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“Oh, OOmis, one more thing… I am sure that your mattresses were wonderful, but people need to know to be very careful before taking used mattresses. If bedbugs are around, they could be in big trouble. To be on the safe side, everybody should start with new mattresses. “
Your advice is a well-taken comment. Although you are also right, my mattresses were fine, never had a problem with bugs of any kind, but I also cleaned them thoroughly, washed and vacuumed, and sprayed them with Lysol. I told the people who took the trundle that if they had any qualms about taking the mattresses, they should leave them outside for bulk garbage. But they saw the mattresses were in excellent shape. generally speaking, people DO need to be careful about used mattresses. Some people cannot afford new mattresses, and the new ones are sometimes more expensive than the beds.
I am so happy to hear Aliza Chaya is doing better. Halevai Veiter.
“that pasuk is a CURSE “
True — originally man was required only to care for Gan Eden and the animals in it.
But when Adam Harishon decided to change the loshon of the one issur that Hashem gave directly to him, and told Chava that they could not even TOUCH the Eitz Hadaas (which hashem NEVER said to him), that led to the curse being implemented against all Mankind. Instead of food/parnassah coming to Man in abundance with little or no effort, he would have to work hard for it for all of his life. That curse was on Man, though, and not Woman. She has her own set of tzoros to deal with. Kol hamosif goreya.
Many neighborhoods also have websites where used furniture may be offered for free, for low cost, or for regular sale (but still well below new retail). I have given away a breakfront, trundle bed (like a highriser with a second bed that pulls out, but does not rise, and which has storage drawers in it), a portacrib, and LOTS of clothing in great condition, to people in need. This type of chessed is available all over, and kids can get furniture for next to nothing. It was a great feeling when a kollel couple took my extra breakfront two weeks before their chasunah.
When that first baby is born, and even before that, while the wife is expecting that baby, any number of things might happen that would make it difficult for the wife to keep on working. I had to stop working in my sixth month (my husband was working, too), when someone pushed my as I was going up the stairs from the subway. The baby and I were both fortunate not to be injured seriously, but I was NEVER doing that commute again and risking another fall. There are women who are sick throughout their pregnancy, and at the very least they are extremely tired. It is an unfair burden to put on a woman to expect her to do everything, be pregnant, work outside the home, do the cooking and cleaning at home (because if there is only ONE income, cleaning help is not so affordable these days),and still also manage to have time for her husband.
Yes, some women ARE able to manage to do it all. But personally, I believe that is mostly hype from a generation of women who were raised to believe that being a homemaker and mother is for women who were not smart enough or talented enough to do something more important with their lives. If that were not true, then no one would be asking shadchanim, “And what does the MOTHER of the boy/girl do?” it would be irrelevant.
Regarding R’ Aisenstark’s statement about children being home until age five (an idea which I used to personally believe myself 30 years ago) – that only works nowadays if a) there is a parent who will consistently primarily be home with that child, b) that parent who is home is actually putting real effort and kochos into rearing the child, to keep him more or less on par with other kids his age, and c) the child has friends who are also home, so he can be socialized with them. It is VERY difficult to raise a healthy child in an environment completely devoid of interaction with other children in his peer group. So if all children in his neighborhood are in pre-school, he probably needs to be, too.
Thanks, NY Mom, but of course it is not my original work. I DO know how to cut and paste, though!!!!
“.I mean-what message are we sending our children with that?! “
That prices might be better there, that they don’t have to wait on long lines, waste gas and parking meter money, and (OY VEY) mix with the goyishe velt in the crowded department stores, and see untzniusdig things there!
Just curious, Batseven – do you really think that on-line internet shopping is some sort of message to children? I mean, it IS business, after all.
Sorta like the woman who was giving her husband a griger about his family, “Well my ancestors were at least honest. THEY didn’t get hanged on trees!” To which the husband smoothly replied, “Nope, they only SWUNG on them!”
Two people who are close to me used it. One (a boy) was helped after TWO complete cycles of treatment, the other,a girl, was not. The liver enzymes must be checked with frequent blood tests, because Accutane can damage the liver. Pregnancy, as was mentioned, would be a disaster, and though the girl is a frum and unmarried patient, the doctor would not start the treatment until she had a pregnancy test in the office, and signed a waiver that she would NOT get pregnant.
