Owl, I certainly did not mean to chew anyone out. I DO agree with virtually everything you had to say about shadchanim. I think that they should take courses in sensitivity and tact, because telling a girkl she needs to drop thirty lbs. or she will never get married, is onaas devarim, among a whole host of other things (even if it’s true that she needs to lose weight). Not getting back to people who call is a function of the process. One person who is networking for 100s of young people at one time, cannot be relied upon to get back quickly. There are just so many hours in the day. They also conversely have a vested interest in sealing the deal, so often a shidduch is proposed (by a pushy shadchan), when it really is not appropriate. If the girl or boy say no, then then are berated for not being serious about wanting to get married. That, too, is onaas devarim.
I stand by everything I said earlier. If a boy and girl are unable to do what their parents and grandparents most likely did before them, and have a simple conversation on the phone to arrange a date, they are socially hobbled by something that has NOTHING whatsoever to do with tznius, and everything to do with not allowing them to grow up.
I remember going out with a nice fellow around 7 or 8 times, but I was not feeling anything about progressing further. Did I ask my mommy or the person who set us up to tell him that? No. It was uncomfortable, granted, to tell him that it was not working, but there are MANY uncomfortable scenarios in life where we need to say no to someone nice about something that is potentially awkward, and the sooner kids learn how to handle these social issues, the better. As I said earlier, this has become a mindset with which our frum youth have grown up. Things were very different decades ago, and IMO, much better, with all due respect. We surely did nto have such a crisis. It was a rarity to see an unmarried person in their 30s and 40s or more. Now, it’s epidemic, along with the early divorce rate (a whole ‘nother issue).
Popa, seriously?????????