Going after the Ball

“You can’t just wait for the ball to come to you!” he roared. “You have to go out there and get the ball!”

*****

Before entering shidduchim, I had been under the naive illusion that because there’s a shidduch crisis, girls would jump at the opportunity to go out with a nice, frum bochur like me, and I would have no shortage of dates. The way I understood it, if you’re a boy entering the parshah and you’re basically normal, in any sense of the word, then girls will be desperate to go out with you.

My experience in shidduchim utterly dispelled that misconception.

I had learned in right-leaning yeshivos, but I came from a decidedly non-yeshivish out-of-town community and had been raised by older, second-time-married parents who were not just baalei teshuvah, but out-of-the-box baalei teshuvah who never quite integrated into the frum community. (They named me Yoav, for instance — hardly a typical yeshivish name.) Well-meaning as they were, they didn’t quite get the nuances of frum living, and going into shidduchim I knew I would have to fend for myself.