I went to college, and the lessons I learned in interpersonal relations, how to speak to an eclectic group of people, proved invaluable to me in later years. We need to stop ghettoizing and insulating our kids, because this next generation is ILL-equipped for dealing with the secular world, and they WILL have to, whether you agree or not (even if it is to apply for Section 8). They will have job interviews, doctor visits, hospitalizations, service people, business dealings, even if it the business they inherited from Momma and Poppa, and they had BETTER know how to speak properly to all these people and not sound like uneducated socially awkward fools.
As to the on-line and accelerated “courses” – please, we ALL know what those are. Would you really want your tonsils taken out by someone who completed an on-line degree in MEdicine? (Yeah, Yeah, I know there probably is not one – YET!)
GAW, my own daughters want to marry MEN, not boys – men who accept responsibility for their parnassah, became educated so that they could earn that parnassah, and who also make time to learn regularly. It is not an either/or situation. They must do BOTH. What do you think of someone redting a shidduch to an older girl, with a fellow who is already over 30, never left the Beis Medrash and wants to continue to learn after the wedding, for that Shana Rishona? I cannot imagine that a normal older single girl would want to be involved in such a shidduch. And if of the two of them SHE had the better Gemara Kup, oy!
GAW, my daughters are both very much opposed to marrying boys who are “learners.” they want MEN who are responsible adults, who will take care of their family obligations without waiting for a handout from parents, and who ALSO learn. The very girls who only say they want to marry full-time learners, believe that to be the best way, ebcause that is what they were conditioned to believe, either throughout their lives or in seminary. Seminaries are extremely influential, as are boys’ Yeshivahs, and when our kids are 8,000 miles away from mommy and daddy (those who want their children to get higher education and a profession, as well as learn), the influence on them is even greater, and they often drop any and all ideas they might have had for a professional future, either for the boys or for the type of boy the girls now feel is the only type they should marry. And if you followed my very convoluted run-on statement, Yasher Koach. bottom line, I am not sure that all those girls would want the lifestyle they claim to subscribe to, (some might, of course), were it not something that has been drummed into their dear little ears by people who have great hashpaah on them. The fact alone that this lifestyle requires them to not raise their own children, but rather to consign them to daycare or to (sometimes not even Jewish) nannies or housekeepers, in order to make the parnassah that rightfully should be made by their husbands, only strengthens my personal convictions. There are very few iluyim in Beis Medrash, even fewer future Gedolei Hador, and not many bochurim who are capable of being maggidei shiur. Even if the wife IS mochel her husband’s kesubah obligations out of some peer pressurized feeling that it is the only right thing to do – if that was what Hashem had wanted, it would be spelled out in the Kesubah, as well. Or is it, and perhaps I am unaware of that fact?
I would just LOVE to know who made up the rules for who buys what for the chosson and kallah? Parents have just spent a fortune making a chasunah, and on top of that are expected to ALSO furnish the apartment for them? I could never afford that. I married off two children, and they used their engagement presents, savings, earnings, and so forth, to buy their own furniture. They waited to buy a real dinette set when they had money from the wedding, and used a card table until they could afford better (they also came to me a lot that first year, for Shabbos and yom tov). I am not saying parents should not help out, IF THEY CAN AND IF THEY WANT TO. But who decided that there is a specific chiyuv in this matter?
Poster, you are lucky, and you presuppose that ALL frum girls are fotunate enough to have a frum boss who is equally sensitive to that issue. The reality is that most workplace environments are very different from that, and frum women have to learn how to accommodate their frumkeit to the environment and not vice versa. I am not chalilah suggesting they compromise their religious practices in any way. I AM saying, however, that they need how to PROPERLY carry on a pertinent and necessary conversation with men in their workplace, because it will usually be a part of the job deacription at some point and in some manner.
Many years ago I worked for a jewelry firm (whoa! it was SO long ago), and the majority of employees were Satmar chassidim. They were all very pleasant to me, though I clearly was not chassidic, and that included the men who were employed there. I am not saying they encourage personal conversations, but they had to show me how to do certain tasks, and check with me about the orders, sales, etc. so conversations were always part of my day with them. Though it was business for the most, part, it still caused “mingling.” Some of it was even chit chat. You cannot work with people day in and day out, and appear unfriendly. You just have to use seichel.
