Barley Flour

My single status would have been a mystery, if not for the fact that so many bright, kindhearted, pretty, talented older girls like me were also single. And I might have stayed single forever, had I not met him. No, he was not the marrying type, as he was already very much married. But it was a wonderful day when I met him, because he gave me a whole new perspective on how to approach shidduchim.

He was Rabbi Mann, a high school rebbi who had made a number of shidduchim, mostly with older singles or people with medical or cosmetic issues. I met his wife Leah at a shiur in our community, and she finagled me into eating a Shabbos meal at their house. After the meal, when the Mann kids had left the table, the conversation turned to shidduchim, as it invariably does when there is an older single in the room.

“I have a theory about older singles and shidduchim,” Rabbi Mann remarked.

“And what’s that?” I asked.

“I only share it with people who are able to hear it,” Rabbi Mann said. “Some people get very upset when they hear my theory, so I’m careful with whom I tell it too.”