WolfishMusings
OK, perhaps someone can clarify something for me here, because I’m totally confused on one point:
if someone who is in the shidduch parsha just happens to meet someone of the opposite gender that they think they might have an interest in, why shouldn’t the “small talk” be permitted? After all, how else is s/he supposed to determine that this person is/isn’t a potential match?
Or is a shadchan the *only* way to meet someone and if you happen to come across someone in “real life,” you just have to forget it?
The Wolf
What if I just happen to meet someone of the opposite gender who is very nice and interesting and I find attractive, but this person just happens to be a mamzer/mamzeres (literally, i.e. someone who is forbidden from marrrying within the general Jewish population)?
The mamzeres would not be a potential match, but what would stop me from “falling for” the person while I was changing her tire? This is a bad situation. It might be hard to break up such a relationship. It would be better not to have met in the first place.
A mamzer is an extreme example, as most families would frown upon their child “falling for” a person completely kosher to marry but who is outside of a clearly defined band (be it narrow or wide). Case in point – don’t you think that the Montagues would have been much happier overall if their son had agreed to only talk to girls suggested by a matchmaker?