Bad4Shidduchim has penned a beautiful, funny-yet-moving Open Letter to female singles in the frum world that everyone (single or married, male or female) should be sure to read in full. It's hard to choose an excerpt, it's so well put, but to expound on a couple points:
Firstly, near the end of our long, back and forth discussion, she noted something which is extremely important: [slightly edited]
Reading between the lines of the shadchan's original e-mail, it seemed she was subtly hinting that she was doing just that, at least to some extent, and this was confirmed in her response to our friend - the shadchan feels stuck between a rock and a hard place. She laments the guys who she would like to set up but doesn't feel they are "ready" to date, and gets very upset at those who want "stunning" girls or are unreasonable in general. She decries the boys who want specific "looks" they like, states clearly that the majority of the girls are far superior to the guys in most ways, and notes that the boys' attitudes toward looks put shadchanim in a tough spot. She does, however, end up trying to set these boys up with girls similar to their demanded "look".
Our friend's reply nails the solution on the head:
For the rest of us, however, this is absolutely something we can do. One of the major contributors to the so-called shidduch "crisis" is that rather than attempting to solve the core issues, people cater to them instead: Instead of telling boys to grow up, not be shallow, and give people a fair chance, we instead tell the girls to try and fit the shtus-like approach and do whatever they can to knock a guy's socks off when he picks her up. Instead of stopping girls from dating too young, which is creating an incredibly imbalanced pool, parents encourage daughters to date younger and younger so they have more of a chance of finding someone - not realizing that they're actually making it harder just by adding their daughters to create an absurdly high ration of girls to boys.
But certainly among people we've spoken to, behind the scenes things are different. Are guys still getting more dates than girls? Seemingly. But more and more, their friends and even their family sometimes simply don't feel comfortable setting them up, noting that they're too shallow, too immature, and too difficult. Girls who are dating are finding more and more that their dates have a serious lack of maturity, skewed value systems, and to some extent (not always) are taking the attitude that they aren't going to put up with it anymore. If a guy is demanding a ton of information or a set of pictures for a simple first date, they view him as too immature and not worth the time, and have the shadchan (if not the girl herself) basically pull back the suggestion. Essentially, these girls are saying that if a guy is actually a mensch, he'll act appropriately and they won't need to jump through all these hoops and play all these games to go out.
More importantly: They're right.
The girls who have taken the attitude of "if he's interested, great. If not, that's fine, too" have, it seems*, an easier time dealing with the dating world - and the guys who act similarly are having better experiences as well. By not allowing one side to cater to the whims of the other, the dating dynamic changes - no longer are relationships uneven, but they begin to take shape on even footing. The girls regain their self-esteem by not lowering themselves to chase dates, and for the guys who work at building such relationships despite not having every card in their hand it creates a sense of humility and hubris that seems to be disappearing otherwise. It's also reasonable to say that being forced to work at building, rather than simply choosing or being picked to be part of a relationship, allows couples to appreciate them that much more, which may help to stem the increasing spate of divorces in the frum community. (One can hope, anyway.)
While it is difficult to choose the atypical path, perhaps those young women who wish to build strong, lasting relationships should simply stop playing the game. Normally, a couple heads on a date knowing every bit of mundane information about the other person, plus any great story that their respective friends told them about one another. This effectively kills the date from the get go - there's less of a reason to listen to the person across the table other than to overanalyze all their little tics and comments and be incredibly self-conscious of one's own. For the most part, people have made a basic box set of judgments about the other person from the information provided., and all the date accomplishes is fill the box in a bit.
Perhaps instead**, young men and women should ask their friends and family to set them up based on the one or two core values which are integral to their being above every other (and be truly honest with themselves about what these are, or this will be a failure) or even nothing, and otherwise instruct their friends to say nothing about them - and to accept those matches which accept those terms. And perhaps those guys who are menschen - or maybe just sick of being told about countless girls who are exactly the same on paper - will get smart, take a chance, and say "Hey, you know what - I think that value is what I identify with", and give it a shot. Suddenly, the date isn't a boring give and take talking about everything the pair knows about one another, filling in a pre-defined box, but instead building a picture of a person almost from scratch, with one major foundation piece at its base.
