How to navigate shidduchim as a newbie?

Hi Fay! I admire your work. I've recently started shidduchim and there's people saying to look into someone, l have my own personal feelings about it, but i don't want to hurt feelings or affect me negatively,any advice? I'm a little concerned about how this process works as it's still new to me

Hello beautiful soul and thank you for being here.

I read your question a few times to be sure I understood the question before answering. Here's how I'm understanding it:

You're new to Shidduchim, someone was suggested. You're not into the idea. Afraid of saying no or sharing your less than positive opinion bec you don't want to hurt the other parties feelings or the Shadchan's feelings and bec you don't want your "no" to impact you negatively. Let's run with this

Here's some thoughts I want to share/have you consider;

I/ you're honesty and sensitivity is admirable.

These are really incredible traits that will serve you well in this life and beyond AND they also come with considerable challenges. Not wanting to hurt or offend anyone is a huge burden that kind, sensitive, thoughtful people contend with. All that said, don't let Shidduchim knock this beauty out of you.

Rather, this is your time to learn to balance these attributes while staying true to yourself. Not going to the extreme of people pleasing or decision paralysis. All easier said than done but an important reminder nonetheless.

An excellent dating coach/therapist/rabbi/mentor may be helpful in helping you navigate these challenges and build on you're already beautiful middos 

2/ to piggy back on that last point.

Middos in English means measurement.

And it's not for no reason. It's because even the most angelic middos need to be measured and monitored so that they don't cripple the human who adheres to or possesses them. Keep this in mind as you continue to evolve.

3/ Shidduchim is one of the best times to develop our intuition and learn to hear it and practice listening to it. Lean into this. It sounds like you already are as you said you don't like the idea of the suggestion so that might be your intuition talking. It might not be and only you can know that. Speaking it out with a trusted party can help you peice apart what's intuition from what's not.

4/ all that being said, this may be an unpopular opinion but ...

I believe that in the beginning of Shidduchim it can actually be ok and maybe even helpful to disregard your intuition in an ISOLATED CASE AND ONLY once you already acknowledged what you believe your intuition told you and made an active

"out loud" agreement to go against it for a specific reason for a specific short period of time ex one date.

I'll explain further:

Our intuition is a very complex space. One of the best ways to develop it in the early and even advanced stages of adulthood is to listen for what it's saying and really acknowledge it and then decide to either make a move along with it or against it and learn from there.

Of course when you listen to it and it works out it's great but often times we don't thank our intuition for that. When you make a move against it and you see your intuition was right all along - your intuition gets a mega boost and you'll have an easier time hearing it the next time around and trusting yourself to listen to it regardless of what people say or don't say.

Personal story to drive home the point :

This situation happened to me years ago in Shidduchim where I was "pressured" to date someone "just once" (you know the lingo) and my intuition was giving me the alarm bells. I remember vividly having a conversation with my mom where I said "mom my gut is telling me it's 100% not for me so why I should I been waste one night of my life?" And in that conversation my wise mom said hey you know you can for sure say no but if you go out and it's what you think then you'll know how on point your intuition is and wouldn't that be worth a night of your life? With that I went out and my intuition scored big time. I'll never forget this episode bec it helped me fall in love with my intuition and trust it on a whole new level. It was the most worthwhile bad date I ever had and that's saying a lot bec there a lot of not great dates. 

5/ lastly I'll end with this. You will disappoint people in Shidduchim and you will hurt feelings. And you will get disappointed and get your teeling hurt too (I hope not but life has its way of making sure we all know what it's like to be human!) and its ok. Embrace this season. Don't fear the feelings.

Practice feeling them.

I hope some of what I shared was helpful and wishing you to find your soulmate in the smoothest happiest way possible and that life only gets even better from there.

Keep us posted on the good news when you have it!

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• Anxiety
• Dating
• Relationships
• Transitions & Change