The allure of romantic matchmaking

On our (my?) cultural obsession with matchmaking reality TV, Yente, how picky is too picky, and against settling

My first introduction to the concept of a professional matchmaker came when I was nine or ten, when my mom took me to a local junior high production of Fiddler on the Roof. While the political and religious tensions in turn-of-the-century Anatevka went mostly over my head, I had seen enough Disney movies to be acquainted with the Marriage Plot and the c…