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As many parents of young children find themselves doing on the long summer Shabbasos, I too pray that it shouldn’t rain so that hours can be spent in the “Shabbos Park,” watching your child run from apparatus to apparatus in the hopes of them tiring themselves out and going to bed with minimum “tantrumming.” Like many parents, we compare our youngster to the Energizer Bunny. She keeps going and going. It was this past Shabbos, at one of the parks in which we were spending time, that I sat down on the bench when I overheard two women near me speaking. Before anyone starts judging me, I was not eavesdropping. They were standing near where I had chosen to sit and were speaking loudly. One woman was telling the other how her brother wasn’t seeing the girl he had been dating anymore and was very depressed about it. I don’t know if the fellow was actually “depressed,” but I’m sure the woman meant that her brother was down in the dumps about it. She told her friend that her brother did everything the girl wanted, and he made himself “m’shuga” so she’d like him, and now he can’t understand why the girl doesn’t want to see him anymore.

Life is funny in that you never know if people whom you meet early in life will come back to “visit” you later in life in another type of role. Let me explain. My sister had a best friend while growing up. She and the best friend would get together all the time, every Shabbos in fact. The best friend had a cousin, and occasionally the cousin would be visiting, and so my sister would end up spending the afternoon with the best friend and her cousin. Fast forward many years later to my brother-in-law’s best friend getting married. Surprise! He married my sister’s childhood best friend’s cousin. So now my sister and the cousin have become really good friends and now see each other all the time – because of their husbands.

A couple of years ago I wrote that a shadchan admonished me for not giving her my cell-phone number to pass along to the fellow whom she was setting me up with. I gave her my house number (back when we all had landlines). I had told her that I didn’t feel comfortable at that time giving a stranger my cell-phone number – even though that stranger was going to have my address, pick me up in his car, and take me out. I just had a strange experience with someone else I dated who still called me even though we were no longer seeing each other. I just didn’t want another “random person” to have my private number. I told the shadchan that I am the one who mostly answers the phone, so he’ll probably get me, and on the off chance that one of my parents answers, that parent is more than capable of telling me that I have a phone call and placing the call on hold. The shadchan wasn’t amused. She said it was immature and childish not to give out my cell-phone number. She tried her best to berate me and force my hand, but I held strong and didn’t give her my cell-phone number.

Before I actually begin writing this article, I want readers to know that I am well aware that this is a controversial issue and I am not shying away from it. Many single women are dealing with the issue you will read about in the article. I also know that there is a lot written on this topic, but I am just one person with a full-time job, family, and responsibilities. If you feel that I didn’t hit on some important points in this article, you may be correct, but know that I did visit several websites and read articles. If you would like to read more about this issue, you, too, can do research about it. Do not take my opinion as the final word or “actual news” on the topic. That being said, let’s begin.

I received an email from someone who took me back in time five and a half years. This person quoted an article I had written after I had gotten married. She said that she, too, needed to change the way she was thinking about shidduchim. She said that after she recently made a decision about ending things with a fellow, she realized how wrong she was. She felt she was wrong in what she thought and what she did. I think all can learn from Leah. I’m not saying this because she read an article of mine, but because she reflected upon her actions and has now seen the light, as a matter of speaking.

The email I received seems to speak for itself. No introduction necessary.

Dear Goldy:

 I recently became a kallah and am very happy. But I have recently seen and heard things that have me worried.