Education Isn't Mechanics: Proper Derech Eretz in Relationships

Rabbi Zweig begins by praising his talmidim for not falling into the widespread disease of entitlement that afflicts much of the yeshiva world, where young men expect to be supported by their wives and in-laws without question. However, he identifies a more subtle but dangerous cultural problem: the attitude that 'the whole world revolves around me,' which while not outright entitlement, creates a pathway toward character corruption (hashchasas midos). The Rav illustrates this through several troubling real-life examples from recent shidduch experiences. He tells of a bachur who was rejected for giving a girl a compliment on her shoes - behavior that was deemed 'not yeshivish' - contrasting this with the approach of Rav Dovid, the mashgiach of Ner Yisrael, who explicitly instructed bachurim to acknowledge the effort girls put into their appearance for dates. Another example involves bachurim who fail to plan proper venues for dates, expecting girls who traveled thousands of miles at great expense to figure out logistics themselves.