For the record, Tomim, all of the professions you mentioned, include mingling to some extent with the outside world, which include the HUSBANDS of the pregnant women, male teachers and parents of their special needs students, etc. People who work for OTHER people, do not get to choose their clients. They get assigned to projects, to patients, to students, etc. and if they do not like the assignment, they are free to seek other employment. In this day’s economic tenor, that is not a particularly smart option, when one already has a job, B”H. It is really time for all of us to cash a reality check.
Re: the parents working well past their retirement in order to support their sons’ or sons-in-laws’ learning – who decided that the FATHERS of these learning boys do not have an equal chiyuv to be learning. If in their older years they are so busy supporting their kids who are not earning a living, then clearly those children are preventing the fathers from fulfilling thier own limud Torah. I wonder how many people have ever looked at this situation from that point of view.
And, ur, welkom!!!!!!!!!
As Anuran aptly pointed out, Hashem told that to Adam, NOT to Chava. It is quite clear who it was who was given the mitzvah of providing for his wife and family.
I see. I would never have thought people would actually stigmatize the girls, though. But it certainly is not a bad idea for those who wish to refrain from mingling, to go through the venues that you mention. They do, realize, don’t they, that in the real world where they will presumably earn a living at those lucrative jobs, that mingling is often a necessity? How do they prepare for that eventuality?
“It seems to me that every single girl is taking some type of college courses, I don’t think the stigma of girls going to college exists anymore. Even if I’m wrong about that won’t sending the girls to more school only increase the maturity gap between boys and girls? “
Wow! This is the first time I have ever heard there was a stigma attached to girls going to college! Usually (in my circles anyhow), the reverse is true! And if the second part of your paragraph is true (and personally I think it is), the only solution is for the BOYS to go to school and get educated, as well, because clearly you believe (and I agree) that education does tend to help with the maturation process. If the girls are better educated, which is a good thing, and the boys are not educated, yes, I do believe it would highlight the maturity gap between them.
A) what exactly do YOU call it when an adult seeks the advice of a teenager?
B) Who cares HOW well they THINK they know the young person in question? That is completely irrelevant. How do you think the child being asked for his opinion would feel, were he to know someone was talking behind his back to someone who had power over his future, with the potential for it being extremely unhelpful to him? Better yet, how do you think his PARENTS would feel about it?
I would speculate as to your own age, given your position in this issue, but the truth is, a responsible person of any age would see that at best, this is a very poor example of chinuch, and the principal is showing himself to be singularly lacking in good judgment. I would even venture to say that were any child not accepted in a Yeshivah because of something some kid blabbed about him, I would think that the parent would take the school to a Din Torah, were they to find that out (and given how immature kids talk way too much, it would definitely get out at some point).
The English Lesson:
It is time for an English lesson.
So, with tongue firmly in cheek, here are some rules to keep
in mind when using the Queen’s Engerlish:
1. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat).
6. Always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually)
unnecessary.
9. Also, too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments. No comma splices, run-ons are bad
too.
11. Contractions aren’t helpful and shouldn’t be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary;
it’s highly superfluous.
14. One should never generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don’t use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical
words however should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Kill all exclamation points!!!!
24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
25. Understatement is probably not the best way to propose
earth shattering ideas.
26. Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when
its not needed.
27. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me
what you know.”
28. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times:
resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it
correctly.
29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
31. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
32. Who needs rhetorical questions?
33. Exaggeration is a million times worse than understatement.
34. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
I could not add anything to Aries’ already very complete and seicheldig post. The only area where I have a slightly different (and it really is only a small difference) view, is that I feel that even when a boy IS living and breathing Torah all day, he still should have a real parnassah and expect to support his wife and children. You cannot exempt women from certain mitzvos because their job (as we are constantly told) is to raise their children and run a Torah-filled home, and then tell them it is ALSO their job to do their men’s job, that of bringing home the parnassah.
I understand what Aries is saying very well. I also had a cousin’s son’s wedding a couple of months after my father was niftar. In our case, all of my sibs’ spouses and my husband attended the chasunah, but we siblings opted not to attend with or without a loophole. BTW, I do not judge or condemn anyone who chooses to avail himself or herself of a halachic loophole. it is for you and your rov to discuss, and is not my business. If a rov says it is ok, then that’s the p’sak for that person. For me, it was not what I wanted to try to get a heter to do. Had it been my sister or brothers who were making the simcha, I probably would have felt different. I cannot say, and this is a moot point now, as my parents are gone 15-16 years.
