Last night I attended an event at the JCC in Manhattan, titled "Modern Orthodox Perspectives of the Singles Crisis" here are the details of the event:

Jewish Town Hall: The Shidduch Crisis Revisited

Modern Orthodox Perspectives on the Singles Crisis
Modern Orthodoxy-like the rest of Orthodoxy and, in fact, the entire
Jewish community-is facing a singles crisis. Some aspects of this
problem, as well as ways in which it is being addressed, are unique to
Modern Orthodoxy as distinct from both the Charedi (ultra-Orthodox)
world and the Jewish community at large. Our panel of experts will
address issues such as:
* Is there a distinctive Modern Orthodox approach to
dating/shidduchim?
* When is it ethical to date more than one person at a time?
* How do we decide what criteria are really important to us in a
partner?
* What can be done in the Modern Orthodox community, within a
halachic framework, to effectively address the singles issue?

Panelists will include Rabbi Dr. Tsvi Blanchard, Dr. Nomi Mark,
Chananya Weissman of End the Madness, and Marc Goldman of Saw You at
Sinai.

It went as expected, the panelists each had an amount of time to give their thoughts on the matter followed by a question and answer session. The psychologists mentioned how people are starting their lives later, this, that and the other. Chananya Weissman gave out an outline of different ideas and things for people to work on and do to start helping the situation. This is the right thing to do. Explain what and how people can do to help. Although some of his ideas I completely disagree with. Marc Goldman retold a story that I missed, but I would have liked to
have heard because he usually has great ideas and totally on the mark.

During the question answer session I sat quietly wondering whether to get up and say who I was, what I do, etc and give my input and comments. I generally don't pipe up in public because I'm not one who enjoys public speaking or being the focus of everyone's attention.

Someone in the audience however, asked why all the major sites and organizations get together to cooperate with each other. This was something I wanted to chime in on, because just a few days over a year ago this is what actually was tried. The Orthodox Caucus invited a nice list of who's who in the world of Jewish Dating and Singles to try to see if we can all cooperate on something and come up with some idea that we can all together work on and participate in. Unfortunately nothing came of it. In fact sitting there it was obvious that some people were very happy and excited to try to work on something and brainstorm about ideas while others were quite hesitent to particpate. It turns out that the people on the panel last night happened to be those that earnestly wanted to try to do something and I wanted to mention that, and also mention that the although it is a nice idea trying to get businesses with agendas to cooperate with their competitors is a pretty complicated task.

I raised my hand to comment and when I was called upon, I introduced myself and explained that I work on a number of projects, many of which deal with trying to help people connect with each other. I mention some of the sites, and then go on to explain my thoughts about trying to get businesses to work together for an Idealistic goal. Unfortunately the moderator cut me off while I was speaking and almost refused to let me continue. If it wasn't for the others in the audience who vocally objected and asked to let me finish I wouldn't have been able to say what I had to say. In fact she cut me off before I even made my point to say that these were the people who were looking to be involved and try to help and it is unforunate that other companies weren't. I managed to get that out while I was allowed to speak again, although it confused many people or atleast some of the panelists who didn't know whether I was attacking them or applauding them. At one point the moderator said to me, "Why don't you go and do something then!" to which someone else shouted, "He has! That is what he is saying!"

After responding to the cooperation remark I did also wanted to comment on the ideas that Chananya distributed. One of them asks that bands turn down the music so singles can talk at weddings. I'm really sorry, but I disagree with this. Weddings are weddings first and foremost. They may be great opportunities to meet others, but it is still a wedding and it shouldn't be planned around being a singles event. It's unfortunate that to some, weddings seem to be the only kosher singles events and the solution wont be adapting the wedddings to make them into better singles events. It's making other single events kosher or appealing.

Another one of his ideas was to educate people earlier on how to date and how to be married. I mentioned that I don't know one person who was educated on how to date or how to be married. And I don't think it is something you can even teach people. This about learning how to be social. How to communicate and relate to other people in general. It's learning how to be normal. I recall a large murmur as I said this. I then went on to try to explain that this idea of identifying a problem and thinking the solution is to try to fix it after the fact is going about it all wrong. Someone mentioned about dealing with it for college students, but the truth is dealing with it at that stage is trying to constantly undo what is constantly being done. To fix the problem you have to address it earlier. Children as they grow up have to be taught how to interact with others, and communicate with others. You can't teach boys and girls that it is a sin to look at each other and then expect them to be able to socialize properly when you decide it's time.

After the Q/A session and people got up, many came over to talk to me about the projects etc. A number of people came by to say that they were happy I spoke up and didn't think I said anything bad for the moderator to jump on me. Some gave me a shkoyah for saying my piece, and others wish a mazal tov for the recent engaments on the site. I walked over to the panel to apologize and explain if it didn't come across that I wanted to applaud their efforts.

I went over to the moderator and she simply would not let up! Accusing me of this and that and even after I explained my point, and explained my remarks and explained that I was applauding the panelists she still wanted to argue with me. In fact even when I agreed with her she pursued arguing. She then turned to accusing me of grandstanding and advertising my sites etc. I explained that generally when people remark at discussions if they happen to participate in something that deals with the situation at hand they introduce themselves and explain who they are and what they do. Yet she continued to admonish me for selling my projects from my seat. I'm really not sure what the issue was. If one person learned of my projects and it helped them meet someone, is this a bad thing? Wasn't the purpose of the meeting to help people? I'm pretty used to getting beat down for trying to make my projects work but it was quite nice to have many people come over to me and simply say that they were happy I said what I had to say.