I will be away for the week so my responses to comments, emails and facebook stuff may take longer then usual, as always I do not take my computer with me on vacation. Posts will be regular, as I have a bunch of saved ones that I emailed to myself.
As the frummies become more frum, the shidduch back round checks have turned in to full scale investigations. It used to be good enough to ask you neighbor about a girl or call up friends, but with new social networking tools at hand, most parties involved in the shidduch process have taken to the computer for their research rather then to the traditional tool of neighborhood gossip around a nicely set table on shabbos afternoon while the kids are playing and the men are napping.
Frumster:
You may think you are safe when logged into your frumster account but think again. A friend of mine used to “borrow” my frumster account for several days at a time for research purposes, finding and checking out information on potential girls. Reading into things such as spelling, usage of text message type words and smiley faces- all gave insight into whether they were his “type” or not. Frumster can be a great tool for research, if you can actually find the girl, and since most girls just want to be normal, its kind of tough sifting through all the “same” profiles with different variations like age and body type.
Facebook:
My personal favorite for shidduch research, since most girls who are on facebook are addicted to it, being a much better gossip and Jewish geography tool then Only Simchas ever was, you can pretty much friend any girl whom you would like to see their profile and claim you know them through one of their friends. If you want to be really sly, you mught as well get a girl to do it for you, since the race to have as many friends as possible is always on.
Once you are able to view the profile itself, you can look for discrepancies between what you were told about the girl and what they say. Search for some “full body” pictures- which are rarely shown on Frumster, since they are too hard to show and stay in the average weight category without lifting some eyebrows. You can also check her religiosity status based on types of friends. Are they all of one sex, are they all half naked, you can garner tidbits of information from the friends they have. Also be sure to check how many dumbass applications they have, it will show you that they have no lives and spend whatever time they have checking who write graffiti on their super wall.
Google:
Everyone googles everyone, this is a simple fact of life. When I used to work at a desk job I would just sit around and google random people I know. I found out that my English name matches a famous investigative journalist, pretty cool eh. Google will also bring up any comments they made on Only Simchas, always interesting especially if they make comments that go as follows “OMG I am soooooooooooooooooo happy 4u…” The teeny bopper alert goes off in my brain.
Google Images:
My new personal favorite, you can search their name into the images and walla photos show up, very cool. Not only can you use this for shidduch back round checks it’s a great stalking tool.
Saw You At Sinai:
Have you heard of these women that become shadchuns on SYAS just to do research for potential shidduchim, not just for the prospect of setting people up in Baltimore for that extra 2grand. And since anyone can become a shadchun, seems like every newly graduated stern girl who got her MRS becomes a shadchun on the site.
Blogs:
Tough to do, since folks rarely ever say their names, but if you are smart you be able to garner some tidbits of information, If you find iut she has a blog, and nothing more, you are ahead of the game. Is she a negative girl who is in her twenties and cant find a shidduch, well you may be in luck because in recent weeks there has been a proliferation of shidduch crisis blogs, or blogs devoted to ranting about shidduchs. The problem is that they are all pretty much the same.
Private Investigator:
This may seem foolish, but for the folks that believe shoes with laces and scraping plates have some bearing on whether your marriage will last past shanna rishona, this may be the last resort. Loshon harah didn’t work out so they turn to the PI, lets just hope it doesn’t turn out like There’s Something About Marry.