These are neither board member’s bro-in-laws NOR A SHIDDUCH, so that mashal makes no sense and certainly has nothing to do with the issue at hand. I would never ask a 14 year old to tell me about the middos of a 22 year old (for shidduch purposes). The view of a teen is often highly biased, easily influenced by superfluous and shallow things (like their peer group), and notoriously quickly subject to change.
There is simply NO EXCUSE WHATSOEVER for an adult professional in a position of extreme authority, to seek counsel with a teen, in this instance. If he were to ask his talmidim what musician or singer is now considered popular among his teen peers, THAT would be shayach, but not something as crucial as whether or not a bachur should be accepted to school.
I wouldn’t argue it, AZ, but IMO there really is no practical way to change the equation. It has ALWAYS been this way. The SYSTEM needs to change. There have always been more girls than boys, but they eventually managed to get married, for the most part. Nowadays, the problem has reached epic proportions.
“You know who also matures early? The boys (and girls) who serve in the IDF. “
I certainly cannot argue with THAT!!!!! Unfortunately thay are forced to mature much too soon.
I will agree with AZ’s last statement.
A melamed may learn most from his talmidim, but I will be willing to conjecture that the Gemarah in Taanis was not referring to whether or not a certain bochur should be admitted to Yeshivah, but rather to hashkafa and ways of looking at an inyan in Torah. What the principal is doing is out and out Loshon Hara, encouraging the same in the boys to whom he is speaking, and shows him to be singularly unprofessional and not competent to do the job for which he was hired.
BTW, I’d feel differently if the bochur is accepted into the school and then starts to act out after that or has some problems. Then, it would be very proper for the mechanchim to speak to the boys’ friends to see if they are aware of why the boy might be having a problem. Of course, they should talk directly to the boy and his family first. But in this case, the boys might know something that is currently going on in the boy’s life, of which the menahel is unaware. But to ask them to speak about some 8th grader who is not even in the school yet… UH UH!
“oomis1105: If you want to solve a problem you need to know what the problem is, otherwise your head is in the sand”
I do not agree with that statement. I do know what I believe the problem is, just as you believe YOU know what the problem is. We each may come from a different angle, but the bottom line is the same. Boys have shidduchim suggested ad nauseum, and girls do not. Sometimes it is ONLY the bottom line that matters, not how one arrived at that destination.
It makes no difference to me if the problem is the age gap, the fact that there are more girls than boys, the fact that parents of boys only want girls from wealthier homes (so their precious Shmueli, Yanky, Yossie, Moishy can continue to learn while someone else provides his “kest”), or that boys are more desirable because they do not have to be as good looking as the girls they want to date (i.e. a boy does not need to be a certain body build, not in the same way that he and his mother expect his potential date to be a size 2-4). It might be that the girls are starting to wake up and want more out of life than to marry uneducated and unemployed boys who will not provide for them. It might be that the boys do not want shidduchim redt with girls who are still tied to their mommies and clearly too young to be dating for tachlis at 17 and 18. WHATEVER the reason is, there IS a serious problem, and that is the bottom line and all that I care about addressing.
In my humble or not so humble, but at least HONEST opinion, I feel sure the real reasons will never truly be addressed, because people are reluctant to face the fact that the process is not only flawed, but has been extremely detrimental to the future of shidduchim being made for all. The “researching” to death, the stupid profiles, the endless moronic and irrelevant questions that are asked of the so-called references, the inability of boys and girls to actually go on a date without interference, coaching, back and forthing between the shadchan and them,unrealistic expectations on both sides, and the rules, rules, and more RULES – this is why there is a crisis today. OK, I feel better now… Sorry about that rant.
Getzel, thanks for a really good and much-needed laugh!
That’s kinda like the man who saw a man with a dog and asked the man if his dog bites. The man said no, whereupon the firstman went to pet the dog and was immediately bitten by it. “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!” He yelled indignantly. “I did, and he don’t,” replied the man, “that ain’t my dog!”
“The primary casue is the system currently in place. The system that encourages boys not to think about the rest of their life until they are 23 and encourages girls to get on with the rest of their life before the ink is dried on their high school diploma. “
True dat!
I like this. I will not buy a product when the ad for it insults my intelligence.
