Too Late for Love?

"At 31, on the shidduch market in Cleveland, you feel like an archaeological exhibit. All my friends have been married for ages, with three or four children each; their conversations are about schools and family trips. And I'm still getting profiles from shadchanim.

The most demoralizing part is the quality of those profiles. Once you're past 30, the system starts offering you only men with "issues": either men with a difficult character whom everyone has already rejected, or men coming out of messy divorces, or men who simply aren't equipped for life. The shadchaniyot talk down to me, with a tinge of pity: "Leah, you understand your age, you have to be realistic. Men your age without baggage simply don't exist—take what you're given." This pressure drives you to make crazy mistakes out of desperation. My last shidduch was with a man who was openly looking for a woman with her own apartment to solve his financial problems. I closed that meeting, but the fear that I've missed my window and will be left in an empty house grows stronger with every year."