There are many pitfalls of online dating. Posting your own
profile can make you feel exposed. You can be e-mailing
someone whose photo promises that he looks like Brad Pitt’s
younger, taller and more handsome brother, whose profile
pledges that not only is he poetic, sensitive, kind and
creative but he is also the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, only
to find, once you meet him, that he is an octogenarian
troglodyte ax murderer.
"Online dating has no valid reference point, and there is
no way to gage a person’s interest level," said New York based
management consultant Marc Goodman, who set up his own site
www.sawyouatsinai.com — a matchmaking Web site to rectify
these and other drawbacks of online dating. "But in the
matchmaking world, the intentions are very clear, and the
matchmaker can verify the information about a person."
SawYouAtSinai — the name coming from the midrashic aphorism
that every Jewish person met his or her soulmate when we
received the Torah on Mount Sinai — is a site where users can
fill out a profile, and then choose one or more matchmakers
out of the 46 (four are from California) currently on the site
to find a match for them. The matchmaker either interviews you
or uses some other criteria to verify your information and
then sets out trying to find a mate for you. There is no mate
shopping on SawYouAtSinai — only the matchmakers can trawl the
site seeking out matches. Once they think they have found
someone who meets your criteria, they will e-mail you his or
her profile, you can e-mail back your thoughts and feedback
and then the matchmaker can facilitate the shidduch. If you
decline a person’s profile, then you no longer have access to
it.
The site has been up for 10 weeks and is currently free,
with about 1,000 members in it. Goodman hopes that, within the
year, the site will have more than 5,000 members, will sponsor
classes and a wedding charity for poor couple, and offer the
dating advice of psychologists and rabbis.
"We want people to go out on quality dates," Goodman said.
"And obviously we want to get as many marriages as possible."
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