I remember laughing at a cartoon (New Yorker magazine?) years ago of a yuppie-looking man and woman meeting at a party, both with expressions of obvious excitement on their faces. The thought-bubble above the man read: “Sex object.” The thought-bubble above the woman read: “Meal ticket.”

Obviously, a match made in heaven.

While that image was intended to poke fun at modern romance and mores, I want to use it here in just the opposite way.
Read more Denial & Balance in Dating & Beyond ›

A friend of mine who is also a BT was recently dating a guy who was frum from birth. She really liked his personality, his enthusiasm and his sense of humor. There seemed to be a lot going for them as a couple, which is why they were introduced in the first place. But she had a real problem relating to him on one level – he had never had much to do with the secular world, had never had secular or non-Jewish relatives; and that was a very important part of her life.

My friend is very close with her non-religious family. She grew up with some frum friends and a lot of non-frum and non-Jewish ones, many of whom she is still in touch with. She thinks it’s extremely important that whoever she marries feels comfortable going to her family for non-religious holidays, occasional Shabbosim and family events.
Read more Reverse Discrimination in Dating ›

If you can’t tell by now, I go to a secular university, but one that has a quite large frum population (around 300 including both undergrads and grads). The community is very Modern Orthodox, so shidduchim don’t happen around here so much. We’re all stuck on this campus for four years, and thus if anyone is dating, it is usually another person from within the Penn community. And although 300 is a big number, that means there are about 150 frum people of the opposite gender, and if you take out the people who are taken, and then the people who you would never date, and those that would never date you, it turns into a very small number, which may or may not be equivalent to 0.
Read more Shidduchim, the Dating Scene at Penn, and the Baalat Teshuva ›