Middos, Middos, Middos

For reasons that are obscure to me(I am neither single nor Orthodox) I received in the mail an issue of a magazine entitled The Shadchan.
It is an orthodox publication that lists men and women who are seeking matches along with information they have provided about themselves.

I was amazed to see mussar influences throughout. In the secular world, or even the liberal Jewish world, singles ads usually stress good looks, good income, love of fine dining , movies, nature and the like. People describe how they look, usually at some length.

Well, in The Shadchan people are crowing about, of all things, their character, and seeking others with same. We get their height, but nothing else about their appearance. On the other hand, we hear alot about their middot.

People would often describe themselves or the person they are seeking as "baal/baalas middot."

Here are some examples:

21 year old woman seeking "smart, broad minded, true Ben-Torah, Talmid Chochom with excellent middos. Should currently be learning and want to continue but willing to assume making a parnassah when required. Prefer no beard.

37 year old man describes himself as "very halachic type, follows advice of a Chassidishe Rav, very serious in davening and doing mitvos. Kind hearted, Ba'al Derech Eretz, soft spoken. In the section marked "As described by others" it says of this man "Baal middos tovos, kind hearted, giving, always ready to help others, will always find the good in others. His life aspiration is to "Build a warm family with whom I can spend much time while also helping other members of my community."

To the question, what are you looking for in a mate, one person wrote "middos, middos, middos."

I thnk you get the idea.. Whether people really are this ethical is not the point. One can discern what is valued in that world.

What really struck me was the category called "Defining Middah." Each person has listed, along with their age, background(all are Ashkenazik) and marital status their "Defining Middah." I never heard of that concept, but it is an interesting one to think about. We work hard on all the middot, but do each of us have one special middah that we cultivate with extra energy, one that we would call our "defining middah." I found it a fruitful question on which to journal.

Here are some of the defining middot of the singles in this magazine: Simchas haChaim(joy in life), Lev Tov, Walk in others' shoes, Chesed, Emes(truth), sweet, tznuah(modest),.ahavas yisrael, ba'alas aliyah, tmimusdik(?), nurturing, hakoras ha tov(noticing the good)

Interestingly, I did not find notable differences between the males' defining middot and those of the females.

By the way, there was only one person (as far as I could tell) who filled in the section "Special Interests" with "making money." That man's defining middah(according to him) was "honesty."