Finding My Way

M

y stomach drops as I look at the computer screen. It’s my first time signing up for a frum dating site and I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the information there is to fill out. My background, lifestyle, interests, references, descriptions of myself, what I’m looking for in a marriage partner. I’m studying to be a writer; why is writing about myself so hard?

I’m twenty four and I’ve been frum for five years. It all started during Freshman year, when I dropped by Chabad’s pizza and parshah classes, held during lunch hour at Brooklyn College. I came for the pizza, but I was blown away by the depth and intellectual rigor I never knew Judaism contained. I wanted to learn more, so I got involved with Partners in Torah and started learning with Penina, a frum-from-birth fellow college student. I didn’t have a set destination in mind; I was certainly not planning to become Orthodox. But as we learned together, week after week, year after year, I found myself taking on mitzvah after mitzvah, until I woke up one day fully observant.

All these thoughts flash through my mind as I fill out my dating profile. The site wants to know my hashkafah, and it lists the options in a drop-down box. There are so many terms! Am I Traditional? Shomer Mitzvot? Modern Orthodox Liberal? Centrist Orthodox? Modern Orthodox Machmir? Modern Yeshivish? Yeshivish? Chassidic? I just try to do the mitzvos. What does that make me?

I listen to English music, but don’t watch TV. I dress tzniyusdig, but read secular novels. I stare at the screen in front of me, my mouse hovering over the labels. I click on Modern Orthodox Liberal, then Modern Orthodox Machmir, then Modern Orthodox Liberal before pressing submit. Then I wipe the sweat that’s dripping down my forehead. I hope I made the right decision. I honestly don’t know what I am.