I Am Not a Crisis

If you are among the majority in the frum community, married in your early twenties, you may have scoffed at some of the scenes in Stand By, shrugging them off as a work of fiction. But the reality about single life is that sometimes (to paraphrase a popular saying) the truth is harsher than fiction.

Throughout my single years, I would read the deep, pondering, pain-filled articles and letters to the editors about the “shidduch crisis.” I watched the math unfold, the statistics being calculated, as people wrote about the casualties of the crisis — those who would never get married. (Would that be me? I often wondered.) I read countless stories and portrayals of the proverbial “older single girl,” who sobbed each night into the already tear-soaked pages of her Tehillim.

And the entire time I would shake my head a little, and (if we are being really honest), roll my eyes. These people don’t seem to get it. My life is more than a tear-stained Tehillim, and I’m certainly not a crisis.

I spent over ten years “in shidduchim,” before getting married at the age of 32. Even now, I still feel like I identify with the older singles out there more than any other group. I guess our collective experience really changes us.