Shidduchim Is an Industry (Or, Another Look at Dating Coaching)

Recently I’ve been realizing that what I really need — maybe what we all really need — is emotional support, validation, and nurturing, not more and more and more advice about how to get married. I’m realizing that no one knows the secret, even wonderful and wise people. I’m realizing that no one has discovered the formula, even people who did a bunch of things they think got them married. I’m realizing that most people who are married were just fortunate to have met someone they wanted to marry — their experience was miraculous and it doesn’t generalize.

 

As I’ve written, all anyone in our community wants to talk about with regard to “older singles” is statistics and self-sabotage. It’s so damaging. There are real mental health ramifications to this. And focusing on the obsession with self-sabotage — it’s also big business.

 

Dating coaching is something I have utilized when I was anxious and overwhelmed and needed to talk through my experience. It was helpful at the time. But I do want to emphasize the limitations of dating coaching. It can be helpful in specific scenarios when you vibe with the coach and you feel they are really listening to you and centering you, not marriage. But I think overall when anyone tells you you should talk to a dating coach, what they are really saying is that there is something wrong with you and that’s why you’re single. What you actually need is to meet someone you like, whom a dating coach can’t magically conjure up no matter how much time you spend with them and money you pay them. (I should add here that I am talking about dating coaching in a broad sense, including one-on-one sessions, workshops, webinars, books…).

 

I think the industry of dating coaching thrives on a few premises that we accept as fact:

 

1. Being single is terrible and horrible and your life will not be complete until you get married, therefore whatever price you pay (financial and emotional) for help getting married, it’s worth it.
2. If someone is frum and married, they are an authority on dating and marriage and you should trust them.
3. If you are single, you must be doing something wrong. If you could only learn how to do it right, you would be married. The corollary being, if you are still single after you learned how to do it right, then you are still doing something wrong and you need more coaching because you must be really stuck.

 

I strongly dislike when anyone in the dating coaching space makes promises about how effective their method is. I’ve heard from two coaches that people who follow their method get married within six months. Another was more conservative and said two years. (I heard that one five years ago but I must not be doing the method right [sarcasm]).

 

I’m so tired of all the cliched dating advice. It’s so infuriatingly small-minded and judgmental. If you need help with specific skills, then sure, by all means find yourself a reputable therapist and/or coach. You deserve to have the easiest time possible. But don’t make yourself pay all that money and go through all that self-analysis just because someone told you there has to be a reason you’re single. I would shout this from the rooftops: There is NO REASON you are single except that you haven’t met the right person.

 

We are so steeped in these pathologizing, stigmatizing messages and they make us vulnerable to the things people say to “help” us. The next time someone suggests that you talk to a dating coach (mentor, therapist, whoever), turn it around and ask them…”Why?” Like, if you see a glaring issue with how I’m dating, come out and tell me, instead of slapping a cliché onto a situation you don’t understand.

 

To summarize, please only get help with dating if you are choosing to for a specific reason, and not because you think you need to fix yourself. You are not broken, our culture is.