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I got a call from a fellow who said, \u201cRebbe, you have to help me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure, sure. What\u2019s up?\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I was set up with this girl, and I think that I\u2019m going to fall for her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s great. So what\u2019s the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"shmuz_logo\"](\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/shmuz_logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
\u201cWhat\u2019s the problem? That\u2019s the problem. She\u2019s not what I\u2019m looking for! I want a girl who\u2026\u201d and he went on to list the \u201cMiss Potato Head\u201d qualities that he needed to be truly happy.<\/p>\n
It took me almost an hour to help him see what he was doing. He had a clear image of the kind of girl he was going to marry, and this young woman did not fit that picture. But that was the problem\u2014he wasn\u2019t looking for his bashert. He was out looking for his choice\u2014the woman that he fashioned in the image that he formed\u2014and he was convinced that nothing but that would bring him lasting happiness. He wasn\u2019t focused on the fact that it\u2019s Hashem\u2019s job to create people. And it\u2019s Hashem\u2019s job to find matches for those people.<\/p>\n
The proper way to go out is to forget all the criteria, skip the laundry lists, drop all the \u201cI needs\u201d and \u201cI wants,\u201d and ask only one question: how do I feel about this person. Not, is she the best girl I can get? Not even, is she the best one for me? Or, do I see myself in twenty years from now being happy with her?<\/p>\n
Ask yourself how you feel now. Is there a certain comfort level? Does it just seem to be right? If she passed the paper test, and the answer to this question is yes, then that is the sign that she is the right person. She is the person who was predetermined by Hashem for you. You\u2019ve done your proper hishtadlus. Now you move forward with confidence and assurance that Hashem has predetermined the one that is right for you and brought her to you.<\/p>\n
Thirty-Two Reasons to Drop Someone One of the complications with this system is that when a person has a feeling that this is the right one, they won\u2019t allow themselves to feel it. \u201cI need someone smarter, or taller, or richer, or funnier, or more easygoing, or more driven,\u201d or whatever imaginable attribute that people can think up. So they say no. \u201cHe\u2019s not smart enough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s too smart.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s very smart, but not the kind of smart I\u2019m looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis family isn\u2019t good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis family is too good.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHis family is perfect, but I need a ba\u2019al teshuvah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t like her looks.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe looks too good.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHer looks are great, but it\u2019s not the look I\u2019m looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n Too tall. Too short. Too smart. Too dumb. Too worldly. Too sheltered. Too narrow. Too broad. Too plain. Too fancy. The list goes on and on.<\/p>\n Now you may ask, aren\u2019t these things important? Good family, smart, and attractive? Aren\u2019t they huge contributors to the success of a marriage? The answer is that they are incredibly important, and if you were putting together your Mrs. Potato Head, I think you should grab a whole big bunch of all of them. But that is the point. You aren\u2019t creating your bashert; you are searching for her. And you don\u2019t know whether she is smart, or pretty, or comes from a good family or not. There is only one thing that you will know about her\u2014that she is the one that Hashem picked for you. The way you tell that is by allowing your heart<\/em> to tell you.<\/p>\n Doesn’t Attraction Matter?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n You may ask, but don\u2019t I have to think she\u2019s pretty? How can I marry a woman if I don\u2019t feel that she\u2019s attractive?<\/p>\n The answer is yes, you should be attracted, and if you aren\u2019t and that bothers you, it might be an indicator that she isn\u2019t the right one for you.<\/p>\n But it might not be, and here is where things get tricky. If you like her but don\u2019t feel attracted, or you enjoy the dates but it just seems kind of flat, this means you have a question and you should speak to someone older and wiser for advice. The fact that you aren\u2019t attracted to her may be a sign that she isn\u2019t right for you.<\/p>\n But only too often what happens is that she is pretty enough for you. But\u2026 she\u2019s not pretty enough for your sisters, your mother, your buddies, or your Hollywood notion of what a wife should look like.<\/p>\n And so you won\u2019t allow yourself to feel that attraction.<\/p>\n The Other Side of the Fence<\/strong><\/p>\n And this doesn\u2019t only apply to men. A woman might be going out with someone, and she\u2019ll say, \u201cIt\u2019s going well, but\u2026\u201d And there is something blocking her from moving forward\u2014but she can\u2019t quite put her finger on it.<\/p>\n It may well be that he isn\u2019t the right person for her. However, there are many times that she is stopping herself from feeling that it\u2019s a good fit because (and now fill in the blank):<\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t think he will be successful; she doesn\u2019t like the family he comes from; she doesn\u2019t feel that her brothers will respect him. Or what will her friends think? Or her aunt? Or her dorm counselor? Or a whole host of other reasons that only she knows.<\/p>\n That is when she needs help sorting out her feelings, and she should speak to someone older and wiser for direction.<\/p>\n A word of caution: older means older, and wiser means wiser. Only too often I have asked a nineteen-year-old girl if she asked advice before deciding to say \u201cno.\u201d And she said, \u201cAbsolutely. I asked my friend, and she\u2019s married, so she knows.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI see,\u201d I would say. \u201cAnd how old is this friend of yours?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy, she\u2019s at least twenty.\u201d<\/p>\n To be candid, it\u2019s hard to believe that a twenty-year-old has the wisdom and life experience to offer much guidance in these situations. And it\u2019s prudent to find someone who has the vision and da\u2019as Torah to guide you properly.<\/p>\n Most often, that guidance is to help you sort out what is realistic, what you should be looking for, and more than anything, what you are feeling. At the end of the day, the decision is yours. Hashem gave you an inner guidance system: the superb set of emotions, understandings, and intuitions that we call your heart. Sometimes, however, you need help sorting through exactly what you\u2019re feeling. And that\u2019s where it\u2019s invaluable to have someone older and wiser to guide you.<\/p>\n But the guidance isn\u2019t to make the decision for you. It\u2019s to help you focus on how you feel. Your heart may know, but cutting through the static and asking yourself, \u201cWhat do I honestly feel?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I got a call from a fellow who said, \u201cRebbe, you have to help me.\u201d \u201cSure, sure. What\u2019s up?\u201d I replied. \u201cWell, I was set up with this girl, and I think that I\u2019m going to fall for her.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s great. So what\u2019s the problem?\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s the problem? That\u2019s the problem. She\u2019s not what I\u2019m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132836,"featured_media":38621,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,85,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dating","category-inspiration","category-relationships"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
\nBecause this happens so often, I hope you\u2019ll excuse me for listing some of the more common \u201creasons\u201d for saying no.<\/p>\n