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Hey.
I wanted to get your opinion on this.
The other day I was redt to this boy and I mentioned the name to my friends and they called up the mother to put in a good word for me. Turns out the shadchan hadn’t called yet… By the time the shadchan called, the mom didn’t want to hear anything about me. The shadchan made me realize the stupidity of the fact that I mentioned it to my friends —she gave me a whole speech about how you can’t trust single friends, etc.
Is it possible that this guy was my bashert and I totally messed it up? Does it work like that? Can a person lose their bashert before they even meet them???
I’m kind of stressed about this.
Any thoughts?
Hi,
I dont want to burst your bubble or anything but I always thought that the whole dont trust your friends didnt mean anything. Until…
My sister is still in shidduchim and my best friend is still not married. (I’m a year older than my sister) Anyways, a couple of people were calling my parents and telling them to check their references cuz somethings a little funny. After a bunch of these calls, my parents got a relative to pretend she was a mother of a boy and she called all my sisters references. Turns out it was my best friend. She wasnt even saying bad stuff- she was just not saying good.
Anyways, huge shock for me and definitely a big lesson. There’s no one you can trust out there in shidduchim… 2 much jealousy even if the actual person doesnt realize it. This was my BEST friend- we did everything together…
Hi striving-
Don’t think of him as your Bashert and you messed up- think that it’s Bashert that it was messed up!!!
Stress is never good.
Im At Maminna She’at yachola Lekalkel Tammina She’at Yechola Letaken!
noitallmr: very, very well said.
Thats the point- I dont think she even realizes that shes not being a good reference. She’s my age and shes getting calls for my sister- probably hurts so self consciously it comes out in her lack of enthusiasm when she gets calls abt her.
I’m still friends with her.
Either way I would recommend using married friends as references over single. I hear that mothers of boys trust them more and they have nothing to be jealous about. What do you have to lose?
btw, when my father told me who it was- I was totally thinking People Speak story! but i think this happens ALOT more than people realize cuz since then I’ve been hearing a couple of funny stories from people.
Thanx squeak- gud to see ya…
btw, if i was the mother of that boy id probably get all freaked out 2. Even if you WERE redt to him already- why are your friends offering up info? They should wait until called.
just my 2 cents 🙂
striving- Right…Definitely…Wish you loads of Hatzlocho finding your Bashert
luv2hack- yeah that’s what I was thinking but didn’t post!!! It looks like your some nut that has a few friends that are willing to go brainwash your prospective mother in law…
striving- the less experience with the shidduch world the better, I can promise you that!!!
Sriving: “By the time the shadchan called, the mom didn’t want to hear anything about me.”
Ok, so your friends tells Mom of Boy about you! Then a Shadchan calls with info about you! What would make the mother not want to hear anything more about you???? Sounds weird.
Yeah, either they said horrible stuff…but chances are they didn’t.
Or, what makes more sense is that the Mom does not think that you are for her son!! Chances are if you friends hadn’t called before, and the Shadchan called first, it would have resulted as a no anyhow. That’s my opinion.
Don’t worry, I’yh you will find your Bashert! B’karov!
don’t take it so to heart – sometimes what you think sounds great, doesn’t sound great to the ‘hearing’ mom in law – that’s why it’s so bashert, i remember once, i gave information to somebody, and to me i was absolutely raving and saying the girl was the nicest girl, with the wonderful midos, smart, pretty, whatever u could want ( i really felt that way)… and she took it, oh nobody can be that great, she must be lying…..and somehow the shadchan got back to the girl’s mom and said she didn’t like the information, and the girl’s mom thought i said something ‘iffy’……freaked me out – but there was nothing that i said wrong – it was just her ‘take’ on it….so my advice to you is the old fashioned line, when the ‘right’ one comes, they will ask the right people, they will like what they say, and it will work out. Just daven and know that Hashem is the only one who can help. Ain Od Milvado
Who are we to decide who our “bashert” is? And if we are in charge of our actions, is there truly a “bashert”?
Striving, don’t stress so much. If the guy’s mom was not interested in hearing about you becuase your friends called, I can just imagine what type of mother-in-law she’d be…
Then again, maybe your friends did make you sound like you’re desperate to go out with the guy…
Good luck in finding a guy…
There are many issues to deal with here.
