I am writing today about the SUN initiative which is about single men and women meeting together on a monthly basis with the intention of trying to set each other up and each other\u2019s friends. The goal is to empower singles to capitalize on their own network to help their single friends and those they have dated.<\/p>\n
While reaching out to people to further this initiative, my objective has also been to better understand the shidduch issues and persuade as many people as I can to get involved in addressing them. I am an operations research analyst by trade and most of my analyses are typically based on quantitative results of surveys. Given that there has not been a wide range survey conducted on the shidduch issues, the following conclusions are solely based on my observations and conversations.<\/p>\n
There are many reasons why I believe shidduch issues are so prevalent in the frum world, but I mainly want to focus on a few of them. I believe one of the bigger reasons is due to supply and demand. For a variety of reasons, there appears to be many more eligible frum single women than eligible frum single men. The reasons may include; more single men leave the derech as they get older, there are more female Baalos Teshuva, and there are more men who don\u2019t prioritize getting married or simply don\u2019t have interest in getting married at all. The age gap problem, in which single men typically only date younger women, contributes to the problem. The issue becomes more pronounced as singles get older, because single men appear to move to the \u2018left\u2019 faster than single women, creating an even greater imbalance of single men and women of the same hashkafa.<\/p>\n
Another major contributing factor is that the majority of frum singles are clustered in very few areas around the country. Most live in New York City with the majority of those living in the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Many single men are not willing to travel an hour to go on a date with a girl who lives in the next city. In addition, many singles seem to have an attitude of \u2018I can do better\u2019 when dating someone, as if there is some ranking system of the quality of singles that people are trying climb. There is also sense that many of the single men there do not seem to prioritize getting married, leading to increased frustration for single women. For those singles who live in places outside of New York such as Toronto, Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, etc., the singles complain (with good reason) that the local singles mostly know one another and have either already dated or know that they don\u2019t want to date each other.<\/p>\n
Another possible contributing factor to the shidduch issues is that many singles (especially single men) do not trust that the matchmakers who suggest ideas to them have their best interest at heart. I have heard a number of single men express feeling that matchmakers have a few women that they really want to help, and are suggesting these women to almost every guy that comes their way. At the same time, the singles, especially the men, appear to be trying to find reasons why they do not think the idea presented to them is a good idea. Many prefer to meet a potential date in a more natural setting such as a singles Shabbos meal, but this often leads to singles being stuck in the \u2018friends zone\u2019 with each other.<\/p>\n
The majority of rabbeim I have spoken to fully understand that the shidduch issues are getting progressively worse with time, but most are not able or willing to make it a real priority in their community. I have met some amazing people across the country who are doing what they can to help, but most are too busy to do more than what they\u2019re already doing, and there are simply not enough of them.<\/p>\n
So where do we go from here? I believe that the following needs to occur to improve the current situation:<\/p>\n
We all know wonderful single men and women who are frustrated with what is occurring. The question is what are YOU going to do about it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am writing today about the SUN initiative which is about single men and women meeting together on a monthly basis with the intention of trying to set each other up and each other\u2019s friends. The goal is to empower singles to capitalize on their own network to help their single friends and those they<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133482,"featured_media":58427,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\n