WORDS UNSPOKEN

   Courtesy of Family First Magazine

   Dear Acquaintances,

“So what are you looking for?”

     For the last few years, this has been the second question that nearly every person who meets me asks. The first question, after a preliminary shalom aleichem, is, “How old are you?”

     I’m not shy about my age (thirty), but I am uncomfortable being grilled by total strangers about shidduchim. I know that when people meet an older bochur who’s bright, personable, and good-looking, their automatic reaction is to start thinking of older girls who might be right for him. That’s very kind of them, and I do appreciate the thought. But it’s not so pleasant to be asked --- often in public --- what I am looking for in a wife.

What’s even worse is when people start offering their advice or theories as to why I’m still single: “there are so many great girls out there, just marry one of them” ; or, “You older guys are afraid of commitment.” The worst was when a friend of my mother’s told her that she has to start pushing me, because I don’t seem to be in any hurry.

To all those who are wondering, silently or aloud, as to why I’m not married yet, I’d like to explain something. Since my teens, I’ve suffered from a form of mental illness. My illness was baruch Hashem brought under control with medication and psychotherapy, but it seems unlikely that I’ll be able to stop taking medication in the foreseeable future. You wouldn’t dream that I have this condition when you meet me, and my rebbeim and friends from yeshiva consider me a top bochur, so you’d be unlikely to find out about it by making inquiries.

My condition doesn’t prevent me from getting married, but it does make things awfully complicated. For one thing, there’s no way of predicting how the transition of marriage that involves will affect my condition. For another, my parents have to be extremely careful about whom they let me go out with, because I need a very special girl who will be supportive and accepting. We also can’t take a chance at my condition becoming public knowledge. If I go out with a girl three or four times, and then tell her about my condition (as our rav had advised me to do), I have to be confident that even if she drops me, she will keep the information a secret. Otherwise, I’ll never get a date --- or even a chavrusa!

My parents had to turn down many wonderful shidduchim because of my condition, only to be told by many a well-meaning shadchan or friend that they are being too picky. I’ve been accused of being picky myself and it’s all I can do to restrain myself from retorting that a bochur on meds has no choice but to be picky, because he can’t risk going out with a girl who’s going to send him packing the minute he so much as mentions the word “medication.”

 I’m hoping that I will find my basherte soon, and I am grateful to all of you for thinking of me. But please, please understand that there might be a good reason why I’m not married yet, and be a bit more tactful when broaching the subject of shidduchim. You would never dream of asking a childless couple, “Why don’t you have kids yet?” so please don’t ask me why I’m not married yet.

And if you ask me what I am looking for, and I look uncomfortable and try to change the subject, please drop it. I’ve been cornered so many times, by so many would-be shadchanim, that I find myself avoiding meeting new people --- or even bumping into old acquaintances --- in order to spare myself the agony of being reminded of my bachelorhood at every turn. This has nothing to do with my mental condition, by the way --- the “normal” bochurim do the same thing!

Thanks in advance,

The bochur you’re trying to redt to                                    

every girl you know