Listen to your mother

On July 7, 232 North American Jews made aliya on a charter flight sponsored by Nefesh B’Nefesh and the Jewish Agency. While its safe to assume that all of the immigrants will be missed back in their hometowns, former New Yorkers Yonit and Yosef (Joe) Serkin, should be especially missed in Manhattan.Before making aliya, Yonit, 27, worked for nine years as an adviser to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, helping craft municipal politics at the very highest level in America’s largest city.
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishFeatures/Article.aspx?id=182155

Reading the above article sent me on a search to read the Serkin's wedding announcement in the New York Times, published a few years ago.

Both the bride's mother and the groom's mother were employed at Yeshiva University.
...The couple met on a blind date their mothers set up in 2007. Ms. Golub said she had given her mother carte blanche in helping in her search for Mr. Right after her mother said that Ms. Golub could never seem to find someone worth going with on a third date.
She remembered telling her mother that if she was so convinced that finding the right man for her is easy, “then give him my number,” Ms. Golub said.
But her mother would not settle for any ordinary Joe. Three years later, in her first week at Albert Einstein, her mother met Mr. Serkin’s mother. Mrs. Serkin saw Mrs. Golub’s daughter in a family photograph on her desk. Both mothers compared notes and agreed that Yonit and Mrs. Serkin’s son, whom she referred to as Yosef, might have enough in common to hit it off.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/fashion/weddings/21GOLUB.html


Finally, the following paragraphs are excerpted from an INN article.
Tu B'Av, the 15th of Av, was a half holiday and the time that those who had not yet found their lifemate could choose one in ancient Israel.. The Sage Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said, "There were no better (i.e. happier) days for the people of Israel than the Fifteenth of Av and Yom Kippur, since on these days the daughters of Israel/Jerusalem go out dressed in white and dance in the vineyards. What were they saying: Young man, consider whom you choose (to be your wife)?"( Taanit, Chapter 4).
....Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics publishes information about marriage rates in honor of the half holiday.
...The average age of marriage among first-time grooms was 27.5 (29.5 among the Jewish grooms). The average age of marriage among first-time brides was 24.7 (25.7 among the Jewish brides). In comparison, in 1970 this age among grooms was 25.0 (both among the general population as well as among the Jewish population). In the same year the average age of first-time brides was 21.7 (21.8 among Jewish brides).
more Israel news: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138720

So, if you don't want to end up an old maid or a confirmed bachelor, take my advice and listen to your mother. As for me, I have to end this post because I am going to be busy sending a job application to Yeshiva University. You never know who I can meet there, maybe even my prospective machateinista.