“We can hardly compare ourselves to them; nor do we dare in any wat associate them with the singles’ events which you referred to; clearly the proper guidelines for marriage, as set down by the gedolim in all generations, is not to allow certain types of socializing.”
We are not comparing ourselves to them. We are noting that meeting shidduchim on our own has happened in history, and has been totally acceptable. I will point out that most normal types of socializing were always considered halachically acceptable in my generation and that of my parents and grandparents. It was not until the recent decades that it suddenly became fashionably ossur for girls and boys to have a normal conversation together, whether after Shul, in a pizza place, waiting for a bus, IN COLLEGE,etc. or to play together as children, to sit at a Shabbos table and talk.
This is a “proper guideline” for segregation, and mystifying human interaction. It has actually caused boys and girls to need “mentoring” as to how to conduct themselves on a date and how to simply talk to each other. No one would need mentors, if they had been handed these tools in the course of their childhood and adolescence.
Whether or not you agree (and clearly you do not), WE have created our own shidduch crisis, by failing to encourage and allow our kids to develop male/female relationships and friendships in a normal way within the bounds of halacha. There was NEVER such a problem in marrying off our children as there exists today. And Shadchanim whose main motivator is money, are NOT a solution.