You are right, Feif Un. It IS A”Sh. Ateres Yaakov is a boys’ Yeshivah HS in the Five Towns.
Let’s face it, it is a guy’s world. There are more available girls than boys, and boys are being redt shidduchim, but not all the girls are. And I don’t care WHAT the reason is, it just IS. Speaktruth, you are well named.
hereorthere, my dear husband is also a baal teshuva, a ben nidda. I will stack him up against anyone. The ikker is not what you were, but rather, what you make of yourself now. It sounds like you need to live in a more accepting environment. I hope you find it. There are some amazing people out there who put their money where their mouths are when it comes to saying they want to be mekareiv people. You obviously have just not found the right people yet. Don’t lose hope. You will find a chevra who not only accepts you, but EMBRACES who you are.
Thanks for the correction – I THOUGHT it was Ateres Avrohom, but which one is the one where they will only allow a one man band, then? Is it near McDonald Avenue? That might be what I was thinking of. My bad. Sorry.
Razag did an outstanding job for us, and Moishe Shmukler was a doll to deal with. I cannopt recommend them highly enough. The food was great, the service, too, and they were very helpful.
“anuran, I was looking for a husband that was in the Yeshiva culture. I didnt need him to brag but when he spoke about torah learning I was not “bored to tears”.
You shouldn’t be bored, that’s very important. But girls are not sitting in Yeshivah with their dates – they need to know more about him than only what he knows of Torah.
When I lost my parents O”H within five months of each other, and so unexpectedly, this was how my grieving stages went. 1) disbelief 2) acceptance 3) acceptance 4) acceptance 5) acceptance. I cried and cried, and cried some more, buckets every day for an entire year, and then to a lesser extent for another two years, and now, just when I am especially missing them (which granted is every day) I don’t break down sobbing, as I used to, more like just tearing up).
As soon as the initial shock of realization hit me (my siblings as well), we immediately accepted that this is what it was. There was no illusion that they would rebound from their respective imminently fatal strokes. Neither did we bargain with Hashem,except to say, please don’t let them suffer any pain. When we said Boruch Dayan HaEmes, we had 100% complete kavanna and were not merely repeating the words we were told to say. I realize this is not necessarily typical, but we have strong emunah, raised as we were in a very frum, but also modern Orthodox home (and I say that to show that one need not be Yeshivish in order to have real bitachon in Hashem and accept His Ratzon as Just).
Everyone deals with grief in a different and private way. there is no one right formula, Kubler/Ross notwithstanding, and different people have different coping mechanisms. When people came into our shiva house,they were shocked at times to see us crying, and then minutes later laughing our head off, too. What they did not realize was that we were telling over stories that contained both elements within them, one making us very sad, the other lifting our spirits greatly. So it really is a case of different strokes for different folks.
Of course I didn’t think that you meant little girls, but the fact is that even little girls are thinking of marriage ALL throughout their childhood. I don’t think girls in school are as introspective as you think they are. Their teachers are too busy telling them what they should be thinking. They are busy telling them about the wonderful world of supporting their husbands in Yeshivah (but not giving them the info on how they will do that whent hey are busy having children, or who will raise those children if they are out working while thier husbands are not). That is not introspection in any way, shape, or form. We know what that is. And if they choose that lifestyle, so be it.
Boys are being encouraged to only sit and learn. They are actively discouraged in many cases, from becoming better-educated secularly, in order to earn a professional parnassah. And you can talk to a boy until you are blue in the face from the time he is three, if you want. He will still mature at the same rate that most normal boys mature, and that is not usually at 17-18. You know who matured early? – the boys who grew up on farms, in the shtetls of Europe, in places where boys AND girls had real responsibilities from the time they were toddlers. They learned how to be mature, because they had to grow up quickly. Our kids today are not mature, I am very sorry to say. They are spoiled and pampered, they are fed unrealistic ideologies about their future, and told that this is the best way for them to live their lives, when in fact it is teaching them to be non-self-reliant and feel a sense of entitlement. This is a whole other discussion, of course, so I am stopping here. Maturity, it is NOT.
” The tools of the professional match-maker are different than those of the friends and family. So are the expectations. I am more inclined to trust former because I know their primary concern is the happiness of those close to them”
Please forgive me for this correction, but I think you meant the “latter,” if you were referring to family and friends. And I agree with you. Matchmakers have a dollar sign agenda, if they are pros (even if you want to argue that they want to see shidduchim get made, they still have a financial stake in it). Family and close friends want only to see the person find happiness.