1. The girl should never get reht the shidduch before the guy.
2. One should never speak with single friends about their dating.
3. Nice of the Shaddchan to tell you that you can’t trust your friends. You can’t trust a shadchan either
4. When you date, ignore the concept of bashert. The gemarra itself states that there are two types of matches 1. mazal and 2. ma’asav (action) Leah knew that it was BASHERT for her to marry Eisav yet she cried her eyes out in prayer to Hashem asking not to marry him. WHY? IT WAS BASHERT! The answer is that mazal (i.e. what is in the stars) does not always work out. Eisav blew it, and Leah knew it, and Leah wanted no part of Eisav.
5. When it is meant to be, it will be. It was in July and I was in Europe for a friends wedding and subsequent sheva brachos. After one of the sheva brachos my friend asks me if I was interested in going out with one of his wife’s friends. I politely told him I did not think it was for me. Fast forward to February the couple is now in Israel and I am their guest for Shabbos Lunch. We speak a bit about shidduchim and the next day they call me to reht a shidduch. I realize on date 1 that it is the same girl they tried to set me up with during their sheva brachos (at that time they did not give me her name).
We got married. The lesson I try to use here is that one should never feel rushed before they are ready out of fear of “bashert”. If it is meant to be, it will be.
Additionally, zivug shaini (action) shows us that there is not necessarily just 1 person who would be our match.
Good Luck navigating the labyrinth known as the shidduch process. hatzlacha
“1. The girl should never get reht the shidduch before the guy.”
jaymatt: Care to explain that? Is it because “girls are super-hyper-sensitive” and we can’t hurt their tender feelings with rejection?
If it’s the right one then it isn’t the right time.
And I won’t tell you not to talk with your friends. UNLESS you know that they’re going to pull this again. Using single friends as references, especially if you’re looking for different things, is OK, but what’s up with anyone calling the mother to put in a good word for the girl? That would freak me out as a mother. Let them wait till they’re called, if they are at all. Maybe you should mention something to the shadchan about your friend’s overeagerness to help to finess things. Then again, maybe not if it can’t be done in a way that won’t involve any taint of lashon hara.
Jaymatt: Its only normal for girls in shidduchim to speak to their friends about their dating. Sorry, you’re wrong over there.
striving- I think what jaymatt meant was old single friends…and if he didn’t then that’s what I’m saying- it’s wrong to discuss all your shidduchim if you’ve got any older (old) single friends…
In response to my critics:
1. Just because something is normal does not make it correct
2. One should have someone to speak with, better it not be someone single.
3. I am not saying to entirely keep them out of the loop. But one should refrain from going into specific details and one should also not use names
The case we are speaking about was someone who said the name of a boy who was going to be reht to a friend. Firstly, the boy did not even receive the suggestion yet and 2. the girl did not agree to the idea either. Despite this being in the extreme infant stages of a shidduch, the girl went and spoke to her friend about this in detail. WHY?
???? ?????, ?????
Striving – do NOT beat yourself up, please! Your friends were foolish, but try to believe they were trying to help. The shadchan is a fool to say loshon hara about your friends, especially if she does not know them. And the mother of the boy is a fool if the only reason she didn’t want to hear about you from the shadchan was because your overeager friends were trying too hard. Everyone acted foolishly. I would personally not discuss things with friends before I was going out with someone, except if I knew that they knew the boy and could tell me pertinent information about him, his family, etc. But don’t be upset because you did. To be frank, the mother does not sound like someone I would want for a machetenista. I wish you much hatzlacha in finding your true bashert very soon, at the right time.
Striving I hear what your saying!! It scares me too!! I get redt (is that the word??) To these boys who I have no intrest in but my mother insists that I never know who my husband will be…shidduch process is scary we just have to pray pray pray!! Btw does anyone know if it was a segulla to say the whole tehillim on shavuot to find your zivug or is that on purim night?? I forgot which
My two cents as the mother of a boy in shidduchim. The girl’s friends tend to gush to the extent that you wonder if you should reduce it to 50% power as it were (or less).
Perhaps that is why many people prefer to network and find their own sources, who may be a little less biased.
Shaatra, davening sincerely is a time-honored segula 24/7/354! Keep it up, those zechuyos will accompany you through life when you least expect it. May you be zoche to build a BNB, and may the timing be obviously l’tova!
Striving your original post was cute in that it was so innocently asked. It shows you to be a fine sensative young lady.
I will not say anything negative about your actions – ‘nuf said there.
All I want to say is that everyone has a beshert and when your time is right he’ll just be there for you whatever your friends, shadchonim or whoever says.
Much hatzlocho and may you be zoicher to many simchas all in the right time!
