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observanteen-
First of all- mazel tov, may you and your chosson be zoche to build a bayis neeman b’yisroel.
I feel for your friend and I wish her the best. My first thought is that maybe Hashem put her in this position just to lead her to her zivug. Perhaps he is in the same position (a great guy from a broken home) and they wouldn’t have met otherwise?
In any event, I don’t like the phrase second rate shidduch. She is created in the Tzelem Elokim and that is first rate!
Also, if you look closely at anyone, there is probably something about them that would make others think of them as inferior. To someone who’s not looking for money; the poverty level of a girl from a poor family will be a non-issue, while to someone looking for money…
The best thing you could do, in my opinion, is to not hide anything from her but don’t mention anything that may make her jealous. (Don’t take off your jewelery when she’s around, but don’t flaunt it in front of her.)
DaasYochid-
Getting the nasty shadchanim under control will not end all shidduch problems, but it would solve some and it definitely has to be done.
The 22 year old boys would still be redt (in the most relaxed, pleasant fashion) the 19 year old girls, and would still marry them!
That’s true, this is another problem that also has to be dealt with, I’m not denying that.
Denying that these shadchanim exist doesn’t help the situation. If you never had to deal with any of them- I envy you. But they are out there.
DaasYochid-
It looks like we’re going to have to agree to disagree as to “what extent of the problem is age-gap related, and what extent is from other causes”.
I agree that the “age gap issue” is a significant issue but I still believe that it is not the root of the cause, it’s a byproduct.
If there is a realistic way to get guys to drop their insane demands then that’s good news. If it’s been tried and has been showing some signs of success then I stand corrected and hope it continues. (I’ve been out of shidduchim for many years now so I wouldn’t know either way. Even when I was in shidduchim, my friends and I were not the type to make ridiculous demands.)
Getting rid of the stigma sounds like a great idea, without this I believe that there will always be somewhat of an age gap.
However, the nasty shadchanim and their despicable tactics, have to be brought under control.
skiaddict-
There’s lots to say on this and now is not a good time (1:21 A.M.) bli nader I’ll add more later.
For starters, a guy in yeshiva is expected to be at shachris every morning on time, 7 days a week. In a yeshiva setting this means 7:00 to 7:30 or so six days a week and probably 8 something on Shabbos. Very few guys have a perfect attendance, and trust me (I did have a 100% perfect attendance through my yeshiva career) it is very hard.
How would a girl feel about going out with a guy who slept through shacharis twice a month? How about three or four times? Yet what time to some of these girls wake up if they don’t have work one day or if they only have college in the afternoon?
What makes these girls think that if they were males they’d be from the extreme minority that always makes it to shacharis on time?
Someone once asked me to suggest a shidduch to a certain girl, when she found out that he missed shacharis about 3 or 4 times a year she nixed the idea. She told me that her brothers never miss shacharis and neither will any guy that she goes out with.
I’m not quite sure who she was fooling (definitely not me, I was in yeshiva with her brothers and I knew what was going on).
This same girl admitted that she davens shachris around noon when she only has to work in the afternoon, but “I always make zman krias shma…”.
Ofcourse-
Unfortunately from the ones my friends and I dealt with this is far from the case.
Regardless of the percentages, the nasty shadchanim make it harder for everyone else (the shadchanim who try to do things the proper way, the guys and the girls).
It came to the point where I refused to take any names that came from a professional shadchan, I relied on friends and neighbors.
Just curious- I see that you married off a daughter, do you have any sons in the parsha or married?
DaasYochid-
Thanks for your opinion, but I’m not quite sure what you are disagreeing on.
There is a disparity in part because of the “age gap”. In my opinion, if every other issue was resolved the age gap would get smaller and the amount of single girls would go down.
I agree that shadchanim act that way because of the difficulty they have getting guys to agree to go out with the people they suggest. This doesn’t mean it’s right and they are shooting themselves in their feet.
