Just ask the tens of thousands of aging singles in our community, many of whom waited too long to begin looking, if they wish they could have a few extra youthful years for their search. Then again, don’t ask them; their pain is great enough already. Instead, encourage the boys in beis medrash and the girls who’ve begun to think about marriage not to waste a single moment. If getting married and starting a family are really foundations of Jewish life, then singles need to put themselves in a position to build this foundation the moment they are ready. This is the greatest priority.
3. There are so many great girls out there and not enough guys.
This is a complaint frequently regurgitated by frustrated shadchanim and people who believe everything they hear. Supposedly, a large percentage of single guys are uneducated, unsophisticated, unappealing, and have a host of psychological and social problems to boot. The few good ones have long lists of wonderful girls just desperate to go out with them, and merely getting one’s name on such a list is a daunting challenge for our innocent, oppressed heroines.
As a result of their great advantage, goes the thinking, guys can be picky about all kinds of trivial and even inappropriate things, while girls are forced to settle for whatever slop becomes available to them. If a girl expresses reluctance to go out with a brute, she is labeled picky and difficult and condemned to the shidduch netherworld.
To the best of my knowledge a census has yet to be taken, but common belief is that quality Jewish men are an endangered species, while the pick of women has never been better.
Hooey. Although in some of the more cloistered communities women are not empowered to take charge of their lives and their intellectual potential is suppressed, when it comes to shidduchim the fairer sex is at least 50 percent responsible for the problems that exist. For every guy who makes a crass, even vulgar inquiry as to a girl’s dress size, there are several girls who are just as fixated with a guy’s height. This is a parallel madness – yet the men are roundly condemned for seeking stick figures, with no equivalent criticism leveled at equally shallow women.
Similarly, women have increasingly become as cold, calculating, and cynical in dating as men are alleged to be. Every offense that men have traditionally perpetrated against women – not calling them back, leading them on, playing mind games, standing them up, lying to them, not showing affection and appreciation, obsessing over trivialities, fearing commitment, and so much more – is something the women are guilty of in great numbers nowadays as well.
Perhaps the culture of feminism, which has successfully infiltrated even the more cloistered Orthodox communities, has influenced women to abandon their softer, empathic natures and become more like men. If so, it is to no one’s benefit.
I hear a lot about how so many guys are “weirdos.” And it’s true that there is there is no shortage of them. But let me tell you, there are plenty of women out there with issues too. I encounter them all the time. It’s easier to spot men with issues, since they are less likely to tend to personal appearance and are generally more forward in social situations. This leads to a perception that there are many more men with issues, and the women are mostly “put together.” But many of these women are only put together on the outside. Weirdness does not discriminate between genders.
