No matter what the official explanation is (usually something about coping with the incredible frustration of going out on dates) the real reason most frum people make dating blogs… is to shout I’M SPECIAL.
That’s not always immediately apparent because they usually do a good job of wrapping the narrative up in POOR ME stories about the time they went to someone’s wedding and everyone pointed and laughed and threw dead skunks at them… BECAUSE THEY WERE STILL SINGLE. Also legendary tales of mean shadchanim and stupid dates. And all the usual recycled narrative of FRUM DATING IS TOUGH FOR SPECIAL PEOPLE LIKE ME.
It’s understandable enough that the frum dating process would make a single want to shout out his or her specialness to the blogging heavens. I’M NOT JUST A NUMBER. I’M AN INDIVIDUAL. I’M SPECIAL. I’M GETTING A DEGREE IN UNDERWATER ARCHITECTURE FROM BTE. It’s also nauseating and obnoxious.
And so the frum dating blogger usually
1. Boasts extensively of his or her secular knowledge (actual unattributed example follows)
I know Things. I know where Sri Lanka is. I know that van Gogh cut off his ear. I know who wrote the Brandenburg Concertos and I think that some of Poe’s best stories are his comic ones.
Yes well, I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical. Also I’m very good at integral and differential calculus and I know the scientific names of beings animalculous. But I also shut up about it. Because knowing who wrote the Brandenburg Concertos isn’t that impressive of a feat. It just means you’re shouting I’M SPECIAL.
2. Complains about how tough frum dating is because it’s so hard to meet someone and you’re not judged as an individual and blah, blah. Of course it usually turns out that they’ve had plenty of acceptable dates whom they’ll make fun of in great detail. Because you know… they are special. Capital S, Special.
3. Has a great many rules and suggestions for dating, which are actually completely useless to anyone not dating them, because they only reflect their own personal idiosyncrasies (of which they have many, because they are Special)
4. Questions frumocity just enough to look cool, but not enough to actually fear being penalized for it. Because one of the purposes of the blog is to look cool to their own friends in real life. Or Special.
Boil down your basic frum dating blog and it consists of nothing but WHIIIIINE, BUT I’M SPECIAL. Along with healthy helpings of mockery for anyone unfortunate enough to cross their real life path. I’ve quoted one blog here, without attribution, but only as an example of the species. Male and female, they’re all basically the same.
The dating blog is how they deal with a process that forces them to question their specialness. It’s not a symptom of a larger Shidduch Crisis. It’s a symptom of self-centered and self-indulgent whining in a social media medium.
To understand just how stupid the phenomenon is, imagine people opening a supermarket blog, in which all they did was whine about how boring standing in a supermarket line is, how few things there are to do, how many weird people you encounter in a supermarket, while trying to be witty about the whole thing, as only an unemployable self-centered English major can. Now multiply that blog by a thousand and you can see what I’m talking about.
Everyone has to wait in line at the supermarket. Because no one is special. Because it’s a damn supermarket. And no one is special. Deal with it.
Samurai Mohel 