If you can afford it, the museums and Hayden Planetarium are awesome and educational.
I think all this labeling is silly.
Phyllis, unless I seriously misunderstood what you posted, I cannot agree with you. Girls begin thinking of their weddings and getting married as soon as they are old enough to take a white towel and pin it to their hair and put Mommy’s high heels on. Boys think about it as soon as they feel like it.Their thinking or not thinking about it, has nothing to do with maturity. Many immature boys AND girls think about marriage as soon as their hormones start kicking in. Unfortunately many of them get married way too early, for the wrong reasons. And if you don’t believe that, you are missing out on the true nature of kids today. Thinking about marriage does not mean one is ready for it.
I have heard such things as mybat described, in recent years. It just feels like more and more tzaar is coming to the Jewish community at large. And it is often the innocent and worse yet, the very young, who are collaterally damaged. I really don’t know how one can rebound from that.
So you don’t make such a big deal out fo the “meeting the boy’s parents.” You tell the girl, I would like to swing by my parents to say hello, before we go out. Just introduce her, and don’t stay more than five minutes. They have the right to see her, just as her parents saw him. And if they are already going out five times, it is not just a “casual” acquaintance anymore, there is potential there.
Positiveaynayim and Aries2756 both make salient points, and their opinions should read and re-read. It really is not fair that the girl’s parents get to meet the boy, but the boy’s parents do not get to meet the girl, sometimes as PosA pointed out, until the l’chaim. After 4 dates or so, the boy SHOULD bring the girl around to meet his parents. And mothers of boys, try to remember how you felt about your own mother-in-law. If she was obnoxious to you, do you really want your future D-I-L to feel that way about you, too? And if she was an absolute doll, would you not want your son’s wife to say that to their children some day about you, too? My husband and I were both very lucky – our respective in-laws were amazing and loving, a real second set of parents to us. My children are even luckier, because that is how we treat THEIR respective spouses.
I spent NO time last week making shidduchim – I was sick with stomach flu. But I digress… I, too, am curious. If you are spending 8 hours a day making shidduchim for which you are a) not getting compensated properly and b)not being shown appreciation or that you are valued, then why are you doing it? And how are you making a parnassah with all your time devoted to non-compensated shidduchim when they didn’t go through?
When you talk about appreciation you ONLY seem to mean financial appreciation. I have been shown great verbal and emotional hakoras hatov for my efforts,even when it did not go through, and that is enough for me. If you want to be a professional shadchan whose life is spent yomam valailah making shidduchim, then you need to get real and understand that no matter how hard you work, if you don’t get the job done, they will not pay you. If my plumber works all day in my house and the toilet is still not working, he does not get paid. You may feel that is unfair, but if someone cannot get the job done, UNLESS IT IS UNDERSTOOD BEFOREHAND that he gets paid for the effort, he does not get paid for merely trying, even if he tries very hard. To put it in another perspective, a student who is not as quick to learn as another one, may try really hard to study for a test, really put all his kochos into it, and still end up with a grade of 70 on a test. At the end of the day, while the teacher may appreciate the child’s efforts, that child still got a 70, and his report card will reflect that (though the teacher absolutely may write in the comments,”I can see how hard Reuven has been trying, and hopefully he will do better next time.”) Effort alone, no matter how much it is appreciated, still does not constitute an end result that is desirable, and may not be compensatory.
Jphone is absolutely correct — you ask the adults who are nogeya l’inyan, and you ask more than one, so you get a variety of responses.
If you are the girl,talk about what kind of music you like, where you would go, if you could go anywhere in the world (money no object), what is the one thing (besides family, siddur, and chumash)you would take with you if you had thirty seconds to get out of your house? Who, other than family and Gedolim, are the three people you most admire… you get the idea. Get the focus of the conversation AWAY from Torah learning, so you can get some idea about the rest of the person, not just his religious hashkafa. The things parents have already learned from the shadchan or the references should have covered whether or not the boy is learned. You need to know what he is like when he is NOT in Yeshivah. Ditto for the girl. What type of chessed does she do, what does she like to read, what does she consider to be a fun way to spend the day? What hobbies do either of them have? Etc. Etc. Etc.