You write about yourself in your own words and get good questions back. Then the search begins for the person who would appreciate exactly what you are — and you are both told why.
A few short questions arrive by email. Answer as many or as few as you like, or leave it, and nothing else happens.
Most of the shidduch process asks for your height, your seminary, and a list of your qualities — the version that makes a person feel like a résumé. None of that is required here. Two people can match on every line of a résumé and have nothing to say to each other at nine o'clock at night, and the questions here are built to find the other kind.
Every question comes out of something you wrote. How far it goes is up to you: some people want to be asked the searching questions, some would rather keep it light, and the conversation follows your lead rather than pushing.
If you answer in two lines, you get a short, accurate description instead of a padded one. What you share is yours to share or keep.
Most people find writing about themselves nearly impossible, which is
why résumés read the way they do. Whatever comes of the matching, you
end up with a page about you that a friend would recognise. Hand it to a
shadchan you're already working with, send it to your family, cut it
down for a résumé. Reply @profile any time for a clean
copy.
You see everything written about you first, and you correct it until
it's right. No name or contact detail reaches another person until you
have both said yes. One thing you should know going in: a person here
can read conversations, to check the system is working properly. Reply
@human any time and someone reads yours deliberately.
Nothing, at any point — not to start, not for an introduction, and no shadchanus gelt if it goes all the way.
Reply @stop and everything is deleted within thirty days.
This is what the whole conversation is for. You're in it from the moment you approve your own description, which the email asking for that approval says plainly. If you'd rather be written up but not matched yet, saying so is enough. Here is exactly what happens once you're in.
Nothing happens until you've read what was written about you and said it's right. Correct it as many times as you like; approving is what starts the matching, and the email says so at the time rather than burying it.
Not a list to browse and not a stack of profiles. One person, with a short anonymous description and a straight answer to why the two of you are worth introducing — drawn from what you each actually wrote, not from your ages matching.
Nobody sees your name, your contact details, or your full write-up unless you have both said yes. A no never has to be explained, and you won't be asked to.
Names, fuller descriptions, and references — the way a shadchan would do it. Your references are never called before that point, and you're told before it happens.
Expect few rather than many. A suggestion that wastes your time costs you more than one that never arrives, so silence is preferred to sending something unconvincing.
This is new, so the number of people known well here is still small — the conversation is worth having now, and the waiting is for the pool to fill.
Not a form, and nothing you have to prepare for. These are real questions from the first email, and you pick which ones to answer.
Then the next email is written from what you actually said, and that's where the useful part turns up. A real second-round question looks more like this:
You mentioned almost in passing that you were the one who moved home for those eight months. Can I ask about the part you skipped over: what did you put down in order to do it, and did anybody actually ask you to?
Made up, but that's the shape of it. Nobody asks you for your height.
All made up, and no names on either side at this stage. This is the part that says what was noticed, and why.
… so here's why I thought of her for you. She has her sister's kids most Shabbosim and says the whole trick is keeping the menu boring enough that she isn't stuck in the kitchen all Friday. You told me the test of a good Shabbos is whether anyone is still at the table at four o'clock.
I think you'd like that she's funny in a completely flat way. Asked to describe herself she said "ask my sister, she's more objective and less kind." You said the thing you'd want most is somebody to laugh with at the end of a long day, and my guess is this is that.
I think she'd like that you don't need to be the one talking. She's been on a few dates where she felt like the audience, and the part of the day you told me about was the shmoozing after seder rather than the seder itself …
… short version: you both go out of your way for something nobody is paying you to do. You started running again last year and told me you're slow and don't care. She's been reading about the Romans for fifteen years with nobody to discuss it with.
I think you'd like how little she performs. I asked what she's proud of and she told me about a boy on her caseload who can tie his shoes now. Not the job, not the certification. The shoes.
I think she'd like your seder, and not to be impressed by it. She said she wants somebody who has already built his week around something, so she isn't the one holding the shape of it, and yours has survived three jobs and eleven years.
One thing I'll say plainly: she's quieter than you are, and you told me you find silence at a table hard work. That might be nothing. It might also be the thing …
… I thought of him because of the singing, honestly. You said you sing and that you stopped doing it around people. He plays guitar badly on purpose, his words, and has a standing arrangement with his brother-in-law to butcher old Carlebach every Chol Hamoed.
The harder part, and I'd rather you heard it from me than on a first date: he was widowed four years ago and raised his two through it. He doesn't present it as a tragedy and he didn't want it leading his description either. He told me what he's looking for is "somebody to eat supper with who's glad I came home."
I think you'd like that nothing about him is arranged for anybody's benefit. He described his own cooking as "edible if you're not fussy" and his apartment as "fine, I'm not there much." I think he'd like that you're direct, because he said the part he finds hardest is the guessing, and you answered a question of mine before I'd finished asking it. Neither of you, I suspect, would need the other to explain why some weeks are harder than others …
Examples, not real people. A real one would be built from what you actually wrote, and ends with "@yes" or "@no".
So at some point you'll be asked what you made of it: whether the
description is really you, what was tedious, what you'd tell somebody
thinking about trying it. Reply @feedback whenever you like,
as often as you like. Criticism is the useful kind of answer, and it's the
whole reason this stage exists.
All sorts. Plenty of people here are dating again after a marriage, or came to Yiddishkeit later, or are past the age where the phone rings much. None of that is a note on your file, and none of it changes the questions. It's part of who you are, the same as everything else you say.
That's a good thing, and none of this is instead of it. Take the write-up and hand it straight to them if it's useful. If a shadchan or a friend or an aunt gets there first, that's a good outcome — say so, and your file is closed with pleasure.
It starts with a few questions and is meant to end with you married to somebody who is glad it's you. You read everything written about you before anybody else does, and a no at any point costs you nothing.
Prefer to do it yourself? Email hello@ai-shadchan.com
with @register_me in it. It's the same thing.