I also agree that the vast majority of boys are married within a year or two despite all the problems (of which I fully agree with all the ones you mentioned). One of the reasons are, like I mentioned previously, that even when a guy starts dating, his pool will be much larger than the pool of a girl who firsts starts dating. In general, his pool will continue to increase while hers will continue to decrease. Another one of the reasons are, again like I mentioned above, is that it is much easier for a girl to fit the mold of what a guy is looking for than for a guy to fit the mold of what a girl is looking for. Hence the guys get married much faster than the girls do.
I even agree with your last point. What you have to realize is that guys run the shidduch market and I can’t think of any realistic way this is going to change. Like I mentioned before- when it comes to finding a shidduch- no guy is going to feel that he was placed on this planet to end the shidduch crisis and therefore he should only date a girl his age. A guy is going to look for the girl that best fits what he’s looking for, whether five months younger or five years younger. What the girls have to do (and I agree that it’s totally unfair and skewed) is to make themselves attractive (not in a physical sense) to guys closer to their age.
Ofcourse-
There are many issues causing the shidduch crisis, and in my opinion the crisis is causing an age gap which spirals the crisis to catastrophic proportions.
(It has been mentioned by others that even if the crisis was resolved there would still be many single girls that wouldn’t find a husband.)
Let’s categorize those involved in shidduchim into three categories,
1. The males (and parents),
2. The females (and parent),
3. The Shadchanim.
All three, in my opinion, are partially responsible for the situation, although they share different percentages of the blame.
The males- they are partially to blame, but let’s face it, they run the market and as long as things stay the way they are, they have no incentive to change.
The females- it’s much easier, in my opinion, to be a “good girl” than a “good guy”. When these girls reject guys because they feel they deserve better- who says they would be better than the guy that they just rejected had they been a male? Eventually most of them realize what they are deserving of, but by that then lots of precious time has been wasted. Recall from above how the pool of guys gets smaller and smaller for a girl as time goes on but the pool of girls gets larger and larger for a guy as time goes on.
The Shadchanim- I started with them because I feel that they are the biggest problem. Please read my above posts again to see why. If you want some more stories about their outrageous behavior please let me know. A guy has the liberty to tell a shadchan to never call back (not that they listen). Once guys break off communication with a shadchan it is harder for certain girls (particularly the ones who live out-of-town and have no older brothers) to get dates with them.
There was only one professional shadchan I dealt with that acted in a proper manner. When I called her to thank her for being honest, patient and non-aggressive she said, “why would I want to lie? these girls where my students, lying would hurt them and I’d never want them to be hurt”.
If you only suggest shidduchim in a respectful manner then please continue to do so. May Hashem help you succeed.
Pac / Man-
My wife and her friends didn’t know what was going on on the other side. My wife was shcoked and horrified when she found out.
(How many girls do you think would go out with a guy if the shadchan admitted that “after 2 months of constant harassment, stalking and threatening he finally agreed to go out with you just so that I leave him alone?”)
If I was a female and got a call from a shadchan who said, “I told this guy about you and he wants to go out. Can you let me know by next week if your interested. Here are some references… if you have any questions feel free to call me”, I’d have lots of gratitude for this person.
DaasYochid-
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. My position has always been that the “age gap” is a problem but not the root of the cause. It’s my belief that there are many “roots” causing the age gap. I picked shadchanim to start off with because they are the biggest problem.
Hypothetically, if all shidduch issues were resolved, there would be no shidduch crisis and no age gap to close.
binahyeseira-
Sorry I missed your question before.
I was curious about the same thing. On the date I starting talking about that city and asked her if she was ever there. When she said she was just there two months ago I asked her if it was to date or to visit friends/ relatives. She mentioned that she didn’t go on a date then but she quickly changed the topic. I left it at that.
tzippi-
Males and females obviously have different feelings towards shadchanim.
From what my wife tells me, the ones I consider the worst of the worst, her friends consider their saviors.
Let me know if you have the same attitude towards them when you marry off a son.
Ofcourse-
Good for you & keep it up. If all shadchanim were like that perhaps the situation would be quite different.
A shadchan who twists someones arm like that is (in my opinion) like a doctor who performs a surgery that he’s not licensed to. It may work out well for some patients but regardless of the outcome- the board will revoke his license.