And hey - if it doesn't work, there's always plastic surgery.
* Please note that this is from our selective experiences and obviously could be unrepresentative. That said, all four couples we helped introduce/set up who are married did so without any games, without any advance pictures of one another prior to meeting, and by handling their relationships basically entirely on their own as adults. I think I've been involved in less than 20 set-ups, most of which lasted at least a number of dates, which is about the best a person setting people up can expect - the rest is up to the daters themselves.
** I tested the above theory on one couple. For six months, the guy (who wanted a break from dating in general) refused to date a girl on just my say-so without any information. Finally, one day, he acquiesced, figuring what's the harm. They recently gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Sure, 1 is a horrible sample size, but 1/1 is still batting 1.000!
Dear Girlfriends,A friend of ours became infuriated when she read the now infamous controversial piece in The Jewish Press recently by Yitta Halberstam, prompting a fantastic email discussion on the subject of shidduchim in general, and thanks to a timely e-mail from a shadchan, a specific one about "picky boys".
You put up with a lot of criticism when dating. Even if you staunchly stand against nose jobs, it can’t help but get to you: all that disapprobation of how you dress, how you look, how you do your hair and carry yourself. What you say on a first date and what you shouldn’t have said. Some say you’re not modest enough. Some say you’re too modest—you’re not in high school anymore. Some say be yourself; some say don’t lay it on too thick at first. Whatever you do is somehow wrong, and that’s the reason you’re still single. [...]
Don’t let those other people get to you. They don’t know you well enough, and they’re too shallow themselves to delve beyond your surface. Those guys who complained about your hair, your makeup? Too busy keeping artificial scores to experience real life. The one who ditched you because he worried you weren’t pretty enough to show his friends? He’s the one who should be self-conscious, not you.
Firstly, near the end of our long, back and forth discussion, she noted something which is extremely important: [slightly edited]
As much as I have a healthy self esteem, when I read these articles about looks, etc., or if I'm having a bad day with regards to my look, or if I gain some weight (helloooo, I'm a girl, it happens! I love chocolate), then I get really anxious. As much as I know I'm supposed to be appreciated for my internals - and even when I'm on the chubby side, I'm still attractive - it can get to you! And I'm generally healthy and really not predisposed to eating disorders, etc., but if I can get so affected, and I'm generally healthy, then what about others who are not!??! Geez.Meanwhile, while we were having our discussion, someone had told her to contact a shadchan about a certain boy, but the shadchan told our friend nicely in an e-mail that the boy is "very picky" and while she thinks it's a good fit hashkafically and personality-wise, she had tried setting him up previously and would have to say no for now. Our friend followed up to note that she wasn't asking to be set up, but that while she was on the subject, it seemed that if everything else was okay, the only logical conclusion would be that looks were the issue - and while she is quite secure in her looks and anyone she dates (and she usually doesn't date via shadchan) seem to appreciate her looks just fine, she nevertheless feels uncomfortable even being set up by someone who would condone such behavior and facilitate on behalf of such a boy.
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Reading between the lines of the shadchan's original e-mail, it seemed she was subtly hinting that she was doing just that, at least to some extent, and this was confirmed in her response to our friend - the shadchan feels stuck between a rock and a hard place. She laments the guys who she would like to set up but doesn't feel they are "ready" to date, and gets very upset at those who want "stunning" girls or are unreasonable in general. She decries the boys who want specific "looks" they like, states clearly that the majority of the girls are far superior to the guys in most ways, and notes that the boys' attitudes toward looks put shadchanim in a tough spot. She does, however, end up trying to set these boys up with girls similar to their demanded "look".
Our friend's reply nails the solution on the head:
Thank you very much for your response; I appreciate that this seems to be an all too common issue and you as a shadchan end up in the middle. I only wish (as I'm sure you and many others do) that we could find some way to express to certain guys (and girls I'm sure) that the huge focus and unhealthy perspectives related to looks (because I totally understand that attraction IS a big deal, within reason!) can be damaging not only to their ability to build and maintain strong relationships but that people will also become hesitant to set them up.It is hard to fault a formal shadchan from doing the best they can with what they have in terms of setting people up, even if that means working around boys' picky whims to try and make matches. Would it be better if they simply said "I'm sorry, but I don't feel comfortable setting you up" - ? Certainly! But it serves little purpose to attack them for this, as they are simply trying to do a job, and the shadchan strongly felt that otherwise, these were genuinely nice boys who seem to have fallen into this trap. It's at least arguable for a professional to work with what they've got.
