The Craziness Of Dating

Who has been able to conquer this confusing maze? How many people out there can relate and say that they don't date well?

It's madness, for some of us.

If we would compare the process of what this world calls 'dating' to the development of the our close friendships, we would never give someone else a list of all the things we like in a friend, have them go pick out people, call them expecting, hoping, for them to be the person to be our lifelong best friend, and then sit with a person for a few hours straight, who is a total stranger and be interviewed by them about our whole life, in order to see if we could become friends!

It takes time, experiencing life with each other day and in and day out, no pressure, seeing the good and bad, letting life happen, coping with both....

Should the first 'date' be a 'date' even? Maybe, yes. Maybe, no. Is multiple dating good? These are all good questions, and maybe I will write more about them in later posts.

But either way, without getting to know people in a relaxed non-pressured way, it feels...well...too pressured for many. The expectation level gets way too high, and some of us seem to lose the 'hi, we're both just people' outlook. Can anyone here relate?

The whole system of meeting someone and immediately expecting to be in a deep close relationship with them, just doesn't seem to work that well, for some. Sometimes people seem to jump in head first, on some level, and while we even seem to know that it may not be good for us, we somehow don't seem to know how to do it differently.

I think it has something to do with the fact that being frum and single at any age when a person really wants to be 'with' someone, feels unnatural in some important ways, and the feeling of wanting to 'merge' (on numerous levels) can be great.

The time has come to make some changes.

As the saying goes "if you keep trying what you always did, you'll keep on getting what you always got."

Making a change, means taking new actions, different ones that don't feel comfortable at first. It might mean smiling at a guy/girl and risking the rejection, asking someone out, opening up, staying more closed, whatever feels like that difficult thing that is stopping us, and I think we all know deep inside if we take the time to listen.

Some helpful tools to help you grow are:

1) Take some time to listen to your heart. Journal, write out your thoughts and feelings, don't censor it.

2) Take 2 minutes and talk to G-d today about it.

3) Read something that talks about your challenge. (Patience is one I want to do some reading about.)

Let yourself be more centered, give yourself that gift. Open your heart to yourself. Listen. Hear yourself. You deserve to have this commitment.

Peace.