It’s that time of year again, when hundreds of eligible young men are released onto the rosters of eager shadchanim

W

alk into The Lounge at the Marriott Hotel in Brooklyn on any given weeknight and you feel like you’re stumbling into an alternate universe. It’s one where all of the frum boys wear suits and hats and all of the girls wear black and couples sit at tables engaging in small talk while sipping drinks demurely.

On this Monday night five of the seven tables lining the room’s periphery are hosting shidduch dates. To be sure there’s some variation. One of the girls wears a bold gray; two aren’t wearing heels. Among the boys there are the hat-on-the-heads the no-hatters and the token brought-my-hat-but-took-it-off-and-placed-it-on-the-ledge guy. The girls save one are leaning back and the guys are bending forward (they all need to work on their posture). Some play with the napkin under their water others with the straw in their glass of Diet Coke.

This is nothing according to the bartender who says the night is just beginning. After 8:30 is prime time for shidduch dates and over the course of the night they’ll get 10 20 sometimes even 30 couples — so many that it seems they’re literally streaming in.

“What kind of couples?” a female regular wants to know.

The bartender gestures. “Jewish. Ya know?”

“Like Mormon?” the girl asks.

“Like Hasids” the bartender answers nodding sagely.

All around the city and beyond young men and women are entering different lounges and restaurants ready to embark on several hours of conversation drinks and if it’s far enough into the dating series a meal. There’s the Hilton Garden Inn across the Verrazano. The Ritz-Carlton in Battery Park. My Most Favorite Food on the Upper West Side. In midtown there’s Abigael’s on Broadway with the Marriott Marquis down the block. These venues among others have become increasingly popular among frum daters over the years and staffers and frequent patrons can spot them as soon as they walk in.

“You see this all the time — it’s like this every night” says another guy at the bar who fancies himself a maven.

“You’re here often?” asks the girl.

“Yeah. And he told me” the maven answers nodding at the bartender. The Marriott he elaborates is both classy and convenient because of its proximity to the local Orthodox community.

Soon the girl and the maven are discussing the system.

“Their families set them up” explains the maven. “This? It’s an interview process.”

“Speed dating?” she wants to know.

“Something like that but they don’t rotate. They talk to each other the whole time” the maven answers.

Or not. While three couples are chatting animatedly one is a bit more reserved and one is sitting in awkward silence. The Lounge isn’t that large so the tables are close enough that you can hear from one to the other which is good for the couple that ran out of conversation half an hour ago. As the boy hears snippets of other conversations he valiantly attempts to get his own going again.

Marriott administrators say they see these “courting couples” all the time. But because there’s minimal interaction between the couples and the staff all they know is that frum daters spend a nice amount of time getting to know each other and it’s relatively low-key.

Restaurant staffers on the other hand converse a little more with diners and at Abigael’s they say they know exactly who these couples are and where they’re holding.

“You can spot them” Jigi Mathew the affable director of operations says with a grin. “When we see them the whole staff knows they’re going to be here for a long time.”

Angel Sanchez the host explains that frum dates stay longer than other diners. The restaurant usually assumes two hours per reservation but shidduch dates can and do sit longer. “Sometimes they’re even here for three hours ” he says. “It doesn’t bother us. We know what they’re here for.”

He’s also noticed that even though frum dates tend to sit for a while, many of them don’t converse a whole lot. The lack of interaction can sometimes be uncomfortable to witness, and Jigi says when possible, the staff tries to help get things going.

“A lot of times it’s just silence,” says Jesse Mattox, a good-hearted waiter who’s been a server at Abigael’s for almost two years. “They look around for a little while. Maybe he’ll turn and look behind his chair.…” Jesse demonstrates hooking his hand over the back of a chair. “I try to find an excuse to go over. I’ll come to the table more often to ask about the food, if they like it, to try to get them to start a conversation.”

Even couples that seem to click don’t necessarily interact seamlessly. “When you approach the table, you can tell from the get-go — they’ve got these big smiles on their faces, even if they aren’t talking,” Jesse says. “Sometimes it only picks up toward the end. They order dessert and then talk forever.”

There’s a world of a difference between the younger, inexperienced daters and the older, more sophisticated daters. “The younger they are, the more nervous they are,” says Jesse, always eager to get the conversation going. “When I first come to take their order, a lot of times they look like this is something completely new, like they’ve never done it on their own.”

This can lead to wince-worthy rookie mistakes. “She says, ‘I’m thinking of getting this,’ and he’ll ask, ‘Oh, how much is it?’” Jesse relates sympathetically. “It makes me cringe a little, but I don’t judge him — I know I might have done the same type of thing as a kid.”

More often than not, the girl will ask for an appetizer as her main course (the boy always orders a proper main). When asked what they’d like to drink, both usually stick with water. Sometimes someone orders a soda, but restaurant staffers know frum daters rarely go alcoholic.

