Oomis, you’ve never (that I recall) refuted my response to your theory: do those who don’t employ the methods you object to have a higher success rate of marrying”
DY – respectfully – Nowadays, we have hobbled our ADULT kids from even thinking it is normal to meet girls or guys on their own. They are brainwashed in Yeshivas and Seminaries into thinking it is an aveira gemura to even talk to people of the opposite gender. MY own kids who have not been brought up to think that way, still DO believe that it is wrong to even HEAR info about another shidduch when someone else is working on a shidduch for them. Mind you, the girls don’t even know if the first boy’s side is agreeable to go ahead, but until they know for sure that they will either not go out with the boy at all, or not go out a second time, they are not willing to even discuss other possibilities. That is a huge time-waster IMO, especially for the girls, who are l’chatchilah at a disadvantage in the numbers game.
B”H a million times, I am married to my husband davka because I accepted a date with him for the the next day after I was scheduled to meet a blind date. He called as I was leaving for home to get ready for it. The blind date, as it happened, was a complete dud, he was ill-mannered and boorish, two things that really turn me off. Had I put the second guy (my husband) off by saying I was “busy” (another term I dislike, among the several I have mentioned)) he would likely have shied off from calling me again. We met by the way, at my job, when he came in to purchase some seforim from the publishing house where I was employed, and I was working the front desk while editing a manuscript. MET ON THE JOB????? WHEW! Almost blasphemous…
So my answer is, yes, I think they might have a little more success, though clearly the shidduch “protocols” have affected all frum kids from the very modern to the chareidi. It cannot help but affect all of them, and even the more modern ones are dating a little differently today than in previous generations.
This crisis did not happen overnight, nor in a vacuum. It happened because we bought into a vision of tznius that makes the very idea of dating, untzniusdig. Unless it follows the “protocol,” of course. Read some of the “Ask the Shadchan” letter in the Flatbush Jewish Journal. They are really eye-opening signs of the times. I have seen a lot of ill-advised actions there, people turning away shidduchim because the boy wore the wrong sox, or mothers wringing their hands because their precious maideleh (GASP!) met a boy on her own (What WILL the neighbors think???) These and other types of things are hindering many of our kids from getting married. JMO, of course. I know you disgree. That’s ok, because I likewise disgree with opinions that are different from my own in this regard. It’s what makes this forum great. If we all agreed, it would be very boring.