Personal Statements

The personal statement can make or break a suggested shidduch.

For each online dating service, you complete a questionnaire when you sign up. You check off little boxes and fit yourself into various categories (slim, average, zaftig, modern-machmir, chassidishe, just plain frum). Finally, when you reach the end of all the forms, they want you to write a personal statement or sometimes two - one describing yourself and one describing your bashert.

You can be the right height, have the right political and hashkafic outlook, agree with me on whether or not you want to watch movies at home, but it all comes down to the personal statement - that paragraph or two (longer if you're self-involved) that might just let an inkling of your actual personality slip through.

The personal statement is everything. Every suggestion I have ever rejected has been on the basis of someone's personal statement. And I've read enough of them at this point to see some trends developing.

Trend #1 - The Resume
This personal statement lists all of the halachic accomplishments of its writer down to the tiniest detail. I read one yesterday where the guy actually listed how many times he visited his grandmother, on average, over the past few months and how many times he drove the rabbi around.

Trend #2 - Yichus
This personal statement reads like a horse-breeders' magazine. "My great-grandmother was married to the Brisker Rav's son-in-law's brother. Her daughters all married rabbis who had memorized Shas by the age of ten."

Trend #3 - Relatively normal baal teshuva
This personal statement reads just like you would expect it to. "I want to meet an attractive woman who has wonderful middos. I want to have a Shabbos table full of guests. I have a decent sense of humor and will take wonderful care of my future wife."

Now, strangely enough, in a world where people often try to out-do eachother in order to stand out from the crowd, it's the normal personal statement that catches my attention. Is it normal these days to want a normal husband and a normal life? I don't know. But, I do offer this piece of advice, be human - not a descendent of your chashuv relatives or a list of chesed organizations to which you belong.

I told a friend recently that while I'm mediocre at lots of things, I'm great at being human.

Aggressively normal SJF seeks same in SJM.