Jesse also finds the way they eat — or not — intriguing. “It takes them a lot of time,” he explains. “It’s like they don’t want to take bites in front of each other. They wait till the other one looks somewhere else to use their fork.” The girl usually doesn’t finish what’s on her plate, and neither one wants the leftovers wrapped up to take home.

No dater wants to draw attention, and even if there are diners the restaurant staffers recognize — the guy who comes in every few weeks with someone else, or the girl whose face just looks familiar — they have to act like they don’t know them. “If you see them more than once, don’t greet them because they might not want that,” Jigi counsels his staff.

Jigi also doesn’t mind dispensing gentle advice to diners when necessary. He remembers one guy who wanted to arrange for relief if he wasn’t enjoying his date. He planned to signal in a specific way, and when the staff saw it, they were supposed to tell him he had a phone call. “I advised him not to do that,” Jigi says. Other times, a guy will ask them to rush the meal.

While they might have fun predicting if a date will become a couple, Jigi’s staff has no way of knowing unless the couple comes back. Jigi explains, “They’ll come here for a date and they’re not really interacting — and then they come back a few weeks later engaged. You know how fast it works in your circles!”

Speedy dating isn’t the only cultural characteristic Abigael’s staff has noticed. Angel Sanchez relates that initially, the color code threw him for a loop. “I didn’t know much about Jewish religion, and I wondered why they’re always wearing black,” he remembers. “I’m used to black for when a family member dies.”

The restaurant sees a lot of proposals, and the way a frum boy goes about it gets the whole team involved, says Jigi. “He gives us a bracelet or chain of some sort, and we bring it out on a plate with a special presentation — something we arranged beforehand. The first time a new staff person sees it, they might not understand. They think, ‘Why can’t this guy afford a ring?’ And they’re waiting for him to get down on one knee to propose.”

It took him some time to learn the religion ropes, but now Jigi knows so much, he likes to jokingly call himself an honorary Jew. And he truly enjoys being part of the shidduch process.

“I’m a romantic at heart,” he says. “We all cheer when it works out.”

Top 10 Dating Venues

• Lounges outside Manhattan:
  • Brooklyn Marriott
  • Staten Island Hilton Garden Inn
• Lounges in Manhattan
  • Ritz-Carlton Battery Park
  • Marriott Marquis
  • Waldorf Astoria
  • Plaza Hotel
  • Four Seasons
• Restaurants
  • Abigael’s on Broadway
  • Le Marais
  • My Most Favorite Food

“Just” One Date

When you tell a boy, “Just give it one date,” here’s what you’re asking:

Scenario: Boro Park bochur who learns in Lakewood is taking out a Flatbush girl for drinks in Manhattan

Timetable:

• 2:00 – Minchah in Lakewood
• 2:15 – leave Lakewood
• 4:00 – arrive home; eat something, lie down
• 5:45 – prepare for date (shave, shower, get dressed)
• 6:45 – leave home
• 7:15 – approach her house, search for parking
• 7:30 – ring her bell
• 11:00 – drop her off at home
• 11:30 – return home: talk to parents, change
• 12:00 – leave home
• 12:15 – Maariv at Shomrei Shabbos
• 12:30 – leave Brooklyn
• 2:00 – enter dorm room

Total time: 12 hours

Expenses:

• Car rental — $50
• Gas and tolls for trip to and from NY — $50
• Battery Park Tunnel — $10
• Parking — $40
• Drinks + tip — $20

Total expenses: $170

If You Look Frum, There’s a Minimum

In October, there were mumblings of anti-Semitism at the River Caf? in Brooklyn, when a New York Post article reported the posh establishment price-gouged frum couples by enforcing a $25-per-person minimum to sit at the bar. (The internal “guidebook” singled out people wearing “religious top hats” and “strings.”)

A manager explained to the Post that the $25 minimum is

standard policy, and they don’t discriminate. However, when the Post sent two couples to test it out, the frum-looking couple was immediately told about the $25 minimum, but the secular-looking couple — whose tab ended up being less than $20 — didn’t hear anything about paying a minimum.

Insiders maintained that the management of the waterfront lounge knows frum couples tend to stay several hours and order only water or soda, and it’s not really worth it when other diners spend much more for snacks, meals, or alcoholic beverages. Others in the industry agree, explaining that ordering just drinks or dessert can be frustrating, simply because it means they are “losing” a table to a customer that won’t pay enough to justify it.

The Unspoken Meaning, Date by Date

• First two dates: In a lounge, and stick to small talk (family, Israel, camp)
• Third or fourth date: “The hashkafah date,” in a restaurant and conversation is more serious
• Fifth or sixth date: Both have an idea of where this is headed
• Eighth or ninth date: He proposes, she says yes

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 444)