I wanted to add something to my post – the ONLY reason that people are now allowing shadhchanim to be the third party to say yes or no to another date (or even the very FIRST date being arranged by them), is that we have allowed the system to evolve in this direction in recent years. As I said in another post, thirty years ago people arranged their own dating schedules, even if shadchanim arranged for a couple to meet. After giving the boy the girl’s number, the shadchan backed out (except to be told yes or no to a future date),but the boy still either called or didn’t call the girl, and she accepted or declined.
Some of us have allowed ourselves to be convinced that the method of the shadchan doing all the legwork, is somehow more religiously and socially proper than encouraging our young people to be the adults that they are supposed to be (if they are ready to be getting married, that is). If something works for you, fine, it does not hurt me for you to do things your way. But, the danger lies in starting to believe that this is the RIGHT and only way to do things.
My kids and their friends are (with a few exceptions)not Yeshivish, they are more MO very machmir. Even THEIR chevra have been convinced into thinking that if someone is setting them up, they should not even listen to someone else who also has a shidduch in mind. Mind you, they haven’t even been asked out by the first person yet. It is not even where the boy might even yet know about the girl. But in their circle of friends, it is not “done” any other way. They COMPLETELY finish with one shidduch (from the concept of the point of someone making an initial suggestion about someone, to the actual decision to decline a second date), before they even want to hear about someone else. I think that is foolish, because it wastes time that might be spent actually meeting someone else who might be more readily available and more quickly actually meet the person to whom they are suggsted. My opinion (and it will never change), the early bird gets…. and our kids should listen to all suggestions for shidduchim, and not wait around for someone to give the go ahead at their end, before agreeing to a date with someone else in the interim.
I know a young man who agreed to a shidduch, only to find out the girl was being redt to someone (whose mother had not yet told the shadchan to go forward). Weeks went by and the girl had not yet heard from the other guy. The boy I know, was told about another girl meanwhile, and went out with her. The first girl finally heard from the shadchan, and the other boys’ mom had said no. This young lady therefore wasted several weeks of her life waiting for someone who ultimately did not even meet her, AND lost out on meeting a really good boy who was eager to meet her. Though he did not end up marrying the girl he had met at that time, he met someone else right after and DID marry her. So while one could correctly argue it was not bashert for this girl and boy to meet, who knows what might have been, or how many other boys she lost out on because she would not even consider another shidduch while waiting for the other one to come through? I have always believed in first-come, first served. Our kids cannot afford to make the shidduch process even more difficult than it already is.