Can’t Hardly Wait

As my El Al flight landed on the tarmac in JFK several years ago, the clock started ticking! At the time, I had no idea that there was a clock or that it started ticking, but as I entered YU I began to feel my time tick away! The clock I speak of is the “shidduch clock.” Many buchrim and meidels feel the pressure to get married once they get back from spending a year in Israel. They spend a year growing, reflecting, learning, and working on themselves and now the next logical step is to get married! Not only do people assume it is the next logical step, but many meidels make it their MISSION to get married or at least engaged by graduation! From the first day back in the U.S. it seems like the main focus for many people has become developing their shidduch resume by spending a summer at HASC, getting involved with Yachad, working at the Sefarim Sale, or finding any and every excuse to go up to the guys campus. Over the past few years, since my Shana Aleph, I began to wonder why there is so much pressure to get married so soon after Israel. Why are meidels so panicky if they are still not married by graduation? Also, is it really the worst thing in the world to be single for several years after college?

The panic generally starts to set in when a meidel’s first friend gets engaged. After Israel there are always 1 or 2 couples who have been dating throughout high school, make it through their year in Israel, and get engaged and married not too long after. These people have managed to locate someone that they know they want to spend the rest of their lives with. They have managed to acquire enough knowledge and learn enough about themselves within the past 19 or 20 years of their lives that has prepared them to get married, support a family, and to build a bayis ne’eman biyisroel at such a young age! In many ways these people are very fortunate. However, finding your bashert right after Israel is definitely not the norm. With most of us, the days tick by and Sophomore year turns into Junior year, and Junior year turns into Senior year. Eventually, with graduation in sight, many girls come to the realization that they will be unsuccessful in obtaining the coveted MRS degree while at Stern and will be spending the first year out of school living on their own in either Washington Heights or the Upper West Side!

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the biggest tragedy in the world to not be married by graduation or to move to one of the single communities on the upper west side of Manhattan! In fact, it can be viewed as a tremendous gift to have a few years during college and a few years afterwards to work on yourself, develop your character, and figure out what you want in life. It’s the perfect time to determine what type of career path you’d like to pursue and a great opportunity to become more independent by living on your own. Additionally, it’s really the only few years where you will have “you time.” It’s a time to be somewhat selfish. Your time is spent thinking about yourself, your future, and you don’t have a spouse or children to worry about. Granted everyone has responsibilities to their friends and family, but if you decide to pick up and go across the country on a school sponsored trip, you can! If you want to take 10 friends and go skiing in Utah, nothing is stopping you! If you want to see a 12am weekday showing of a movie, you can do it without feeling too irresponsible. It seems like these years of opportunity are viewed as a tremendous burden. Many people spend their single years worrying about finding someone to marry, rather than actually taking advantage of this time and celebrating their youth and freedom! Plenty individuals go from event to event hoping to find that special someone, rather than going through life appreciating what they already have!

The other day a buchur reached out to me regarding his frustration with the shidduch crisis and his inability to find his bashert. He asked for my advice and any suggestions I may have. After addressing some of his more specific issues, I said “…the best advice I can give you is to try every approach. Go on YUConnects, ask people out directly, go to the YU/Stern events, go on Shabbatons, tell friends to set you up. Everything and anything can work and not work. Very often in life things come to us when we least expect it and as long as you are doing your part and putting in an effort, than God takes care of the rest. Like I mentioned in one of my previous posts, there is only so much in life we have control over. The only things we do have control over are our actions and how we react to any given situation that is put before us. Assuming you are putting in an honest effort to find your bashert, then you are doing all the right things. You just need to wait for God to let you know when it's the right time.” In the meantime, just try to enjoy and get the most out of life!

