Vos Iz Neias - (Yiddish:What’s News?) » New York - Wall Street Journal: Shidduch Crises In The Orthodox Community: "social worker Shaya Ostrov calls the “popcorn effect.” During the first two to three years following high-school graduation, 70% to 80% of Orthodox women get married; weddings then peter off. “The system works for a very limited period of time,” says Mr. Ostrov, the author of “The Inner Circle: Seven Gates to Marriage.” Friends of mine compare dating to musical chairs; nobody wants to end up an “old maid,” and so they get engaged, hoping doubts will prove unfounded. “Young women,” notes Sylvia Barack Fishman, professor of contemporary Jewish life at Brandeis University, “are often made to feel that they are damaged goods if they have not married — and married well — by their early 20s.”
Part of the problem is the increased number of “serial daters” who, as Ms. Fishman says, are “shopping for perfection.” When Mr. Ostrov runs workshops, he asks male participants in their early 30s how many girls they have dated. “One hundred seventy-five is not an unusual number,” he says. “Dating” in these cases usually ends after just one or two meetings with each girl.
Many men admit that their refusal to commit themselves to a woman stems from fear of making a mistake. The only thing worse than being an “older single” male, it seems, is being a 25-year-old divorcé with two children. It is women, though, who are usually more stigmatized by a split. Indeed, one big problem in the Orthodox community is the “Post-Shidduch Crisis.”"
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