For the rest of us, however, this is absolutely something we can do. One of the major contributors to the so-called shidduch "crisis" is that rather than attempting to solve the core issues, people cater to them instead: Instead of telling boys to grow up, not be shallow, and give people a fair chance, we instead tell the girls to try and fit the shtus-like approach and do whatever they can to knock a guy's socks off when he picks her up. Instead of stopping girls from dating too young, which is creating an incredibly imbalanced pool, parents encourage daughters to date younger and younger so they have more of a chance of finding someone - not realizing that they're actually making it harder just by adding their daughters to create an absurdly high ration of girls to boys.
But certainly among people we've spoken to, behind the scenes things are different. Are guys still getting more dates than girls? Seemingly. But more and more, their friends and even their family sometimes simply don't feel comfortable setting them up, noting that they're too shallow, too immature, and too difficult. Girls who are dating are finding more and more that their dates have a serious lack of maturity, skewed value systems, and to some extent (not always) are taking the attitude that they aren't going to put up with it anymore. If a guy is demanding a ton of information or a set of pictures for a simple first date, they view him as too immature and not worth the time, and have the shadchan (if not the girl herself) basically pull back the suggestion. Essentially, these girls are saying that if a guy is actually a mensch, he'll act appropriately and they won't need to jump through all these hoops and play all these games to go out.
More importantly: They're right.
The girls who have taken the attitude of "if he's interested, great. If not, that's fine, too" have, it seems*, an easier time dealing with the dating world - and the guys who act similarly are having better experiences as well. By not allowing one side to cater to the whims of the other, the dating dynamic changes - no longer are relationships uneven, but they begin to take shape on even footing. The girls regain their self-esteem by not lowering themselves to chase dates, and for the guys who work at building such relationships despite not having every card in their hand it creates a sense of humility and hubris that seems to be disappearing otherwise. It's also reasonable to say that being forced to work at building, rather than simply choosing or being picked to be part of a relationship, allows couples to appreciate them that much more, which may help to stem the increasing spate of divorces in the frum community. (One can hope, anyway.)
While it is difficult to choose the atypical path, perhaps those young women who wish to build strong, lasting relationships should simply stop playing the game. Normally, a couple heads on a date knowing every bit of mundane information about the other person, plus any great story that their respective friends told them about one another. This effectively kills the date from the get go - there's less of a reason to listen to the person across the table other than to overanalyze all their little tics and comments and be incredibly self-conscious of one's own. For the most part, people have made a basic box set of judgments about the other person from the information provided., and all the date accomplishes is fill the box in a bit.
Perhaps instead**, young men and women should ask their friends and family to set them up based on the one or two core values which are integral to their being above every other (and be truly honest with themselves about what these are, or this will be a failure) or even nothing, and otherwise instruct their friends to say nothing about them - and to accept those matches which accept those terms. And perhaps those guys who are menschen - or maybe just sick of being told about countless girls who are exactly the same on paper - will get smart, take a chance, and say "Hey, you know what - I think that value is what I identify with", and give it a shot. Suddenly, the date isn't a boring give and take talking about everything the pair knows about one another, filling in a pre-defined box, but instead building a picture of a person almost from scratch, with one major foundation piece at its base.
And hey - if it doesn't work, there's always plastic surgery.
* Please note that this is from our selective experiences and obviously could be unrepresentative. That said, all four couples we helped introduce/set up who are married did so without any games, without any advance pictures of one another prior to meeting, and by handling their relationships basically entirely on their own as adults. I think I've been involved in less than 20 set-ups, most of which lasted at least a number of dates, which is about the best a person setting people up can expect - the rest is up to the daters themselves.
** I tested the above theory on one couple. For six months, the guy (who wanted a break from dating in general) refused to date a girl on just my say-so without any information. Finally, one day, he acquiesced, figuring what's the harm. They recently gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Sure, 1 is a horrible sample size, but 1/1 is still batting 1.000!
