To date or not to date, that is the question...

For many years, I didn’t want to date. Even after many of my friends were already married, I was still hesitant. I got many responses to this, varying from, “That’s good, take your time.” to “You never feel ready, what are you waiting for?” But no matter what anyone said to me, I could not be convinced. What’s strange about this is, I am dying to get married. I have wanted a serious relationship since I was eighteen. Granted, I was nowhere near ready to get married then, but I have had the marriage bug for a while now. Yet still, I could not be persuaded to date. As peculiar as that sounds, the reason was quite simple. My philosophy is that you get what you are. You can’t expect to get someone that is on a substantially higher madrega than you (nor would you necessarily want to). And I wasn’t who I wanted to be. Therefore, any girl who would want me, I probably wouldn’t want. Sure, I could date even though I wasn’t ready to get married, but to me, that isn’t right. I don’t believe in playing around with the feelings of others (or my own for that matter). So I just waited. I told myself that I would work on my middos. The problem was that since I wasn’t dating, I just didn’t believe I was going to get married. It is easy to procrastinate when something doesn’t seem real to you. In the end, even though I was waiting to date until I was the person I wanted to be, I wasn’t working hard enough on becoming that person. Sort of a catch-22.

And now? Well now, I finally feel ready to date. Unfortunately, just when I am ready, I don’t really have the time. It’s ironic, isn’t it? I bet you are wondering what changed. Why am I suddenly prepared to start? The sad truth is, I think I gave up on my dream. I had an image of what I wanted for my life, what kind of girl I wanted to marry, what type of home I wanted to have. If I couldn’t have that, then I didn’t want to get married. At a certain point though, the whole image started fading away. It became unrealistic or at least irrelevant. I am what I am. Sure, I try to be better, but there is only so much one man can do.

The loss of a dream is a misfortune. It’s partially why I was worried about going off the derech. If you don’t have something to hold on to, then what is there to keep you on the path? I think I’ve found that it’s not as easy to go off as I thought. I feel like I have a fighting chance to make it. What kind of life I will lead and who I live it with, well, that’s a different story. One that will only unravel with time…