I’m glad it worked out good for your daughter but think about the catastrophic consequences that others may have gone through in a similar case.
Ofcourse-
Please reread my original post and the one I just left for binahyeseira.
Point # 1. It’s not always possible to “just say no and hang up”, they have their terror tactics and show no sign of relenting. Also, that was just one of the many issues regarding Shadchanim that need to be seriously addressed.
Point # 2. You missed a critical word: Competent. We already have a severe shortage of competent Shadchanim… Getting rid of the ones who don’t belong there will make the crisis better, nor worse.
I’m happy to hear that you found your husband, but as the saying goes “even a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day”.
The vast majority of shadchannim have a batting average of .1 or less. Unfortunately no one takes statistics on them like they do for baseball players.
P.S. If your a shadchan and a mentch then in no way are these posts referring to you.
binahyeseira-
OK,
Here’s where I got stalked…
A neighbor had a suggestion for me at the same time that the most dreaded shadchan I ever dealt with also had an idea.
In all fairness to both girls I took all their information and did a normal amount of research. The girl that the neighbor suggested, despite being a 3-4 hour drive, sounded more promising.
So who thinks you could just say “no” to a shadchan and just hang up? Not me. I answered no, saying that not only did I feel that she wasn’t for me, I was also busy (and refused to give any more information).
So she decided to up the pressure. She found out who I was going out with, where she lived and when I was going out. She had her girl fly out to the same city and she let me know that “just in case it doesn’t work out… while you’re still in the dating mode… still have a rental car… she’s right there, ready to go out on a moments notice”.
I told her that I never think about another shidduch, no matter how bad the current one is going, until it’s over and both parties know about it. (This is just my opinion, but I think it would be very offensive if a girl I finished dating found out I was dating someone else before the shadchan informed her that it was over.)
Anyway, the girl I went out with that weekend said no and somehow the shadchan found out right away. (It wasn’t me that told her.)
Cranking that valve, she upped the pressure even more. (Did anyone deduce that I wasn’t answering my phone when she called?) Next she got a friend involved. This friend had dated her but ended it. She told him that because he said no, “you owe it to her to get your friend Avi to go out with her”.
He agreed with me that she wasn’t for me, but asked for a humanitarian favor from me to go out with her so the shadchan will leave him alone.
Upping the pressure even more, the shadchan got other shadchanim involved until I buckled. It was worth it though- I was able to breathe normally again (albeit briefly…) afterwards.
Pac-Man-
As far as enforcing the ban goes- the guys would happily say “I’m sorry but your credentials have been suspended/ revoked. Unfortunately I can’t take any names from you or I’ll be going against Daas Torah”.
Hopefully the girls and their parents will see that it is in their long term best interest to avoid dealing with any Shadchanim who violate the policies.
Concerning the fines- my father has a novel approach for the illegal immigration problem that he will implement as soon as he is elected president. The Pepper Administration will provide a large amount of cash to the leaders of each country every year- say $10,000,000. Every time an illegal immigrant comes in $1,000 is deducted plus all expences (hospital, jail…). Let’s see how fast the leaders stop their citizens from skipping the border.
There are many cities that offer cash incentives to shadchannim to find husbands for the single girls in their communities. If one doesn’t want to pay the fine then just hold it from their next bonus. (Or there could be a system of having them be fully bonded, like your plumber and electrician, before being certified.)
I agree it’s easier said than done, but there are painful steps that have to be taken.
binahyeseira & Ofcourse-
The two of you asked me for my opinion as to what can be done to help the situation. After thinking about it for some time I decided to put some ideas forward. Please keep in mind that everything I write is my personal opinion (and may or may not be correct). I represent no one besides myself nor have I discussed this with anyone else on a serious level.
Also, if I offend anyone please forgive me in advance, it is definitely not my intention.
The biggest issue (again, this is strictly my opinion) is that Shadchannim are out of control and needed to be reined in. One can think “What’s the big deal, if I don’t like the idea I can always say ‘No’ right?”.
Not so simple! With the terror tactics many Shadchannim have been using (at least when I was dating) it’s not so easy to just say “No”.
