NAVIGATE: Navigating the Shidduch Process

The shidduch process can be mightily confusing. This “Navigate” section aims to make the process clearer and to help guide you through it.
We cover all things shadchan-related, as well as how to network broadly for dating suggestions. You will find here strategies and tips on conducting research, interacting with parents and mentors, preparing your shidduch profile, and how to cope with the difficult feelings of disappointment or rejection – and numerous other topics as well.

When dating does not work out, I take rejection very personally.

It would be easy to just say not to take it personally, but if only it were that simple. The urge for a romantic bond is deeply hard-wired into our brains. For this reason, some people experience rejection not merely as a (sometimes bitter) disappointment, but a very personal attack on their value as a human being. Here are key points to help you respond most constructively to this distressing feeling.

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What to do on a date?

Here are some activities that people have done during dating.  The idea is not only to have a nice time together but to get to know each other from a different angle. Doing such activities together can give you insight that cannot be gleaned from conversations.

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The dating process explained.

Dating can take two strangers who just recently had never even heard of each other, to become inseparable. Two people who have never met now want to spend the rest of their lives together.

This does not happen in one leap. The dating pair go through several stages in the process, even if the time duration can be quite short. Each stage involves different skills and can be faced with different issues. Those are usually skills and issues that the people involved have never been faced with in any other area of their lives.

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Should They Continue or Should They Quit?

When after a few good dates, one or both parties feel that it is not going anywhere, the question arises whether to keep going or quit. It is important to recognize that there is, in reality, a third option: helping those dating to become unstuck?

Often there is an entirely comprehensible reason why things are stuck, and in most such cases it is possible to get around the issue. Most of the issues can be overcome through a basic level of self-awareness combined with acquiring some modest new dating or relationship building skills. We would help many people if we offer daters access to timely input.

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Questions to Ask a Reference About a Prospective Date

Your research should provide enough information to determine if the shidduch has some potential. The people date to really find out about each other.

The information uncovered during the research should never be relied on 100%. Everything must be confirmed during the dating process.

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Never settle for “second best”.

You may reprioritize on some things you thought were important, but always make sure your spouse has your essential requirements. Dropping the insistence on unimportant preferences is perfectly okay, but do not abandon your truest priorities because it will mean you don’t have to date anymore.

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Is there anything wrong with dating two people at the same time?

The core of dating is commencing a process through which you become increasingly absorbed in a single person. At the beginning of the process, you are understandably being selfish. However, for the dating process to achieve its purpose it must transition from a continual focus on your own interest to a growing attachment to the other person.

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