WIY-your attempts at justification only make yourself seem more shallow, and make my point stronger. Yes, times have changed from when our grandparents and great grandparents got married. Yes, you need to be attracted to your spouse. But I think you’ll find that after you get to know someone, you may find yourself either more or less attracted to them. A boy or a girl can be the most beautiful person that you’ve ever seen, only to have a terrible personality as you get to know them better, and someone who is not as good looking as you imagine your spouse to be could have a heart of gold and would treat you right. Why can’t you just give people a CHANCE? Why do you NEED to see a picture and decide based on that? The justifications that shadchanim give for getting your picture (“I know, it’s so terrible, but what can you do? That’s the norm nowadays!”) is ridiculous. People like you are causing it to be the norm. Do you know how much it hurts a girl to know you’ve been rejected because you don’t have the perfect eye color that he’s looking for, or hair color? I have friends that have cried to me because of that, and it’s not ok. Give people a normal, decent, human chance. Do you pick your friends the same way? Get all the application pictures for the school, look through the pictures, and then decide who you’ll be friends and who you won’t be? And what if someone that you didn’t ”pre-approve” finds favor in your eyes and you end up really hitting it off? Then what? You’ll say no because you didn’t like the way he looked in his picture?
Yes, I understand that everyone is attracted to a certain look. But let’s face it-once you get down to it, you’re very rarely going to find an ”exotic beauty” like you would in the non-Jewish world. Most of the girls are going to have darker then lighter hair. Most of the girls are going to have slightly larger then average noses.
Your comment that you’ve seen super frum and daughters of roshei yeshiva’s pictures is just appalling. Why are you so proud of this fact? You should be ashamed that you’re saying this so factually. I can pretty much guarantee you that if they knew you were acting so blase about this, and that you were rejecting them based on their looks, they and their parents would be ashamed that they’d ever been suggested to you.
What do you think you’re gaining by publicizing that you’re essentially humiliating half the girls that are redt to you because they’re not pretty enough? Think about their feelings, and think about how shallow you’re making yourself. So she doesn’t have the exact nose that you envision your wife to have. So her hair is a little darker/lighter. Maybe instead focus a little more on her middos, her personality, whether she’ll make a good wife. Just because a girl is pretty doesn’t mean she’s a pretty person on the inside.