It came to the point where my friends and I had to break off all contact with specific “Professional” Shadchannim. A guy in yeshiva has the liberty to tell a shadchan to never call back, but take a girl from an out-of-town city with no yeshiva for guys over 21. If she doesn’t have any older brothers or cousins then shadchanim are her lifeline, guys breaking off contact with shadchanim sever the lifeline for these girls.
My idea would be for a board or committee to set a list of guidelines that shadchanim have to follow in order to be certified. Any shadchan breaking any of the guidelines will be banned from practicing for a certain amount of time up to and including a lifetime ban for serious or repeated violations. There would also be a monetary fine to pay for the date in a case where the shadchan lied about something where the date could not have worked out to begin with i.e. telling a Kohen that a Geyores is an FFB.
The list would consist of some rules which should be obvious but apparently isn’t. (If someone wants to start a thread about “Shadchannim Horror Stories” I have some to share but it is out of the scope of this thread.)
1. Don’t lie- If someone asks a question it usually means that it’s important to them. It’s not up to you to decide what’s important or not.
2. Don’t stalk- I found it creepy when Shadchannim found out who I previously dated and who I was currently dating. It’s none of your business and if you “happened” to have found out somehow you are not allowed to share this information!
3. Don’t give my name out without my permission- If I never asked you to put my name on your list but you got it from my yeshiva please ask me before distributing it. It’s not fair to my friends, neighbors, Rabbeim and relatives to get numerous calls about me when I can’t possibly date all of them anyway. It’s also not fair to me to get a reputation as a guy who says “no” to everyone.
4. Don’t use excessive pressure- If it’s a “no” then it’s “no”, if I need more information then I’ll let you know.
There were times that I had to agree to go out just to get the Shadchan of my back. Those dates never helped anyone and just worsened the age gap.
Let me bring a simple example with extremely exaggerated parameters to amplify the situation.
An island starts out with 100 males and 100 females all aged exactly 21 at time t = 0. At the end of each year an additional 100 males and an additional 100 females (all aged exactly 21) join the island. Males can only marry females their age or younger. Consequently, females can only marry males their age or older. Each person is only allowed to date one person at a time and is limited to one unique date every two months. Mortality, growth and the divorce rate is 0.
Let’s say after one year 50 couples get married, that means that by t = 1 there are 50 males and 50 females that are 22 and 100 males and 100 females that are 21.
The pool size for a 22 year old male is 150, while the pool size for a 22 year old female is only 50.
So time is of essence. By Shadchannim forcing dates on others (where at least one party knows it’s not going to work), it just wastes precious time.
Once that timer hits t = 1 and the new crop comes in, the probability of many of those original females getting married is severely reduced.
Again- the above is only my opinion.
Feel free to challenge (or add to) anything mentioned- but in a civilized manner or I will not respond.
Ofcourse-
I respectfully disagree with your opinion. I wasn’t put on this world to end the shidduch crisis.
Going back some time, I mentioned in the Coffee Room what I felt were valid points and was harshly criticized for voicing my opinion (without explaining why my points had no merit). This forum, or any forum for that matter, is not the proper place to bring up ideas for an issue of this magnitude.
Pac-Man-
Back to the parable of the friends who went boating…
Hopefully everyone in the boat agrees that the boat is sinking because of the water it is taking in and the solution is to get rid of the water.
There may be different opinions as to why the water is coming in and the best way to get rid of the water, but everyone will agree with the diagnosis and ultimate goal.
AZ-
Back then I made the decision not to converse online with someone who can not respond in a diplomatic way and I stand behind my decision.
I will not be discussing this with you anymore at this time.
Mother in Israel-
Please forgive me if I confused you.
I thought I was able to deduce with 99.9% confidence that he had a twin sister using “Pepper Probability” and “Mother in Israel Rounding Methods”.
My only desire was to get you to chuckle, please accept my sincerest apologies if my posts caused any other outcome.
AZ-
You know what your ideology is and I’m not bringing it up anymore. I’ve tried to discuss it with you in a civilized manner but you refused.
