Some thoughts on blind dates

One great way to pass the time in (especially unmixed company) is to exchange bad date stories. They're funny after they're in the past tense. I have heard a lot of bad date stories that frequently begin "I was set up with this person and..." I have also heard about set ups that have resulted in marriages! Why do we go on blind dates if they're such a hit or miss proposition?

The surface explanation is that it's because some of them do turn into marriages, and we're hopeful that our date will be one of those. Hope is good, and I'm all in favor of it. However, based on conversations with peers, it seems that there's a more sinister reason - the frum social myth that if we don't agree to go on these dates, we'll be single forever, we'll die virgin and without peppering the planet with Jews, and we are lesser people if we don't get married.

In my never to be humble opinion, this is not a very healthy way to date. This is not dating out of hope. It is dating out of fear. Fear is not a good basis for dating.