It is very simple. As long as potential in-laws do not know the right color tablecloth to use on Shabbos, their children will be rejected by every shadchan and put on the open-secret “nebach lists” that circulate in every mikveh from Monsey to Baltimore and even in LA.
I tried to solve this problem on being a half of the Admou”r meCreedmoor. I asked the rosh kollel of the Federal kollel in Otisville if some of the yungerleit there could get me good deals on white tablecloths that I could sell to shadchanim who would in turn mark them up for resale to their clients. Instead, the rosh kollel tells me I should build a new venue for shidduch dates on this parcel of swampland he has outside Monroe. I told him I’d take the swampland off of him and build a pool hall there for oisvorfen and give him 20% of the take instead, because you don’t need a facility like that for a Monroe beshow. All of a sudden his pretty blonde therapist, or counselor, or whatever, came by, so he tells me in Hungarian, saygec arosz, sikca arann. I see him, I says a dank tzi gott far Federal koilel.
Then, there is this problem of complete ignorance of waist sizes among bochurim and their parents. This singer that just peygered, Whitney, or Britney, or whatever, was a size 2 all her life, because she used cocaine to maintain her figure. Now, if you want that my Federal kollel connections should sell your kallah some cocaine, that’s OK, but even in Creedmoor it’s really not recommended. You want to stop this size 2 nonsense once and for all? Show a bochur a shtick holtz, 2 by 4, that’s 2 inches by 4 inches, and say that a size 2 is the width of the 2 side of a 2 by 4. Since the bochur’s mother, who is probably wider than a sukkah door by now, is really the one who is so concerned about size 2, that will put a stop to such nonsense once and for all.
Now, as for a learning boy versus a working boy: you have to decide, you want your husband to learn when you get married, you want him to work and provide for a family, or you want him to make gescheftn and end up learning in Federal or State kollel? If you want the last, you better take a few courses in creative bookkeeping so you end up with the gelt when he goes away for a while. Also remember that you and your children will always be doing the laundry for him – washing all his shmutzig gelt through your accounts and trust funds. If you want the first, you have three choices – a very rich father in law who may also have learned in Kollel Fed, a life of food stamps and welfare, or working all your life. Remember that there are Federal advanced seminaries as well, and this is another way to provide for a kollel family. However, if you want to go that route, marry a real kollel guy and not a Federal kollel guy.