How can you see someone's real character on shidduch dates? Anger, stress, mistakes, maturity

Watch how he treats the waiter and the valet, whether he turns off his phone, whether he is easily irritated — and how he interacts with his family: that is probably how he will interact with a spouse.

Someone who blames others for his misfortunes has usually not yet learned to take responsibility for his own behaviour; deep warmth for family and rabbanim points to a love of people in general.

You can easily judge the character of a person by how they treat those who can do nothing for them: waiters, drivers, service workers.

What is telling is how one treats those from whom one expects no benefit; the principle is applied to waiters, drivers and other workers.

You are sitting under the air conditioning — does he notice you are cold, offer to switch seats or ask for another table? Small kindnesses tell a big story.

And listen to what he tells about himself: do not dismiss anything that makes you cringe.

The reaction to someone else's good news: an emotionally healthy person can hold his own discomfort at bay and genuinely share in the other's joy at the same time.

Finding someone else's engagement hard while you wait for your own is normal; the marker is the ability to rejoice anyway.

On his first meeting the girl's little brother accidentally broke the dishes by pulling the tablecloth; the girl calmly comforted the child first rather than rushing to the broken dishes.

The book says of the rav's reaction: he had a good feeling about the shidduch when he saw how she had handled that situation.

Notice how he handles awkwardness, traffic and unpleasant people, matching deeds to words.

After the preliminary checking, a general impression is enough on the first date; the finer nuances, they say, can wait: there will be time for that on the second date.

Pay attention to reactions to inconveniences, to respectful arguing, to taking criticism and to how he treats other people — and meet his circle: the company one keeps says a lot.

See each other in varied natural settings, and do not put romantic scenery at the centre of getting to know each other.

The most useful moments are the ones that go wrong: the waiter mixed up the order, a driver cut in, plans fell through. Does he curse, hold on to the anger, recover quickly.

Your date's reaction reveals a wealth of well-kept secrets.

He cites the advice of Orchos Tzaddikim to anyone about to marry to observe that person when angry: calm routine does not show whether he will stay respectful in a crisis.

These records do not describe how to arrange such a test or where its limits lie.

On their second date she asked her future husband to recall a time he had to raise his voice or got angry — and they discussed whether it was a conscious decision or a loss of control.

This single story is not, on its own, a safety check of the relationship.

Ask how a spouse should best express strong anger at him — and settle it while calm, not once the person is already annoyed.

It is not the best move to wait until a person is angry to tell him how you like to be approached with a hard conversation.

Ask how he keeps from projecting his stress onto someone else in a time of extreme tension — with an example of such a time and where he learned that.

Alongside: what stress is for him and whether he has thought how to keep it out of his life; what rest is for him and whether he really rests that way.

Challenges reveal a person's level of emotional intelligence: ask in detail how he went through a hard situation. Read any single sign together with its context, not as a ready diagnosis.

In his practice a husband's extreme anger turned out to be a reaction to provocations his wife deliberately filmed.

"How do they react when they're wrong?" — does he own the mistake or get defensive and shift blame; does he keep his word, apologise for being late, and how does he speak about people.

Constant belittling of people and outbursts over small things she advises not to ignore.

Judge patterns of behaviour, not every little mistake or off day: everyone has bad days.

If you screen out everyone for a single ugly episode, almost no one will pass the bar.

If something bothers you and it can be remedied by one hour of training, it is not worth worrying about; the test is the willingness to change.

Without clear priorities it is easy to reject someone for a "trait" that is really just a habit.

The young man spoke with the rabbi about patience for fifteen minutes and asked him to assure the girl that all was now fine; the rabbi replied that they would have to wait for evidence that he was really becoming more patient.

His certainty of an instant transformation showed he did not understand what patience is.

Mature people are committed to working at a marriage: they can give and share without measuring every time whether it came out even.

This is not about age or a serious look, but about how the person acts where no one is keeping score.

Personality is the funny story and the well-timed word; character is all the behind-the-scenes ways a person shows up in your life when there is nothing to be gained: who quietly gets up to fold the chairs.

Her Pinny is charming on first meeting but chronically late, jokes instead of apologising, and is rude to the waiter.

You want to marry an essence, not an image: beauty, charm and success dazzle, but they do not replace character and spiritual aspirations.

Her brilliant Ephraim turned out self-centred and unwilling to change; a spouse must also cope with practical life.

Tell him about an accident — you will hear his accident story; mention a vacation — he will tell you about his: the person who somehow redirects every conversation back to himself.

He counts this among the signs of low emotional intelligence.

There are people who are on their best behaviour in public but act differently when alone with their family; the Rokeach points to watching at home, the Chizkuni to outside parental supervision: both settings matter.

A comparison of two explanations of how Rivka was tested.

The real key to how respectfully a person will act after marriage is their attitude toward their parents; look also at how the parents treat each other.

He advises counting on a serious change in an adult's character only with consistent evidence of work on himself.

An honest limit: character really shows under the load of marriage, and general assurances about middos before the wedding say little.

He puts it categorically — there is no way of knowing a person's middos until after the wedding.