Reply To: Another Shidduch Related Question

Just to clarify things: I had met the parents (both mother and father) before they even agreed for me to go out with their precious son. The boy was not present at the time.

I usually do not voice my opinions very loudly but since I was asked a direct question, I will try to answer it. I was asked my opinions on the shidduch crisis. My answer:

In my, ever so humble, opinion it is not a crisis. It is more of a stupidity. People have stopped using their heads when it comes to shidduchim. Instead, they’d rather blame things like: the age gap or whatever. Unfortunately, too many people are seeing things in black and white. Everything and everybody has to have a place and it can’t be moved once being put there. People don’t seem to realize that not only is there gray also, but Hashem also created a wonderful world of color. Don’t you think that if we were supposed to think in black and white, the world would be black and white? But we have color and shades and hues and no one is the same. That’s what makes the world go round.

I can’t help thinking how stupid it is when people will say no to a shidduch on the most absurd grounds. He/she is from out of town. He/she didn’t go the exact yeshiva/seminary we want. He/she wasn’t on G.O. He/she is too fat/skinny/short/tall… Their married children send their kids to the wrong schools in Lakewood. He doesn’t wear his jacket (white shirt, yes, but not a jacket) when shopping in Home Depot. He/she doesn’t use cloth tablecloths. She doesn’t make more than 50,000 a year. He won’t commit to exactly 6.4 years of learning after they get married. The list goes on and on.

Once you’ve finally found a girl who is not bigger than a size 0, is described by everyone as being drop-dead gorgeous, between the heights of 5’5″ and 5’6″ has a great job making $80,000 a year, has parents who are willing to support for as long as the boy is going to learn (probably 6.4 years) and is more than willing to be a kollel wife, you still have to make sure that the parents of the girl is willing to buy your *special* son. So many parents are putting prices on their children. When did the shidduch scene become an open-air market? Shouldn’t you be more interested in gaining a new son/daughter rather than how much you can sell your child for?

Another issue, is the fact that parents and children don’t always communicate. Or even if the parents know that the boy isn’t looking for a BJJ graduate, or the girl isn’t looking for a learning boy, the parents still have to look for that because that’s what is considered good. There is such a stigma against boys who aren’t learning or girls who work in a real job instead of just pretending to get a degree in special ed that they’re never going to use. Not all boys are learners. I know some boys who are working before marriage whose middos are on such a higher level than some learning boys, that it is scary. Just because you have the label as a “learner” that doesn’t mean that you are a good boy. But of course all boys have to say their learners and all girls have to want to live the “kollel” life because that is the accepted thing.

Only after marriage do so many couple realize that they really aren’t compatible besides for the fact that they both *wanted* the kollel life. And the 6 dates don’t help much since too many boys and girls don’t know how to talk to each other, so even on the dates they can’t. There are so many divorces occurring now, and this is one of the reasons why.

So for the crisis: Stop blaming people. Stop putting name-tags. Stop saying no for stupid reasons (the out of town one really irks me. Just a few years ago it was 2o times harder for people to fly across country or the world to see each other yet so many between-city shidduchim were still made. Now that it is the generation of “instant gratification” if it takes a little bit more time or effort, forget about it. And no, out-of-towners are not hicks, we’re normal people who are just as frum as you in-towners, if not frumer.) Take off your blinders and things might just snap into place.

(Like I said, I usually don’t give my opinions like this, but I guess once I started it was kind-of hard to stop. Please excuse me if I rambled on. And I hope I didn’t insult anybody. This post is a general post to no one in particular.)