oomis, in the crowds where there is mixed socialization, there are just as many, if not more, older singles.”
Show me the stats. I don’t believe that. And where they do not socialize at all, it certainly is MUCH harder to meet, and much harder to be comfortable when they actually DO meet.
You and Daas are speaking of groups of people who really are not so religiously observant, IMO, not in the way we think of as such. Their lifestyle is more to the Conservative hashkafa or at most, VERY questionably moderdox. They may or may not be girls who daven every day or guys who attend minyan on a daily basis. The Upper West Side is a world unto itself. The singles who live there have developed a comfort zone with their SINGLE lifestyle, and I am not certain that lifestyle really is a truly Orthodox one in the sense of leading its constituents towards a toehles, nor do I think they are in any rush to commit to a married life.
Your standards of tznius and mine differ only in my belief that the genders can and should be comfortably mixing in a frum environment under frum supervision, from the time they are very young. That is NOTHING like what is going on in the Upper West Side, where some people’s behavior is truly outrageous. I grew up int he environment that I described, and most of my friends, male and female remained Torah-observant Shomrei Mitzvos. And with two exceptions, we all got married, several to boys whom they met and dated in high school (mixed gender yeshivah, totally separate buildings for boys and girls).
I KNEW there would be people who didn’t like what I said.