As I write about this topic I remember my flight back from England to Israel several years ago. After a several hour delay, I finally landed at Ben Gurion airport on no sleep at about 4:00 in the morning. As the pilot was rushing through his final messages over the intercom reminding us to gather all our belongings, not to get up until the plane has come to a complete stop, and thanking us for flying Isra-air, he said the following “…and just remember one thing ladies and gentleman: You can stay single and be lonely the rest of your life, or get married and wish you were dead! Thanks and have a great day!” To this day I am not exactly sure why he made that comment. One can only imagine what types of problems he was having at home, but it struck me as a very interesting remark. The fact of the matter is the shidduch search can be a very lonely road at times, everybody who has ever been single knows that. However, we shouldn’t forget the last part of the pilot’s statement! Although we think that marriage is some type of nirvana, it is full of many challenges. The years in college and post college that lead up to marriage are the time that prepares us for this new chapter of our lives and we shouldn’t waste it wishing things were different! We shouldn’t take for granted our singlehood!

My Shidduch Advisor, Usher, once said: The word MAZAL is comprised of 3 letters that stand for three things:

Mem = Makom (place)
Zion = Zman (time)
Lamed = Lev (heart)

In order to have MAZAL in any situation, in particular with the shidduch hunt, you need to have these 3 components working for you. You need to be in the right place, it must be the right time, and you must pursue it with all your heart. Regardless of where you are in life, whether you are about to graduate college, you’re finishing graduate school, or you’re entering another year on the Upper West Side or Washington Heights, if you are still single, than keep the following things in mind:

1) You will get married! Stop panicking!
2) You are not alone in your loneliness on your quest to find your bashert!
3) You are very fortunate to have these years of singlehood and will miss them a great deal once you’re married. Don’t waste them!
4) In the end you can only do so much, and then God takes care of the rest!

Good Luck and God bless!

Rejection: Just one step closer to your bashert!

Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, is of special significance and a cause for celebration for Jews around the world. At Yeshiva University, Yom Ha’atzmaut is of great significance and a cause for celebration for an additional reason: It is the only day during the entire year when ALL the Stern girls come up to the boy’s campus! Every meidel, from the Michlala girls to the French girls, the Accounting girls to the Pre-Med girls, and the Long Island girls to the LA girls are in attendance and dance hand in hand in celebration for the Jewish State. Naturally, given this incredibly unique occasion, it is only logical that all the buchrim from the YU community, regardless of religious observance, attend the festivities as well! Whether a buchur is a black hatter or a clubber, a Torah shteiger or a weed smoker, the odds are that at least one meidel at the event will pique his interest! With all the tremendous upside potential that such an affair can have, naturally there are some drawbacks, which I learned later that evening.

After several moving speeches about Israel, the crowd proceeded to go to the Max Stern Athletic Center for some Israeli style dancing. As we made our way to the dancing floor I got a huge waft of Israeli styled BO as the doors were opened. YU really thought of everything to help authenticate the experience! After about 10 minutes in the gym I came out for some fresh air and figured that I’d check out what types of exotic Israeli cuisine was being served. As I walked into the cafeteria, I ran into my good friend, Avrumi, who had a very troubled expression on his face.

Me: Avrumi, come get some falafel balls and shawarma with me! I’m starving!
Avrumi: They don’t have any shawarma and I think I’m going to head back to my apartment! Tonight was pretty intense…
Me: WHAT!?!?! No shawarma! What kind of Israeli celebration is this? I mean they have the BO in the gym to go along with the dancing, which is a nice Israeli touch…and the Hebrew speeches were pretty good… how can they not have any shawarma? That’s a staple of any Israeli celebration!
Avrumi: Forget the food! I have other things on my mind tonight!

(Seeing that I wasn’t going to get to the food anytime soon, I decided to inquire as to what transpired over the evening that was so troublesome to Avrumi.)

