The theory behind “speed dating” is simple, even if the logistics sound
complex.
At many such events, young women sit in a circle surrounded by a circle
of young men. For eight minutes participants ask the person in front of
them some personal questions, hopefully adding new details to
questionnaires they filled out beforehand.
The circles keep rotating one chair at a time, creating a series of
face-to-face encounters. Organizers then round up the data and look for
signs that something clicked for somebody.
“You don’t waste a lot of time on one person, there is a large pool of
people, they are pre-selected and they are not drunk. So there are some
big advantages over the club scene,” noted Barbara Dafoe Whitehead,
co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University.
The very existence of “speed dating” is evidence that many single
adults and their parents believe something has gone terribly wrong in
the world of love and courtship, she said, during a recent Emory
University conference on sex, marriage, family and faith.
This raises a serious question: Would it help if religious
congregations started holding “speed dating” events of their own?
Whitehead thinks it is significant that some Catholics, Evangelicals
and other highly committed religious believers are already starting
Internet dating services. And then there is the network called JMOMS —
Jewish Mothers Organizing Matches. Sometimes a concept can be timely
and timeless at the same time.
But these efforts are not the norm. Most religious institutions appear
to have conceded love and romance to the secular powers that be.
“So many faith communities are totally oriented to married couples and
those with children and they can’t seem to catch up with the
demographic realities that single people face today,” said Whitehead.
“Meanwhile, in the sexual free-for-all of our age, it is the
conservative, the more traditional singles — especially the women —
who are going to get ditched. They are in the most vulnerable position,
because the whole club and bar dating scene is just not going to work
for them. The last thing they need is for churches to abandon them.”
This void is a modern phenomenon. For centuries, said Whitehead, the
rites of courtship took place in the context of three great
institutions — the extended family, the school and the church.
Religious leaders played a vital role in shaping the relationships that
were later blessed at their altars.
“But today, all three institutions are increasingly remote from where
people are in their adult life course when they begin to seriously look
for a mate,” she said. Most singles are “living independently, often
far from home. They are also emotionally far from home. They are not
going to pick up the phone and call mommy and daddy to talk about their
dating prospects.”
While writing her most recent book, “Why There Are No Good Men Left,”
Whitehead interviewed scores of single adults, especially young women.
She also studied personal ads and shelves of bestsellers about dating.
What she found was confusion and conflicting values.
Modern singles are looking for “soul mates” and they fear divorce. But
most also want mates who work out, eat right and have “some edge.” What
seems to matter the most, she said, is “competitive physical
excellence.” Love is defined in terms of chemistry, emotion and sex.
The hard work of “testing the relationship” comes later.
Few seem concerned about faith. Most young singles that mention
religion, she noted, want this religious affiliation to be as “diluted,
mild and inoffensive as possible.” They describe themselves with
phrases such as “Jewish, but not very,” “realistic Catholic,”
“Protestant, but not a Bible thumper” or “very spiritual, in a
nondenominational way.”
Thus, modern dating rites are defined by “The Bachelor,” Maxim,
“Friends,” Self Magazine and other forces that focus more on perfect
abdominals than moral absolutes.
If clergy and parents care, then they need to act, said Whitehead.
“What we have is an absence of places where serious, marriage-minded
people can find each other,” she said. “Our churches are not helping. Our
colleges are not helping. The religious centers at our colleges and the
alumni offices are not helping. … It’s like we have suddenly decided
that young men and women are supposed to do this totally on their own.”
