I've had a few posts and a few e-mails these past few days telling me that I am boring. Yet these people continue to read my blog and continue to explain to me that the reason I am boring is because I express my frustrations and my insecurities in a "poor me" fashion. In their defense they are right and I am working on this.I can't believe I am still dating this girl! Date after date, discussion after discussion, and for some reason she continues to enjoy my company and still wants to continue dating.
On the last date I could tell that we were both exhausted from our respective daily routines and our workloads, so we went into a bar, found a couch, and just chilled out. We spent hours talking about absolutely nothing without any direction or purpose to our conversations. Yet I feel like I got to know her, and I felt like I shared a part of myself. This is a big and important goal of mine in this stage of our dating. I find that I am telling (confessing) to her my weaknesses in a subtle way and I am watching to see if she runs for the hills. Surprisingly, she is still here and at the end of our last date she told me that she would like to continue.
Chemistry is another topic I've found to be of interest. I told my rabbi that while I find her to be very attractive, I haven't allowed myset to get sexually aroused on our dates. I told him that I feel that the kind of arousal that a man gets when he first meets a woman in that he wants to immediately be intimate with her -- that infatuation passed a long time ago and I was concerned that there might be a problem why I am not getting aroused on our dates. He told me that the mentality I have is a proper one, in that before I allow myself to get sexually aroused or even before I start thinking of sexual activities with the girl, I want to make sure that we we have a future together. He told me that my thinking is smart because the focus of our dates is to determine if we can make a home together, not to land her in bed for a one-night stand.
Please don't get me wrong here -- I find her to be very attractive. In fact, there have been many moments when I have wanted to kiss her. There have been many times where I have wanted to reach out and hold her hand. I am also guilty of the "I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave" thing that men sometimes do, and I have also caught myself looking at her legs when we are on a date and then I force myself to look away before she noticed that I was looking at her. So if this is chemistry and if she experiences similar things, then we do have chemistry together. However, there is nothing that can come out of it since we are both fully platonic (shomer negiah) until after the marriage. We are careful not to even bump into each other casually, and if we do we apologize to each other. This is not specifically our thing, but this is the way that orthodox men and women interact with each other when it comes to touching the other sex before marriage.
On a final note -- and this has taken me a good few minutes to gather the courage to write about this -- my rabbi made the comment that "you could continue going out like this forever." I knew exactly what he was talking about, and in my heart I knew that I agreed with him. He was talking about engagement. We have been seeing each other for some time now, and we have spent a considerable amount of time together. There isn't that much more that I want to know about her -- er, that I NEED to know about her -- to make my decision whether or not she and I would make a good match for marriage. We get along well together. We have chemistry together. Our beliefs about family and life are very similar. I cannot see a reason why we shouldn't or wouldn't move forward to an engagement. My one reservation is that I am afraid of neglecting her during the few months from May until July when I will be studying for the bar exam. This would be tough. Otherwise, I fear to admit it, but I really like her and I think the combination of me and her would work in a marriage. This is very scary.
5 comments:
Time apart could also help to show you and her if the feelings are real. So I wouldn't worry too much about it. You just have to do you hishtadlus the rest is in g-d's hands and there is not much more you can do except daven that you marry your zivug .
I wouldn't worry about neglecting her because of the bar. Most women will understand that it is a tough exam and devoting yourself to studying important and necessary. Besides, as your future wife, she's going to be directly benefiting from all your hard work and effort. What's a few months?
But before you propose... have you told her everything she needs to know? You've only been off your medication for a month. That's not long enough to say that you'll never need it again. