has to be a safe, reasonable, and morally wholesome and proper way to have boys and girls be comfortable with each other from an early age. There was in my childhood, and in my teen years as well.
Now bring on all the criticisms of my point of view. I respect that there are those who disagree. These are my observations over the last 15 years or so and I have seen nothing to change my mind yet.