My friend/co-worker A and I had a little disagreement the other day. See, A was recently set up with a lady whom he found displeasing to his personal tastes. He used very colorful language to explain this which I am purposefully omitting from this blog post.
The situation made A angry. He took the friends’ choice of set up as a personal offense. If this is who she’s setting me up with, he thought, then she obviously has a terrible opinion of me because this girl is ____________ (insert colorful language).
“You know what? I think who a person sets you up with is the greatest indicator of what they think of you,” he told me. “And I think you should write about that.”
So here I am, except unfortunately I’m about to write about the fact that I think he’s wrong.
In order to explain the several “why’s” of this topic I’m going to have to work inside a premise that may anger and frustrate some of you. I apologize in advance.
The premise is this: there are leagues and they are somewhat based on looks.
A’s position is that when a person sets you up they are essentially announcing where they think you fall leagues-wise by offering you an option they believe is at or below your league. It’s, “I think you’d really like my friend Jessie. She’s exactly as attractive as you if not slightly less, so you’re about as good as each other can do in this world.”
Because someone would never say, “Hey I think you’d really like my friend Jessie. She’s WAY better looking than you, but don’t worry about it.”
Makes sense if you believe that everyone functions within the same understanding of levels of attraction and the way leagues work. I do not, which is why I disagree with A.
Yes, there are people who are universally attractive to all people. You can find them in places like UsWeekly, national television, and my new gym. So fine, that same understanding exists. I’m not hear that argue that every single person has a different definition of beauty. Some beauty translates across all.
But within the realm of people who don’t look like Elizabeth Hurley (I once saw a PBS special that said her face is more symmetrical and therefore attractive than 99% of the rest of the world) I believe things are very subjective. I like certain kinds of looks, and I would set someone up with a man I believe is attractive. In doing so I would be saying, “A, I think you’d really like my friend Kate. She is attractive, in my opinion, and I think you’ll think so too.”
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I will be saying, “A, I think you’ll really like my friend Kate. She’s fun and smart and energetic, and I think your personalities will really mesh well.”
Yes, much of the success of early relationships is about mutual attraction so looks are never not somewhat of an issue. But how much of an issue and how that issue works into the set up isn’t the same for every yenta making a match.
So perhaps, I told A, this friend of yours did not go about setting you up with looks alone in mind. Perhaps she said, “I want to find a great, kind, stable girl for my friend A to date. Maybe he’ll like this one?”
Unfortunately she was wrong, but that’s on A’s side of the issue, not hers.
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Having set up 2 friends twice (both leading to marriage!), I focused a lot more on personality than on looks. I made sure to mention something along the lines of, “Oh, D loves going to small concerts and finding new musicians and is always way ahead of the trends. I know you have a music collection going on 15,000 songs, so I thought you guys might get along.” I think explaining why you think 2 people would be a good match is really important for setting expectations.
Having said that, I have been set up on awful dates before, but only once walked away offended because the guy was absolutely the biggest a**h*** I had ever met in my life. Again, I was way more offended my a friend’s perception of my personality than my the looks of any guy I was set up with.
Being someone who has been on both sides of the coin (the yenta and the victim), I think I know a thing or two about this. I think it has everything to do with the Yenta and nothing to do with the couple being set up. Who are Yentas? They are either A) people who are in a relationship or B) people who want to be in a relationship. Either way, their ultimate motive is the exact same: Here are two single people. Here I am putting them together. They don’t have to any of the heavy lifting because I’ve already done it for them. The question is, why wouldn’t they want to be together?!
The answer: because having the only quality in common between two people be the fact that they’re single is really not something upon which relationships are built.
Having said that, I met the love of my life on a set up, so for all the yentas out there, keep up the good work!
I agree with this theory when it comes down to personality vs. appearance, but my own experience being set up does prove one of two things (and I’m talking EVERY time, here): that my friends—and, in one case, a superior at work—think I’m six inches shorter than I actually am, or that I’m a lot more open-minded about dating significantly shorter guys than I actually am.
My friend set me up with one of her friends last week. All signs pointed to us being great together, personality wise and everything. And she was right! BUT he’s 2 inches shorter than me and I am so self-conscious about my height. On the bright side, he thought I was really awesome and fun to talk to, but too young (I’m 24, he’s 29) and that we’re in very different places in life. So it didn’t work out, but I was happy with my friends’ choice of a set up. She just didn’t know how sensitive I am about my height. 🙂
I think Jessie should write a new post about the taller-woman, shorter-man situation, since I read both of these comments and sympathized immensely =)
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