Dating Today

Dear Goldy,

Years ago, a girl wrote about how devastated she was that the guy she dated and liked broke up with her and later on ended up getting engaged to her cousin.

I was daydreaming the other day and a song popped into my head, thankfully it was not a song from Cocomelon. It was the words to one of Abie Rotenberg’s wonderful songs, an oldie but a goodie: The Shadchan. I remember listening to it when I was nine or ten, not fully knowing what it meant. My parents owned an ’87 Buick, not a ’67 Chevy. But I pictured a younger version of my father driving down long mountain roads (I only knew from going up to the country back then) and then approaching the George Washington Bridge toll booths. I imagined my father going to my maternal grandparents’ apartment, taking my mother out on a date. Only when I was older did I fully understand the song and how it came full circle. Baruch Hashem, I’ve been lucky to live this long to see how everything is cyclical.

Again, I must break into my usual order of articles because of something that has caught my attention in the last week. It’s a good thing I don’t write a chapter of a novel each week, because then many of you would be annoyed that I broke into our regularly scheduled chapter “for this?” Yes, “for this” — because I think it’s important.

Dear Goldy,

I went out with Eli twice. I started not feeling well the night before our third date. Nothing major, but my head and throat were bothering me, and I was very tired. I called Eli in the morning and told him I may have to cancel the date because I wasn’t feeling well. He told me he’d call me later to see if I was feeling better, and I could decide then; he didn’t want me to cancel in the morning when I might feel better later in the day. Fine.

I have very strong feelings about helping singles and have been vocal (and literate) about that as well. Throughout the last year, I took it upon myself to do more than just write about singles, the hardships of dating, responding to emails, helping a single (and marrieds no matter the age) laugh, providing chizuk… I took it upon myself to make it personal.

Many non-pet owners can’t understand the love a person has for their pet. They dress and groom them, cook special food for them, buy expensive toys... They refer to their pet as their “fur-child.”