I have a theory about this, if you are super picky about looks then dont blinf date. Go out find a girl you think is attractive and ask her out, seems pretty simple to me.
ReplyDeleteReplied below...
Deleteah, but zehava - if you go out and find a girl you think is attractive, she may say no! :o
ReplyDeleteReplied below...
DeleteZehava is right and looks could be one of the core values in Ezzie's solutoin.
ReplyDeleteBut the boys that do that will have to get off their high horses and drop the pretence of being a "top boy"; they'll be forced to admit what their priorities are, and under the current system they don't have to.
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Delete2 issues which are coming up here - one is the ridiculous amount of input Jewish mothers are havnig in this "world". The great gate-keepers of their son's wedding prospects - alas the sad thing is that "NO jewish girl is good enough for my son!!" I hate jewish mothers by the way.
ReplyDeleteThe second issue is the entire structure. Resumes? Redding things? The only social interaction between the sexes in thei world are dating for marriage. It's flawed. And then to be told that looks are everythign onnn top of that? Crazy.
For the record, I am 21, enagged and I never went on a shidduch date in my life.
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DeleteHm. Thankfully I was really not involved in the shidduch world, so I don't know how prevalent these attitudes are. I keep finding it surprising that people ar this way. Your idea of having couples not know everything about each other is interesting. This is how I met my husband: my apartmentmate from Neve said, "Hey, I know a guy. He's a convert from Europe, he's very smart, he's very religious, he's opinionated, he knows philosophy and a lot of languages, and he's very tall." Another friend who knew him from Facebook said the same thing. And that was it- I agreed. I did end up calling his Rabbis just to shmooze with them a little more about him, and I liked what I heard as well, but I didn't need more than the initial things I'd heard.
ReplyDeleteReplied below...
DeleteIn this Twitter age you really expect us to read something beyond 140 characters?
ReplyDeleteYou've got a lot of great points here, Ez. From a psychological perspective (if I may) I think that there are a number of phenomena working in concert that influence this state of affairs.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think it's important to realize that the problem is not the fact that guys are looking for girls that they deem attractive. Attractiveness is a reasonable criterion to require when looking for a mate (from an evolutionary (gasp!) perspective at the very least).
The ironic thing is that while a guy may think that nit-picking about the exact details of what he considers attractive will make it more likely that he will be set up with someone appropriate, research has shown that we (guys and girls) are very bad at explaining our preferences. We tend to be much happier with our choices when they come from our gut than when they are based on careful over-analysis. So really it makes more sense to go out blind and see if it "clicks" than worry about it beforehand.
At the same time, we (guys and girls) are also really bad at predicting how our preferences will change over time. We tend to assume that our likes and dislikes are more stable and objective than they really are. And so we continue to espouse the same preferences even though they might very well change in the future (even due, perhaps, to an actual encounter with someone who we would have previously declined).
In sum- we believe that we know what we want and what we will want in the future but in actuality we have no (conscious) idea.
Aside from the issue of how we relate to our preferences intra-personally, there is some interesting new research (associated with Landers!) that points to a fascinating misconception that women tend to exhibit when predicting the preferences of men. The researchers devised a set of systematically fabricated shidduch resumes and asked guys how much they would like go out with the girls represented by each resume. They showed the same resumes to girls and asked how they thought the guys would respond. The results indicated that although both groups endorsed "attractiveness" as the most important quality for guys who are dating, the girls assumed that "thinness" would be almost as important when in reality guys were more interested in some intrinsic qualities (such as intelligence and religiosity) than "thinness". Somehow (perhaps spurred on by overcritical yentas and shadchanim) women have gotten the impression that looking "perfect" is the most important factor in catching a guy's eye when, in reality, inner qualities are just as important.
There is so much more to say, but that will do for now:)
Oh Sruly, how I love thee... :) Great comment, I'm going to comment piece by piece.
DeleteI think that there are a number of phenomena working in concert that influence this state of affairs.
For sure.
First, I think it's important to realize that the problem is not the fact that guys are looking for girls that they deem attractive. Attractiveness is a reasonable criterion to require when looking for a mate (from an evolutionary (gasp!) perspective at the very least).
