Jew Central- Jewish News for Jewish Professionals - Avoiding Shadchans, Here’s an alternate solution

Your mother just wants to see you walk down the aisle. Your grandmother thinks that no one is good enough for her little darling. Her best friend (who still pinches your cheek) is trying to match you up based on all the wonderful things your grandmother is saying about you. Your neighbor drags out all the no-hopers in the neighborhood for your inspection basing your needs on some comment you made ten years ago about her apple cake you didn’t quite like. And your best friend compares everyone to "the one who got away".

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just find someone on your own? When it comes to who is best qualified to find your life partner, you may need a mirror to see that answer! On their own, most single men can’t seem to find Ms. Right, and single women are always asking “where are all the good guys”. Then the tough meat market, I mean dating scene, makes it impossible to find someone on your own.

No one wants to stay single, but it’s not easy asking for help. As someone who has “been there”, I know the scene quite well. It’s full of anti-shadchan singles who ask: “They don’t know me and they don’t know him – how can they put us together?” or those who say: “I am not going to get outside help, I’m not desperate…yet”. And on the other side, it’s full of matchmakers who easily get burnt out; “I set them up, they went out ten times, and then he said no because there was no click. He’s clearly not ready to get married” Or the matchmakers who get exasperated by your selectiveness: “So what if he’s 10 years older and has not held down a job in 5 years? You are 30 years old, you can’t afford to be so picky.”

In my community, I was considered an “old maid” when I got engaged, and until I met my husband, I heard endless complaints of how I had to settle for less or I was never going to get married. But I held out, and in the end got what I wanted – or at least the important things. Today, I can help prevent others from going through what I suffered, because of Saw You at Sinai - an ideal solution for both singles and shadchanim.

Shadchan in Hebrew is the term for stapler, and that’s how the new breed of shadchanim on SYAS, like me, see ourselves – just trying to help people who are supposed to be together get together. These shadchanim are married folks who have large networks, they set aside time for setting up singles each week, and they have a knack for assessing character, all qualities that will enable them to steer you towards couplehood. This Internet dating site has revolutionized the Jewish dating scene because it enables them to regularly offer you expanded options with constant access to “fresh blood” as more and more people sign up.

Saw You at Sinai is more than a 'cyber-yenta'. An Internet dating site is only as good as its members, and SYAS screen both the singles and the matchmakers. While singles may
complain of the time-consuming process of filling out forms and providing tons of information on any dating site, from a shadchan’s perspective, the profiles give me 99.9% of the information. To ensure that I have 100% of the information I need, SYAS now requires all its shadchanim to create a personal relationship with the singles we represent (i.e. via phone or email or even face to face). And not only are shadchanim pre-screened, but we are required to commit a certain amount of hours each week to volunteer on the site.

So when you choose up to 3 Shadchanim to act as your agent, they will personally search
as well as use technological search efforts to rule out unsuitable matches, verify the characteristics that are important to you, and suggest the matches that are most appropriate.

At the same time, because it makes the job easier for the shadchan, we enjoy it more and want to do it as much as we can. Among the benefits of SYAS to me: I can do it on those nights that I can’t sleep at 3 a.m.; I have all the information I need right in front of me - forget the scraps of papers with notes about singles; singles update the site so that I can immediately see who is dating and who is available; I can network with other shadchanim to check out potential matches for people I know. For singles, it enables you to have full pre-screened and pre-sorted profiles according to your priorities come straight to you; women can choose to see the man’s profile first so your name isn’t thrown out to the wind; all shidduchim suggested are reviewed and selected based on compatibility with discretion!

Saw You at Sinai can bring you one step closer to eternal bliss, and the site’s basic and gold membership plans offer free and paid plans to ensure that the path to the aisle is affordable!

About The Author
Chevy Weiss is a shadchan on Saw You At Sinai