Before NASI had a website you used to say over and over again that NASI has the backing of over 70 Gedolim, but you never mentioned who they are. You directed me to look at the ad they placed in the Yated which raised more questions (not a single human name was mentioned in the ad, just an address to send $50 to).
I went to speak to my Rosh Hayeshiva about the organization to see if he was one of the 70 Gedolim who gave his endorsement. He wasn’t there at the time but I asked a talmud who is close to him if he signed the letter. He told me that you asked him to but he refused.
When I asked him some more questions he pointed to a person who he said you were schmoozing with during your visit and suggested that he may be able to provide some more information.
This person claimed to know you although he didn’t know that you’re AZ from YWN. (I mentioned that he’s your friend because you went over to schmooze with him, I never said he’s a close friend.) He’s the one that told me that you claim to know everything from A to Z.
I try very hard to always have factual information. If something is my opinion, I try to state it. Things I hear from others I make sure to mention that I heard it from someone else (unfortunately I can’t mention who for obvious reasons).
In my opinion it’s ludicrous to discredit a poster based on a quote he heard from someone else which you claim is inaccurate.
Pac-Man-
Did you see what just happened- I quoted what a friend of his told me and all these years of hard work building up a reputation went down the drain because he says it’s not true!
Now you know why I stay away from controversial threads?
You said that he doesn’t ride a bike, I was wondering if she does, and if so does she wear a helmet.
(You only mentioned that you were getting helmets for the younger ones and I was concerned about her.)
enlightenedjew-
I’m not going to give his real name but he campaigns (on YWN and elsewhere) for males to marry females that are the same age as them or even older than them to get rid of the “age gap”.
According to a friend of his that I spoke with, he uses AZ because he knows everything from A to Z.
He should be here soon.
Pac-Man-
I try very hard to remove myself from any controversial issue so let me just give you a basic parable;
A group of friends are boating in a lake when their boat starts to sink. Some may say it’s not sinking while others may agree that it is sinking but disagree on the method to handle the situation (pump out the water, make a dash for the dock, throw the deniers overboard…).
So, while I agree that there is a situation that needs to be taken care of, I don’t agree with his ideology.
Ofcourse-
I agreed with him on his numbers, I just disagreed with him on his methods and tactics.
Mother in Israel-
He was 14.5 up to and including the day before his 15th birthday. 🙂 I supposed I should have said that he was 14.9, or something like that.
OK, I see where the confusion comes from. Generally speaking if one is going to round a number with a decimal of .9 it will be rounded up to the nearest integer, not down to the closest midpoint between two integers.
Does this 15.00833333 year old son by any chance have a twin sister?
Pac-Man-
How did you remember that? Today is the tenth anniversary of that post!
WOW that was fast.
Just ==>last month<== he was only 14.5.
What does your 14.5 year old do?
If that’s the case then he’s not even related.
From Wikipedia-
A transcendental function is a function that does not satisfy a polynomial equation whose coefficients are themselves polynomials, in contrast to an algebraic function, which does satisfy such an equation. In other words, a transcendental function is a function that “transcends” algebra in the sense that it cannot be expressed in terms of a finite sequence of the algebraic operations of addition, multiplication, and root extraction.
Hope this helps.
?
Sorry to hear that, it’s your loss. He really is a fun guy to be around.
Just curious, is the one you know also a Kohen?
MAIZE is the Spanish word for corn.
No,
Where would you know my brother from?
Tell him his brother Avi sends his warmest regards.
It wasn’t me that typed it up, I copied it from another site because I thought it was cute.
ICOT taught me that if you enclose text in tick marks (the thing under the Tilda ==> ~ <== it keeps it as is. Remember to put a closing one also or it messes up all subsequint posts.
I can only try-
The advantage to the method you mentioned in your opening post is that it can be decoded by hand.
I read a story in an old book about the FBI from the mid 1950s (sorry if that makes you old) about a paper boy who got paid a Nickel that felt different. It turns out that it was hollow with the front and back being from two different years. Anyway, inside the nickel there was an encrypted message that the FBI couldn’t figure out. (They knew it was from the Soviets from the precision that the two halves fit together.)
