I recently read on Aish.com the article by Rachel Davids, "Another Break Up." Finally after so many years of dating so many people, she thought she was on the verge of settling down and starting her own home. Then came the rejection. And now with this latest break-up, she is "trying to understand what God wants from me."
That is, of course, the question everyone has to keep asking. But it seems to me that other questions need to be asked: Why is this happening to so many people? Must it happen? Is the community doing all it can to stop it?
Unable to face the prospect of further rejections, I simply blocked off that area of my life.
Here's where I am coming from. I am a woman for whom Rachel Davids' worst fears came true. I am 68 years old, never married, and while people still urge me to keep trying, no one has any actual prospects for me. Actually I stopped trying at about 30. Unable to face the prospect of further rejections, I simply blocked off that area of my life.
As a young woman I hated the dating game, which was cruel and phony. Sometimes I used to wish that my father, who was a professor, would just bring home a nice graduate student for me. But no one did things that way in our circles. Unfortunately, during my 20s I also experienced a number of short-term relationships where physical intimacy was involved. The memory of these affairs is bitter. I know now that it resembled nothing of what people in a committed relationship experience. One doesn't learn about marriage from promiscuity, any more than one learns about Mozart from Muzak.
And in today's fast and shallow Facebook world, so many relationships -- even without physical intimacy -- are coming to resemble this emptiness more and more. There can be a kind of promiscuity without physical contact. It occurs wherever people "get to know" one another without coming to care for one another. In response to a friendship that did not develop, I expressed the resulting pain as follows:
I felt
fingers feeling
the fabric of my soul,
hesitating, deciding not
to buy.
People should not be subjected to this. Those who are subjected to it have to try to face it with courage and faith. But we should all do some introspection about why this is happening.
Obviously there are many reasons. But I suspect that it is one manifestation of an underlying attitude about what makes for happiness -- the idea that I will be happy if I get just what is perfectly suited to Me. Our society constantly promotes the idea that, among the available options, I owe it to Myself to obtain the optimal option.
This plays out at its ugliest in dating. Since, especially for young men, there are a dizzying number of options available, this makes it very difficult to be certain at any point when one has found "the best person for Me."
The traditional belief that for every person there is a match who is "bashert" for them, has somehow uncannily morphed into this quest for the optimal mate. People forget that there is such a thing as destiny, that your ideal match may not be the person you fantasize about, but may become attached to your soul through any set of circumstances. A few lines from Goethe come to mind:
Small things depend upon our wish and whim,
But what is great arrives from who knows where.
Looking for perfection is futile, because you will not find it. Nobody is perfect. The only way is to go for percentages, and with commitment you will find true happiness.
Being happy and getting what you want are not synonymous.
Being happy and getting what you want are not synonymous. Rather, happiness comes from taking what comes to you and making the best of it. It means recognizing external constraints as expressions of the will of God, and trying to live well within them. And external constraints include the wishes and needs of others. A young man who dates a young woman, gets to know her, enjoys her company, raises her hopes, and then shears off because he thinks he might be able to do a little better, is surely living in a selfish-filled illusion.
I hope Rachel Davids finds out what God wants from her. Better still, I hope she finds a good man soon. But I would ask the community: Are young men being taught emphatically enough to ask what God wants from them? The sense that every human being is precious? Are young people sufficiently educated with the tools to counteract the exploitive attitudes of the Western dating system?
People are suffering in varying degrees, both in the dating world and in all types of interpersonal relationships. I pray that a way may be found to armor the community against these attitudes, which threaten the Jewish people and the Jewish soul.
(64) Rob , November 10, 2009
Needs vs. wants; hapiness vs. contentment
Sorry... being happy with what you have at hand only works when you can find contentment with that subset of what you want or need. Not every circumstance will lead to contentment and happiness for every person. When you've been alone a long time, you get to know your own needs and wants very well. Self-awareness of your fundamental needs not being met will, with certainty, preclude happiness or contentment or both. I salute anybody who wants to be married but does not absolutely need that kind of companionship. I've had a very full life of things that have brought much happiness, but not contentment, because the things that would sate my needs are simply not there. I'm grateful to G-d for what I do have, but I have certain needs not being met, and no amount of pop psychology, therapy, or platonic companionship will give me what I need. I'm tired of learning how to "cope" better with being alone; "coping" only addresses the symptoms of the existential problem, not the root problem of being alone. People who are married or otherwise content should NOT project their own values, self-actualization, and emotions onto those of us who are profoundly lonely.
(63) Anonymous , November 6, 2009
some suggestions for the "community"
I'm sorry that such an honest and wise person as "Sylvia" has to read some of the rude comments that usually spring up at this site. I think that given that she was coming of age (for marriage) in the mid-1960s, she had the bad luck/timing to be surrounded by the sexual "revolution" and all its greedy naivity. I found her suggestion that young people should be provided better tools thought provoking. I would add that the Jewish community should be more welcoming to older singles, such as herself. Here are a few from me. 1. The Jewish community should do a better job of explaining the whys and wherefores that trying to marry when you're young (early 20s) is a good bet for many educated people who assume otherwise. (I, for instance, had no perspective on this when I was young). 2. Older singles are often snubbed and slighted at Jewish events, courses, etc. Rabbis and other leaders could do more to discourage the rudeness that seems rife within many congregations. 3. Young Jewish men should be taught that stereotypes about Jewish women (JAP) etc. are a form of anti-semitism and are unacceptable.
(62) Joanne , October 28, 2009
Beautiful Anguish
So well expressed, but poignant, the situation of women (and men, too), who cannot navigate the waters, and don't have others actively trying to make matches for their friends, family, community members. It is very painful, but one needs to keep eyes and optons open.
(61) Yelena , October 25, 2009
to Ben Rabizadeh, and to the lady who wrote about the Hollywood damage
I agree about that usually after few dates it is possible to know if you want to carry on or you have the "click" element but it makes me sick that all the online dating pages charge what they charge of the members. People obviously free to spend their money on whatever they want on it but I find it extremely sad and daunting that someone making money on my despair and wish that I would like to get married. I rather then would pay someone after I got married but unfortunately it is a business now to take advantage on us singles.... and yes I agree there are impossible expections on both sides because of the distorted illusion of love at first sight and soulmate hunt.... and there is always better and bigger and more etc....and myself is single and a little bit think that it is more and more seems like who got lucky
(60) emmanuel , October 25, 2009
The hidden parameter
Dear Vlad Seder (53), your insight is meaningful: it does make sense to ask for what you deserves, but sometimes, one must not be right but wise. I mean that in the dating area, I see a lot of "old young ladies", keeping their expectations high (they deserve it, you remember) but forgetting that one little parameter : fertility. Sorry to be so mechanic, but a woman worthes not only by her personal value but also by the number of children she can give birth to. So that the Halacha, says that a man should not marry a woman which is too old (hilchot ishut 15, 7 - Rambam) to bring babies . And that exactly the weirdness I witnesses from time to time : Jewish Princesses in their last 30's still seeking for the perfect guy and nothing less than perfect. So indeed, the cruel game is for both genders.