With a little help from my friends
To be clear, when he says, “Get high with a little help from my friends,” he means altitude, like climbing a mountain or a large staircase.
In my (very impressive) quote in the Jerusalem Post this past weekend, I said that I think that what’s going on with people not getting married even though they (supposedly) want to, should be categorized as a problem. There is pretty much always taboo around weaknesses and that taboo creates a situation where things aren’t being discussed and if things aren’t being discussed, then solutions cannot be found.
I think another symptom of the taboo around the singles problem (there, I said it) is that people don’t ask for help. I believe the easiest kinds of shidduchs (matches) are probably matches made through friends. Easiest meaning, least painful, most smooth. Just a theory but it makes sense.
Someone just told me that suddenly one day he realized that just because his friends care about him and just because they know a million girls, doesn’t mean they’ll think of setting him up with anyone. And so he started asking individual friends if they had anyone for him.
Smart smart smart. But I think that one of the keys here is not to ask just anyone. It’s best to ask, as he said, people you really like and who you believe will be able to market you well. And I’d say, people whose opinions you trust. Doesn’t make anything full-proof but it definitely helps!
I’m curious, who has now read this post and is going to ask at least one friend if they can keep them in mind for a shidduch?
A good idea, but personally I haven’t seen any correlation between the closeness of the relationship to the “shadchan” and the suitability of the date. Sometimes it’s worse with good friends as they’re so desperate for you to get married, much more than you yourself are (ok, than I myself am).
A variation on the idea: someone somewhere wrote a book and said that a person looking to get married should make a list of some strategically chosen people (maybe a university professor, someone who works in a large company or otherwise exposed to many people in your population ballpark), probably more acquaintances than friends, and take them out for lunch, tell them what you are looking for and ask them to help. A bit like dating the shadchan. And I think it’s quite clear on this one – you pay.
The dates that your friends have set you up on, have they not at least been more pleasant?
My problem is not thinking about my single friends – in fact, I nearly always have them in mind; it’s having friends that will make a good match. For instance, I have a single male friend and a single female friend who are about the same age, and have quite a bit in common. Except – he’s very secular and she’s very religious. Not a match. And this is true for nearly all my friends: every potential match-up has one very BIG thing wrong with it. Frustrating.
I have even been known to go up to total strangers who strike me in some way and ask them if they’re single :)
Alissa, I sort of find that sad… All these people who potentially match except one thing.
I think that it’s very hard to really make shidduchim, a few people have a talent for it, a few others are “hopeless but lucky”. And then there are the “you never know” brigade and/or “they mean well” brigade.
Inner responses to date suggestions from friends range from “not for me, maybe for a friend”, “what were they thinking” to “are they out of their minds!” But don’t worry, I smile politely and thank them for thinking of me.
I know people who have met through just about every conceivable means: blind shidduch dating, friend’s suggestion, singles weekends, dating sites, video dating, facebook, and even the old-fashioned in person pick-up, so I don’t think that it is a matter of finding the perfect forum, just the perfect one!
Hmm. I have thought asking friends to introduce me to somewhat appropriate women. Or at least when they invite me to a Shabbat meal make it with other singles and not with three couples talking about schools. But I’m afraid that would lead to either
1) random dates (c.f. the Dilbert book “Random Acts of Management”, the cover of which shows the boss using a spinner wheel, and I’d speculate about what would be on that wheel if I was not posting under my own name) which might be entertaining to tell about afterward, but not so much while they’re going on.
2) less invitations to meals.
3) an invitation together with the one single woman they know, from the spinner in option #1.