When they finally got to the bottom of the case it turns out that it was encoded with a similar technique that you mentioned above.
Modern encryption nowadays uses mathematical functions that have no inverse function. Public Key/ Private Key methods uses prime numbers. While there are various methods to test the primality of a number, one will only know if it is prime or not, not what the factors are. One can easily take two long primes and multiply them together while it could take a hacker months or years to factor the product.
(The details on how this works is beyond the scope of this thread. If you are interested in a real life working example please let me know.)
Another method I used to use when I was younger is Matrix Encryption, and this can be done by hand. The way it works is an invertible 3 X 3 matrix is used to encode a message and the message is decoded by finding the inverse of the matrix and multiplying it by encoded message.
When my younger brother was in camp he mentioned that he thought it was nosy that the office staff would read the faxes that came in so he asked me to encode them. At the beginning of each fax I would tell him which matrix to use. He loved all the attention he was getting as his bunk would watch him meticulously decode the message claiming it was extremely sensitive information.
He had to leave camp a few days early that year so on his last day I send a fax that said “Urgent, Please deliver to Moshe Pepper Immediately.
Our Cipher has been compromised, abort mission immediately and leave camp at once… He got a kick out of it.
binahyeseira-
I’m not quite sure what your question is.
Are you asking how the answer relates to ?? The answer is 1 / ? so just raise the answer to the power of -1 and you get ?.
If you’re asking how the question relates to ?- for that you just have to accept that all transcendental functions are related in ways that may not seem obvious at first.
(The area of the region bounded by the x – axis and y = 1 / (1 + x ^ 2) from negative infinity to positive infinity is also ?.)
If you learned Taylor Series, try calculating e ^ (? * i) + 1, where e is the limit of (1 + (1 / x)) ^ x as x tends towards infinity and i is the square root of -1.
In the iconic photograph from the Six Day War, three paratroopers are standing with their backs to the Kosel looking upwards.
The middle paratrooper, Yitzak Yifat (now a surgeon), had an open miracle happen just moments earlier.
During the fighting in the extreme confines of the Old City streets, a fellow soldier was shot at point blank. Yifat, seeing that the Jordanian soldier was about to finish his friend off, emptied his gun at that Jordanian soldier and eliminated him.
Another Jordanian Soldier who witnessed this and realized that Yifat was out of ammunition charged him and tried to kill him. Yifat quickly grabbed the enemy’s gun and killed him with it.
I can only try-
Formulas are to a mathematician as tools are to a handyman. If a handyman doesn’t have the correct tools he’ll either go out and buy them or say he can’t do the job. Another person (who may not even know which tools are needed) will find a way to improvise.
I was always impressed at how you were able to solve problems using your own methods when I would have been at a loss if I was told that certain formulas were off limits.
With this riddle I was truly expecting you to figure out that “x” can take on values between 0 and 1/2 and “y” can take on values between 0 and 90 degrees (or 0 and ?/2 radians). The joint probability function is f(x,y) = 2 * 2 / ? = 4 / ?. A needle crosses a line if x < =(1/2) sin y.
Therefore “x” has to be between 0 and (1/2) sin “y” and “y” has to be between 0 and 2 / ?.
All of the above can be done without calculus using methods which you have figured out before on your own.
The next step requires calculus (or a numerical estimation, another technique you’ve used before). Had you gotten stuck here you could have asked me, squeak, SJSinNYC, Frummie, Feif Un… for help.
You could also find free integration software online.
Check out this ==>LINK<== to see a numerical estimation.
Not my birthday but I saw this, thought it was cute and decided to share it.
HAPPY 33RD BIRTHDAY GARFIELD!
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###############Squeak-
ICOT-
coke-
B”H happily married with a couple of kids.
I always tell my wife that even if the only thing she ever did for me was remove me from the parsha I’d still be forever indebted to her.
coke-
What was the difference besides some additional information?
Keep in mind that the last time I posted this story was over 9 months ago, while the story itself happened close to 10 years ago.
I can only try-
Let me get you started-
There are two variables to keep in mind:
1. The distance between the center of the dropped pencil to the closest line, let’s call this variable “x” and
2. The acute angle between the pencil and the pencil and all the lines (since they are parallel). Let’s call this variable “y” (since I don’t know how to get the Greek Letter “theta” on my keyboard).