At the same time, we (guys and girls) are also really bad at predicting how our preferences will change over time. We tend to assume that our likes and dislikes are more stable and objective than they really are. And so we continue to espouse the same preferences even though they might very well change in the future (even due, perhaps, to an actual encounter with someone who we would have previously declined).
Absolutely! I am not against people caring about looks; I'm against making that the first criteria, to the point where people's assumed self-standards for themselves have gotten completely skewed. Countless times I've found guys rejecting girls who "aren't pretty enough" or "aren't my look" - yet they found the same girls attractive in person, or we know them (obviously in our own biases) to be quite attractive. Plus, there's a marked difference between pictures of people and the people themselves for the most part, compounded by the fact that what someone thinks is a flattering picture of themselves often is not what others think is. One friend recently tried to use an example as "proof" of why he "needs" to see pictures before agreeing to a date. His examples? Girls he's dated whose appearance in person was incredibly better in person or far worse in person than the pictures he'd gotten (resulting in a "waste" of his time). I tried to explain that this was actually a proof against his theory, since the pictures were meaningless, but he didn't quite get it.
In sum- we believe that we know what we want and what we will want in the future but in actuality we have no (conscious) idea.
EXACTLY! :)
Aside from the issue of how we relate to our preferences intra-personally, there is some interesting new research (associated with Landers!)
Ooh, link?!
The researchers devised a set of systematically fabricated shidduch resumes and asked guys how much they would like go out with the girls represented by each resume. They showed the same resumes to girls and asked how they thought the guys would respond. The results indicated that although both groups endorsed "attractiveness" as the most important quality for guys who are dating, the girls assumed that "thinness" would be almost as important when in reality guys were more interested in some intrinsic qualities (such as intelligence and religiosity) than "thinness". Somehow (perhaps spurred on by overcritical yentas and shadchanim) women have gotten the impression that looking "perfect" is the most important factor in catching a guy's eye when, in reality, inner qualities are just as important.
Exactly. But why do girls have this misconception? I would submit that it's because they're often rejected by guys before they've actually dated. It's hard to chalk that up to religiosity or intelligence, since there's very little to base that on (other than horribly misleading online profiles), so they assume it's looks - much as the young woman in this post did - and usually rightfully so. While the guys may not actually favor only looks, their actions tend to imply it. Perhaps this is because they have no other metric to use to choose from all the suggestions they get, but regardless, that's what happens.
There is so much more to say, but that will do for now:)
WE WANT MORE! WE WANT MORE!
I suppose that there are many who fall into the trap of what Shidduch dating has become, focusing on what they believe is important in a relationship, or what will make them happy. In the end though, I argue with your solution, as we have discussed many times. But hey, what do I know :-)
ReplyDeleteZehava - Heh, I like that!
ReplyDeleteFudge - LOL. All truth, that certainly could be playing a role in this. I know of guys who've noted that they prefer to be in the driver's seat when it comes to dating, to the point that they've broken up with girls just before they thought they might be broken up with, even though they wanted to continue.
Eli - Exactly. I don't see a problem with that, and some guys might be embarrassed to admit that that's their core value... but perhaps they should be, and perhaps that will help them restructure their own values. At worst it's a more honest approach.
Cymbaline - To the dater in this post, that was perhaps the most troubling aspect. Why are the mothers so deeply involved, to the point that they are vetting on behalf of their sons? This isn't a generation of 15-year olds being paired off by arranged marriage. And I think the last line is the most key - when the entire structure is so... well, structured, how can we possibly try to incorporate values in everyone when it's all out the window when it comes to finding a partner for life? It's just horrible.
Mindy - Exactly! And if anything, it was probably more interesting finding out about his life from him than from a piece of paper or a series of people.
HH - Haha! Because I don't use Twitter, obviously. :)
Anon - Heh. See? :P (As if somehow they were related.)
Bravo. I think I am going to save this for when my daughter is ready to get married. It is time for parents to take back our children's lives, from a sytem which is failing them in so many ways.
ReplyDeleteCan't you people even solve ONE problem:)
ReplyDeleteAs i say to my friends all the time, the number one prevention to divorce in the frum community is the thought of re-entering the "world of shidduchim"...::shudder::