Mislaibeled Girls Episode Review
First off, it’s nice to see how times have changed. When I was in elementary school and we had a 26 year-old single Kodesh teacher she was legit considered an old maid and everyone was davening for her. I see that the old maid age has been adjusted to around 35 for both girls and boys. Another off-the-bat observation is the super high quality production set with multiple cameras and angles. Laibel and Dovi are also exceptional moderators, asking really well-thought-out applicable targeted questions and giving everyone enough equal time to answer.
The participants are all within the same age range – in their early or late twenties – and do seem to come from similar backgrounds. The answers about their career choices were stereotypical and it seemed like they almost all worked in special ed. It is within reason, though, because they’re all exactly in the same stage of their life – dating in the religious world – and that’s what they’re here to talk about.
Needless to say, there were questions about sex and money. That’s why it’s nice that this wasn’t moderated by a shadchan; the questions were a lot more realistic. One of the first questions were “Would you be OK with a guy who hooks up but then stops hooking up when he dates you?” Another question was “Is it OK with you if a guy only goes to clubs because he’s single but he tells you that he’ll stop doing certain similar behaviors once he gets married?” Almost all the girls were understanding of boys who might indulge in certain looked-down upon behavior if it was only temporary. The Lakewood girl even thought it would be weird for a boy in his upper twenties to have never been intimate with a girl, and she said that it would be a red flag.
The girls and the two moderators completely lost me when they started talking about money. Dovi mentioned that a guy needs to be making 250K a year if he wants four kids and I thought that was wildly unrealistic. This might even explain the shidduch crisis. It’s perfectly legitimate to want a guy with a nice stable salary who brings home a sizable income every month. But let’s be honest, most men are making less than 150K per year and having someone in your life who cares about you and who you can build a future together with is more important than going to Pesach hotels and to Israel every Sukkos.
The girls mostly came across as genuine and attentive with well-thought-out non-judgemental answers. One girl even said that she has dated men who have been in rehab which really did convey that she gives people chances and she’s not single only because she’s picky. On the other hand, it was also evident that some girls were there mostly for the clout and the merch. The divorced girl in particular was incessantly talking about how she’s so tiny and blonde and it’s so hard for her because guys only want to hook up with her and don’t want to date her.
There are two questions that I do wish they would have asked everyone. “Why are you not married?” and also “What was the reason for your breakups?” As someone who fortunately has never struggled in this particular area I’m honestly curious. Another area where I was perplexed was that most of them claim to have been in months-long relationships. In almost every religious space I’ve seen, months-long relationships end up in marriage proposals.
Being as I am a married Jewish woman and there were both eligible bachelors and bachelorettes in the room, obviously I started matching them up in my head. Dovi even gave one girl his sweatshirt and to me that was nothing short of a marriage proposal. Even Laibel seemed to have good chemistry with a few of the girls. I’m out of the parsha now so I’ll believe it when people tell me how difficult the dating market is, but I still don’t have a concrete illuminated understanding of why that is. I’ll end this off with my blessing for everyone in the nation of Israel to find their זיווג הגון at the right auspicious time. Amen.