BS”D
What about refusing to go on further with a shidduch because of your own personal issues that you then explained away as a problem on her end, and then realizing that you made a very big mistake?
Tzippi thank you very much amen!!
My pleasure, and ditto to our OP and all who need it.
600Kilo, I don’t know if you, or whoever you’re referring to did this, but when my kids end a shidduch, I always ask if they think they might be open to it again sometime later. If you (you for simplicity’s sake) ended it in on a cordial note, you can and should be able to call the shadchan to try to get things going again, assuming your issue is under control. (You might want to bounce your issues off a rav, shidduch coach, etc.) If it is, then finesse it when talking to the shadchan to keep your options open but you might well want to and have to bring it up with the girl. There are many stories out there of happy couples who got together after trying it a second time. Hatzlacha to you too!
Anybody else frustrated by the fact that when you get dumped, you’re not always told what you did/ said (or what it is about you:-) wrong?
aggadah99 the reason why you are not always told when you are quote ‘dumped’ is because there are people who want to refrain from hurting the person and therefore will just say something along the lines of sorry, but I do not want to continue any further….
You may not necessarily have said or done anything wrong but merely that the shidduch is simply not going anywhere.
As a shaddchan, I choose not to tell the person the reason if I feel it will only come to hurt them.
Should one inform the other party they have been dumped because they:
-Are not intelligent?
-Are not attractive?
Jaymatt you are kidding aren’t you????
1. The word dumped is awful and derogatory – I say this not only to you but everyone else who uses the word
2. Your opinion of attractive is your opinion and may not be held by someone else
3. Ditto intellegence.
As a shaddchan, I choose no to tell the person the reason if I feel it will only come to hurt them.
Should one inform the other party they have been dumped because they:
-Are not intelligent?
-Are not attractive?
IMO – absolutely NOT. BIG NO-NO. Beauty, as we always say, is in the eye of the beholder, so to tell someone the date thought that he or she is not attractive is a) hurtful, and serves no purpose and b) may not even be true in any sense of the word. The person may be very attractive (everyone is attractive to SOMEone), and attractiveness is a very subjective thing. Personally, I think that a boy or girl who would even GIVE that as an excuse, is really immature and mean-spirited. My girls have gone out with a number of guys who would be considered to be ordinary-looking, certainly not conventionally good-looking, and they were not attracted to them for whatever reason. They even went out more than once, because they thought the person was a nice guy and deserved the courtesy of giving it a chance. But they were not attracted. They told the shadchan they thought the respective guys were very fine, nice guys, but there was just no chemistry even after the second date. Only in one case did one of my daughters give a more detailed reason, because the guy had acted like a rude jerk, first by showing up 3/4 of an hour late, with no apology or even an excuse (they had previously confirmed the time)talking on the cellphone constantly, badmouthing and deriding other dates he had gone on, etc. My daughter felt the shadhcan deserved to know that his midddos could use some improvement, and if she was going to continue to set him up with other girls, she should be aware of this. The intelligence issue is another thorny one. I would not do it, it would just hurt that person to be made to feel he or she is stupid. I would rather say, He or she felt you did not really have much in common, and they are lookking for someone who shares their interests. That is a more innocuous statement, it does not reflect on the person’s brains, looks, personality or character. You really cannot fault a girl who loathes sports, for not wanting to date a sports jock, who refuses to miss a game.
It is not enough to make a shidduch – one needs to educate the person being set up,in the value of menschlechkeit when talking to the shadchan. If a person appears to be an insensitive clod one too many times, he or she will end up not being set up by anyone.
Jaymatt I must have misunderstood – sincere apologies. I thought you were asking if it is correct to inform the other party regarding looks or intellegence if the shidduch has been dropped for these reasons.
Even as a shadchan and I have been involved in several over the years, you should not comment on either of the above for reasons I stated previously.
As a shadchan when I have been faced with he/she is not on my level and I cannot hold a deep/intellegant conversation or he/she is not good looking enough, I did not repeat this but said that they were sorry but they were not going further with the shidduch as they felt it would not progress into anything or it was not going in the direction they had hoped.
The reasons people drop a shidduch are always useful for further suggestions but intellegence or looks?
Someone may be looking for Mr/Miss Brain of the World They meet someone who did not finish College but has so much common sense and is so streetwise that it is a perfect match. The next person hates red heads. Meets someone so fabulous that they say red heads? who cares what colour the hair is? So although I agree in theory with people’s likes and dislikes as being informative I do not use them as set in steel.