The variable “x” can take on values between 0 and 1/2 (recall that the distance between stripes is 1 and the width of the line separating the stripes is negligible).
The variable “y” can take on values between 0 and 90 (in degrees, any angle 90 degrees and above is not acute).
squeak,
No, I’m definitely not running out. There are some stories I’m not posting out of fear that of my account being blocked. Others I’m not posting without permission (and I’m not going to call someone out of the blue after not talking to them for 10 years to ask permission to post a story).
There are numerous reasons why I may post a rerun;
1. I’m losing my eidetic memory,
2. For the benefit of the newcomers who may not have read all of the other stories,
3. It brings you out of hiding,
4. It’s a test of who is paying attention,
just to name a few.
I’m looking forward to having a sino steak with you at KD, when will you be there and how will I know who you are?
Pac-Man (and anyone else trying to keep count)-
The number isn’t as high as the stories imply but it is higher than it should have been (honesty in shidduchim is beyond the scope of this thread).
I’m not sure which one of these is worse than the other but since they get slightly intertwined at the end I’ll post them both and let my fellow posters vote on it.
#1 => It was obvious that the shadchan was senile (she told my parents that she knew we were for each other since I was R”L in college and her father was R”L a college graduate- yes she used those words!). Aside from the shadchan the girl sounded normal.
The girl lived a five hour drive away, and I have an aunt and uncle that live about an hour away from her but just a few minutes out of the way. Being that my grandparents were visiting at the time, I was planning on stopping by to visit after the date.
Since I was making good timing I decided to visit my grandparents on the way there and get ready for the date (instead of changing into a suit at a rest area).
My grandmother was soooooo relieved to see me- “the shadchan is going briogess (or whatever the word is), she’s trying to get in touch with you before you get to the girls house and your cell phone is off. The girl was so excited to go out with you that she called her Rebbatzin from seminary and told her all about you. The Rebbatzin said that since you are in college she should only go out with you as a last resort.”
I spent a nice afternoon taking my grandparents shopping.
#2 => (Pac-Man, don’t increase the counter for this one either since I already mentioned her in ==>this story<==.)
After our second date or so (and after I agreed to go out again) I found out that she had a boyfriend- thank you GOOGLE. I didn’t know (or care) what her involvment was (was he chasing her, did she like the attention…) The guy was someone that I knew but wasn’t that friendly with, although I did end up becoming closer friends with him since our wives are friends.
I tricked him into sending me an e-mail where he mentioned her (he said they were currently at Starbucks or B&N together), printed it up and left it in the glove compartment for her to find. (Did I mention that she was nosy?)
Sure enough she found it and read it. WOW, I wish I could have framed that expression!
“Really, you have to believe me, I have no idea who this guy is, I mean I have no idea where he even got my name from…”
“It’s fine”, I assured her, “I just wanted to make sure he made it all up”.
As you all can guess it was over after that.
Between college, yeshiva, teaching, waiting for her to do the dirty work (and coming up with an excuse for the shadchan) it did take a few days until I gave an answer.
In the interim the senile shadchan called back and said (not in these exact words) that the girl was getting desperate and her Rebbatzin said she could go out with me since it was a last resort. When my mother told her that I was busy, she suggested that maybe my brother would want to go out with her.
“Well if you think that my sons are looking for the same type of girl than you obviously don’t know them well enough to set them up!”
After hanging up she looked at me and said, “maybe she is senile afterall…”.
Epilouge:
Some time later, after the three of us (me, girl #2 and her other ex) were married, the six of us were invited to a wedding or sheva berachos that was seperate seating. As fate would have it us three men were seated at the misfit table, and I put my place card next to my friend while I went to wash. I came back to see that her husband was sitting in my seat. Grabbing the opportunity to see who knew what I said to him, “you’re not going to take my seat also, are you?”
He stood up politely and apologized, the other guy was laughing so hard he started to choke on the beer he was drinking.
Is that why you don’t believe the story?