look, all i’m saying is that the problem has so many variables; a number of people have listed some of them. there are many more. to solve the problem, we need to create emotionally healthy children and have emotionally healthy parents who know how to and want to look for what is truly best for the child.
az, to me it’s obvious, of course a girl can date a guy around her age, and of course if it’s appropriate the shadchanim should set them up.
i just don’t believe that the age difference is the sole cause or even the main cause of all the unmarried singles. i do believe it’s a great idea to encourage people to think about the older singles, and to think out of the box for what they really are looking for.
my grandmother was older than my grandfather and lived for about a year after he died.
i dated a while ago, but in my experience, once girls were about 24, 25 and certainly close to 30, guys had no problem dating someone a drop older than them. i know of so many couples where the girl is older; they don’t take an ad out of the newspaper, but it has always happened. if you’re creating an awareness for guys who have never considered the possibility, then great.
but, if you are saying that since anyone can marry anyone, let’s set up younger guys with older girls, then I strongly disagree.
a rebbetzin once told me that girls can marry tons of different guys.
Fortunately, i spoke to rabeeinm and a rebetzin who knew me well and agreed with me that that is not the case for me.
Unfortunately, this rebetzin’s daughter took her mother’s advice. She got married at 19 and was divorced with 2 kids a few years later.
the point is not to just get people married off, but to get them happily married off.
(though the more divorces there are, will help your case even more).