@Anongirl – First of all, mazel tov. Second, I’m a man. Third, I got married at 25, which is about average. Fourth, thanks for judging. I’m from OOT and where I’m from, all the girls are sent to Baltimore and New York to get married and are strongly discouraged from dating anyone local. Rare is the local Shidduch (I only know of one off-hand). That meant I had to resort to dating websites and Shadchanim. You may be too young to be familiar with Frumster and Saw You at Sinai. I met my wife through the former while getting constantly rejected on the latter. Shadchanim told me to get lost.
In my dating experience, there was always some excuse on the girl’s end and it almost always was due to parental meddling. I always found this out after the fact. To the parents (especially those of Rabbinic stock), it didn’t matter that I went to college full-time, worked a full-time job, went to minyan 3x a day and still spent 3-4 hours in the local Beis Midrash at night before going home and doing schoolwork. Never mind that I had life basically figured out by the time I was 23. What mattered was the fact that I wasn’t “mainstream” so I was rejected by parents. And, guess what? Fathers of girls are also obssessed with social standing.
My point: You want to solve the problem? 1) Parents should let their kids date and not get involved unless there is good reason to (i.e., there’s an obvious problem with one of the parties involved, an imminent engagement, etc.). (2) Sometimes the guy who isn’t “mainstream” may be exactly what you’re looking for, even if you don’t think so at the moment. Stop nixing guys who aren’t mainstream.
@Shmil_O Ongar – See above. Actually, I was one of the last people in my social crowd to get married. Also, to be very blunt, 22-23 is young, even if the Chassidish and Yeshivish world thinks that is old.