Just Opt Out

At the ripe old age of twenty two, most of the girls I went to elementary and high school with are married or divorced. Many have children. If I were frum and not married at my age, I would be quickly approaching nebach status, dreading my twenty third birthday. But instead, I am exactly where I want to be. I just graduated college, got promoted at work and live with my boyfriend.

In my new world, it is perfectly normal to wait to get married. No one bats an eyelash if you are twenty eight and not married. Because getting married at all isn't viewed as necessary, and more importantly women are not judged as more or less important based on their marital status. What does it say about a society when a woman is nothing without a husband? Doesn't that sound like an attitude more suited for the middle ages than year 2009?

It is understandable that many frum singles feel depressed. After all, when your purpose in the world is to get married and have children, how exactly are you supposed to feel if you have not found that special someone yet? (This also applies, although less so, to couples experiencing infertility.) To make matters worse, since many frum people do not date casually getting married is the only real validation they get that they are considered truly desirable by someone of the opposite sex.

So what do you do if you are not a top tier commodity that everyone is running after for dates? Should you crawl into a cave somewhere and cry your life away, as you work at a heimishe office for $15 an hour? I say no. There is an option that you probably have not considered, and that is to just opt out. I'm not saying to go to the nearest McDonald's and order a cheeseburger, but definitely look at your life and where it's headed. Where do you want to be in ten years. What will happen if you don't get married?

No one wants to think about it, but you should. It's important to. Do you really want your life to be dependant on whether or not you get married? My advice is to just put that on hold and make something of yourself. Go to law school or something. Sitting around makes you pathetic and undesirable. If you're busy, dynamic and passionate that is extremely attractive - to the right guy anyway. If you were brainwashed in seminary to only date kollel guys, change that pronto. You'll start dating a different class of man, a man who works for a living and is on planet earth.

I have always found it ironic that kollel has so little to do with spirituality and living simply and so much to do with being better than everyone else, leeching money from your parents (or in-laws) and living in luxury (take a look around Lakewood!). Single kollel guys are usually the most stuck-up about shidduchim. They will want to know how old you were when you were potty trained and whether your mother dyes the hair under her wig (chas v'shalom) instead of what you are like as a person.

But I digress. You are not the problem. The shidduch system is pitted against those who are not slender and gorgeous, with perfect reputations and unblemished family histories. You don't have to put up with it if you don't want to. You can just opt out.