Shoshvinim – the site where you set up your friends
I just wrote a post yesterday about how I believe it’s important people try to help their friends meet the right one. But it’s not an easy process, that’s for sure.
I mentioned keeping a list of the single people you know who you’d be willing to set up (aka, the people you like enough to do so) but of course that’s only a start. I know there are groups that meet once a month or so where each person brings the names of a couple of singles and they discuss each other’s singles, checking if any of them sound like they match.
But now there is another way to set up your friends. There is a very cool new website called shoshvinim.org (a shoshvin is a bridesmaid or usher). It is an Israeli site, in Hebrew, where people go in order to find matches for their single friends. You put up a profile for your friend, search, talk to other people’s friends and then tell the two single people when you both decide it’s worth a shot. Think what a different perspective that is than you looking for a match for yourself. According to the site, there have been 22 matches made in the approximately one year it’s been running.
In an article on the site by Rabbi Ari Sitner, he says that it’s not fair that the singles “problem” should have to be dealt with only by the singles. He says, it’s great that there are sites online where people can meet but the problem there is that it’s the person looking for a match for themselves. In the good ol’ days the community helped people find matches and he said it’s important that that happen today. And, since internet is the new shtetl, having a place online where you can help your single friends, makes sense.
Of course this has to be done tastefully and respectfully (which includes doing it with the single person’s consent).
Would you want your friend to go on shoshvinim for you?
Photo by jilly~bean on flickr.
Great to hear about this site. There really is not enough initiative out there…
I totally agree. I really wish there was a way to help people be more proactive but isn’t that generally a problem (not just regarding the issue of shidduchim) – lack of proactivity? How do you help people be proactive about something you believe is important? Maybe we can offer people a prize for every shidduch they try to make. Like a virtual cup of coffee. :)
I took a like at aforementioned site, and not such a fan. I’m not going to go into a rant about poor programming and how it seems to not consider that there are options other than frum/not frum. No, but I *am* going to rant about the seeming shallowness of the male profiles.
I would have expected, that if the profile is created by a friend and not by the individual, there would be less room for one of my pet peeves: less than perfect men looking for thin, young, pretty women.
We are not all thin, young, and pretty. Get over it. Especially if you’re no Tom Cruise yourself.
It drives me nuts when people disqualify other people based on physical attributes. (which, btw, had I done that I never would have consented to date the man who is now my husband.) And we’re not talking ‘I would rather not date any hunchbacks.’ I mean things like, ‘I’m a 35-yr old male who is between jobs and rather chubby, but I’m looking to date a woman aged 21-25. No fatties.’
I would like to have expected better from this site.
Chavaleh, you crack me up. :) Anyway, for sure you’re right, of course. I do think it’s important to be open to the idea of becoming attracted to someone you aren’t necessarily attracted to immediately. Thanks for your comment.