“oomis, I agree with you about the looks, but I think it might be advantageous to for a shadchan to know if intelligence is the issue. Each time you set someone up, you try to learn more about them, so if this idea fails, you can make a more accurate suggestion next time. Therefore, it helps for a shadchan to know if the reason was because the boy or girl are looking for someone with more intelligence.”
Which is why they should make that clear BEFORE being set up with Girl A or B. They don’t have to remark that the girl was not intelligent, but rather express the idea that they are looking for someone who is a high achiever in her respective field. After the date, they can always say, they had little in common with the girl. That does not mean the girl is unintelligent, just not of the intelligence that the boy is looking for. I know someone who was set up with an unintelligent young man (borderline developmentally delayed), because the family of the boy are unrealistic about him and cannot face the fact that he is a special needs individual. As a consequence, he is being set up to fail on virtually every date (set up by different shadchanim each time),because no one wants to admit there is a problem with him. In THIS SPECIFIC case, I believe the shadchan needs to know the truth, but it still needs to be expressed respectfully so as not to be mevayeish the young people invovled or their family. I would ask the shadchan if he or she had an extensive conversation with the young man or woman, and did they find anything amiss. If their answer is either no they did not speak extensively to him or her, or yes they did speak but found nothing wrong, then I would look for another shadchan.
oomis, What on earth are you saying? Why are you using my post as your soapbox for speaking about special needs people?
All I am talking about is whether the girl/guy finds their date to be intelligent. Some people are smarter than others. Not everyone wants someone equally smart as themselves, some are looking for smarter, others feel the need to be the smart one in the relationship.
It is quite conceivable to say that a girl might turn down a guy who is smarter than her since she wants a guy who meets criteria for Mensa.
Where on earth did you get the idea that I was talking about special needs people? Or is this the hot topic now? If I recall correctly, this is not the first time I have needed to defend myself from such an irrational attack.
as an experienced shadchan i try never to ramble about the girl i am proposing and only let the parent ask questions and only answer what they are curious about, mostly i let them search most of the information, better safe then sorry at least i dont want to be the one to say something wrong we’re deeling with peoples futures you realize.
oomis, What on earth are you saying? Why are you using my post as your soapbox for speaking about special needs people
A) I didn’t and b) What on earth are YOU saying? I was saying (please re-read my post) that in general I don’t think it is very nice to tell someone that they were rejected because the other party thought they were not sufficiently intelligent. AFTER making that point, I ADDED as an aside that the only exception I would think of is when there is a special needs individual who is being redt to others as a NON special needs person. In that case it is fair and necessary to make the shadchan aware that the intelligence issue is a factor. It is not merely that the person is less intelligent, it is that the person is not of NORMAL intelligence. For one who is of normal intelligence but just not a “Rhodes Scholar,” it would be really hurtful and not productive to tell the dumped party that this was the reason given for being dumped.
I have no soapbox, and no agenda on this issue. i feel that people need to be realistic about their children’s strengths or lack thereof, and the shadchan has to be tactfully honest, but not insulting. Period.
“It is quite conceivable to say that a girl might turn down a guy who is smarter than her since she wants a guy who meets criteria for Mensa.”
That sentence contradicts itself, since a girl looking for a guy who qualifies for MENSA, would be foolish to turn any guy down who is smarter than she is. The smarter he is, the more likely it is that he would be clsoer to her ideal of a MENSA man.
“Where on earth did you get the idea that I was talking about special needs people? Or is this the hot topic now? If I recall correctly, this is not the first time I have needed to defend myself from such an irrational attack.”
What are you talking about????? I never attacked you regarding ANYTHING. Why did you feel attacked??? You had nothing to defend against me, irrational or otherwise. As I just posted, I did not think that you were talking about special needs people. Why did you jump to such a really wrong conclusion?
oomis: You misunderstood JM19. He said that a girl might even turn down a guy, even though the guy she is turning down is smarter than her, since a guy simply being smarter than her is not enough as she wants a guy who fully qualifies for Mensa.
Then he should have said it the same way you did, which was much more accurate and did not sound contradictory. See how easy it is for people to misunderstand each other when they are not trying to convey what the other person is reading into their words? Jay thought I was attacking him earlier (because I mentioned people who are developmentally delayed being redt as “normal” intelligence shidduchim), when he could not have been more wrong. That’s the problem with blogs and forums – one cannot hear the intonation of the written word, which leads to misunderstanding.
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