Online dating is a lot like being set-up for an arranged marriage. JDate® is especially like an arranged marriage. This isn’t bad. This is actually really great. Choice has gotten to you where you are so far. Alone, sad, desperate, and tired. Freedom is a great thing, unless one is left to his own devices. It has to be a collective process, where people work together. Alone, it can be very destructive. For example, if people spend their lives by themselves solely on the internet, they’re probably not going to get very far. They have to use the internet as a tool that acts as an extension to their already busy lives. JDate®  is a great tool, but it can’t be your only tool. If you sit around thinking online dating alone will find true love for you, it won’t. Believe me. I’m three years into doing exactly that.

And now, here is how this is a lot like an arranged marriage. First, there aren’t going to be a lot of matches in your area because, well, there aren’t a whole lot of Jewish people. So already, your options are limited. Granted, in a real arranged marriage, your options are really limited. They are so limited, in fact, that it’s more of an ‘option’, which by definition isn’t an option at all. I think JDate® acts as a good medium between having only one option, and having so many to sift through that you don’t know where to start. There are always exactly seven women in your area, and that is a perfect number. If you exhaust all seven options, all you have to do is move across the country.

Next, much like an arranged marriage, a lot of people are on here because of their parents. Either their parents themselves set up their profiles, or they convinced their children, out of guilt, to sign up. Parents are just expediting your life for you. You already have a job, probably have decent hygiene, and are a good Samaritan. All you need is a wife. Now, along with your mother, you are working on it.

I think cultures that practice arranged marriages have it right. This is based on absolutely no facts at all, but these cultures have a much lower divorce rate than we do. If you are forced to love somebody, you eventually will. That’s just science.