Just Fine is Not a Sign
The hardest shidduchim to deal with are the ones that are just fine.
The good ones are a no-brainer. You keep going out. Happily.
The bad ones give you a reason to say no. You have something concrete to tell your mother when you get home, and an explanation for the shadchan when you call her to end it.
The “ just fine” ones are the problem. You weren’t watching the clock, or necessarily relieved when it ended, yet you came home and realized there was nothing major to report.
The date was OK, but is that OKAY? Shouldn’t it be more than OK?
You try to find a word for it. Pleasant? Decent? Not bad? Nothing fits. You end up with “it was fine.”
And you wonder if that means something.
It doesn’t.
When Nothing Is Happening
Everyone talks about beginnings. New job, new school, new shidduch. There’s a particular energy to starting something. The possibilities are endless.
Everyone talks about endings, too. The resolution, the payoff, the answer you’ve been waiting for. Whether it worked or it didn’t, at least you know.
What nobody talks about is the middle, because the middle is boring. It feels like nothing is happening. The opening rush has worn off, the ending isn’t anywhere in sight, and nothing is clicking into place yet.
You’re just in it, waiting for it to become something, yet it feels a lot like nothing. You think it’s a sign that something is wrong, that it’s a warning, the universe telling you something, but it’s just what the middle of something looks like before there’s anything to show for it. This is true of most things. It is especially true of shidduchim.
Brené Brown has a name for this stretch. She calls it ‘Day 2’.
What ‘Day 2” Means
Picture a three-day workshop. Day 1, everyone shows up super excited. There’s energy, there’s coffee, there’s fresh notebooks. Day 3, everyone leaves transformed, hugging strangers, promising to keep in touch (they won’t).
And ‘Day 2’?
‘Day 2’ is when people are tired, a little cranky, and half the room is wondering if it’s too late to get a refund.
This is a metaphor for the middle of anything meaningful. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is exciting. The end is satisfying. The middle is where the story slows down, and you still can’t see how it’s going to end. The part you’d skim past in a book if you could.
The middle is the price of admission to the breakthrough. You can’t skip it. The reason day 3 feels like day 3 is that everybody stuck out ‘Day 2’.
While you’re in it, ‘Day 2’ doesn’t feel like a meaningful middle. It feels like proof you should never have started.
What the Middle Feels Like in Dating
In shidduch terms, ‘Day 2’ is the cluster of dates in the middle. The dates feel fine, but fine feels off. Your brain, trained on the freshness of beginnings and satisfaction of endings, doesn’t know what to do with an ordinary date, so it starts generating explanations. Maybe the connection isn’t there. Maybe there is something missing. Maybe fine isn’t enough.
The middle feels like stagnation. It feels like something isn’t working. It feels this way even when it’s working exactly as it should. This is like the part of building a house where all you can see is scaffolding and exposed wires. It doesn’t look like a home. It looks like a mess. Which makes you wonder if you’ve made a mistake.
The Shidduch Stories We Are Told
Somewhere along the way, we picked up the idea that every date should feel extraordinary. That if they’re the one, every meeting should leave you breathless. That ordinary is for ordinary people.
If they were the one, you’d come home with words like Amazing. Wonderful. Incredible. Not “It was fine.”
Pay attention to how most married couples tell their shidduch story. There are two parts. How they met, who set them up, what the first date was like, what made them want a second.
And the proposal. Where, when, and how he asked, how she cried, and how the photographer was conveniently waiting in the bushes.
That’s what gets shared. The middle dates rarely come up. Not because anyone is hiding anything, but because there’s nothing major to tell. Most of the marriages you admire had flat middle dates.
Of course, there are exceptions. Some couples had magical dates from start to finish. Some knew right away. But for many happily married couples, the middle was “just fine”. And they kept going anyway.
They didn’t quit over a flat patch of dates.
There Is a Difference Worth Knowing
Saying the middle is hard is not the same as saying ignore everything. There’s a difference between a flat stretch and an actual concern or a pit in your stomach. A pattern you keep noticing and explaining away. The feeling that you can’t quite be yourself around them. Those deserve attention.
But “the last couple of dates were kind of flat” doesn’t go on that list.
Think about your closest friendships. You have dinners where you laugh until 2 am. You also have dinners where neither of you has much to say. That doesn’t mean the friendship is over.
A job you genuinely love has slow weeks. Days where nothing gets done. Meetings that feel like a waste. You don’t quit a job you love because of a slow Wednesday.
A book you can’t put down has chapters that drag. Pages where nothing happens. You don’t stop reading just because one chapter is slow.
A flat date does not tell you the shidduch is wrong.
Stay Through the Nothing
You can’t fast-forward the middle. You have to keep showing up, without expecting fireworks, but with patience to find out what this becomes.
The shidduchim that turn into something are often not the ones with the most exciting dates. They are the ones where somebody stayed through the part that felt “just fine”.
Yours might be one of them. If you are in “the middle”, you won’t know yet.
Right now, you just have to go on the next date.
Miriam
On a different note:
The good news: A few clients got engaged recently.
The other good news: That means I have space in my calendar for a few people who are ready to spend less time overthinking and more time dating.
If that is you – Reach out!