Me: Avrumi, what’s wrong?
Avrumi: Well things started off nicely…saw some cuties, got into the dancing!
Me: Cuties are good! I like cuties!
Avrumi: Then I came in to the cafeteria for food and that’s when things went downhill!
Me: Oh no! You lost track of the cuties?
Avrumi: Well, I took a large plate of food then looked for a seat. I only spotted one seat in the entire room, so I went to sit down. As I do so, I see that the seat is next to some girl I asked out and got rejected by.
Me: Ouch! So what did you do?
Avrumi: There was nothing I could do! She already saw me…so I just sat down and pretended that I was happy to see her!
Me: Eh…that stuff happens. What’s the big deal?
Avrumi: I’m just getting started! After 2 minutes of me sitting there stuffing my face and listening to her blab on and on about her new boyfriend, another girl walks over. This girl went on two dates with me then gave me the ax! So she starts talking to the first girl and after a couple minutes of her yapping away, I see a girl walk by that I currently have a thing for. She comes over and starts talking to me.
Me: Wow, that’s a lot of girls! So what happened with you and the girl you currently have a “thing” for!
Avrumi: Oh, she rejected me a few weeks ago! Whatever…so after a few minutes, I finished devouring my food so I wouldn’t have to sit there anymore, and then I start walking to the other side of the room and who do I run into? Another girl I asked out and got rejected by!
Me: You should stop dating Stern girls. That would limit the awkwardness at these events.
Avrumi: 1) This last girl goes to Columbia. 2) I never said things were awkward! They were just not pleasant situations. Things only become awkward when you make them awkward!
Me: Note to self!
Avrumi: Anyway, so as I’m walking away from Ms. Columbia, I walk into some girl I dated and I rejected! I think she still has a “thing” for me, so I tried to be pleasant and friendly. Finally, after another boring/waste of time discussion, I make my way to the exit and as I’m 10 feet from the door I run into another girl who was into me, asked me for my number, and I rejected!
Me: I’m getting confused with all these girls!
Avrumi: That’s fine, she was the last one. I told her I felt like I was going to vomit and she left me alone!
Me: Well, that’s a lot of girls, and a lot of rejections! Over what span of time did you date/get rejected by all these girls? 2 years? 3 years?Avrumi: Hmmm, maybe 8 months.
Me: 8 MONTHS! You dated all these girls in 8 months? You’re a machine!
Avrumi: Are you joking? I’ve dated over 30 girls in the past 8 months. There just happens to be around 1/3 of them in this room right now!
Me: 30!?!?! WOW! You are a god amongst men! Your perseverance amazes me and your smoothness and lack of awkwardness is awe inspiring.
Avrumi: Thanks! Wow, I worked up quite an appetite from sharing all that with you! Let’s go get some food. I think that girl standing by the French fries told me she wouldn’t date me last June because I wear jeans…

It is important that I mention that by no means is Avrumi a neb. He is driven, frum, has his act together, and is a solid looking buchur. He’s even pretty smooth with the meidels! What I’ve learned from my discussion with Avrumi is twofold: 1) Everyone, no matter what you have going for you, will get rejected at some point in life! It’s just the way things work. 2) You must persevere regardless of how many times you’ve been rejected! Even though Avrumi seems to get rejected regularly, he gets right back on the shidduch dating train and asks out another meidel! Vince Lombardi, the famous football coach, once said "It's not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get back up” Michael Jordan had a similar quote about failure, which was: “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." Despite how talented, good looking, frum and awesome we might be…we are all bound to fail! It’s not a negative way of viewing life; it is just an accurate observation of the way life works. Although at times it seems like the search for your bashert is an endless barrage of horrible experiences at Starbucks, boring trips to the Marriott, or dinners where you are more interested in your food than the person sitting across from you, the fact of the matter is the odds are in in your favor! My friend and Shidduch Advisor, Usher, summed up this idea beautifully with one of the best pieces of advice on the seemingly endless quest for one’s bashert. He said: “Bro, just keep in mind, you only need ONE of these girls to work out!” Shidduch dating is not baseball, where every swing of your bat can potentially hurt your batting average! The shidduch game is a numbers game, as Avrumi clearly understands! The more people you go out with, the better odds you have at finding that special someone who is in fact your bashert!