@135847. I agree that by all means we should not have single men and women just mingling, but do you really believe that people should get married without dating? The Radak writes that the reason the imahos are all described as beautiful is because it is important that somebody is attracted to his wife. That is why the gemara says that you have to see your wife before you marry her- and this goes along with personality. You have to meet the girl first to see if you have an attraction to her- it is the only way your marriage will be good. If somebody finds their wife ugly or distasteful, he will not be capable of having a good relationship with her. Obviously, I am not saying that bochurim should date girls for multiple months like the goyim do, but they definitely should go out a few times (as is the norm) to be able to make sure that this is really the person who they think they can join together with to build a bayis ne’eman biyisrael. The idea is that before you get married, you decide this is somebody who you can build the bayis ne’eman and a relationship with, and after marriage, you really get to know eachother and grow the relationship.
– And @SQUAREROOT- I hope you realize that if we were to allow men and women to mingle at pizza stores and at shul kiddushim, then even if one out of every 20 men and women who mingled would get married, but the others might just mingle for fun, anf it would not lead to good things. And if the older singles are doing it, the teenagers will also start mingling in public places, which will lead to much worse things. In addidition, there are real halachos we have to deal with here: believe it or not, it is actually assur for a man to look at a woman who he is not married to.
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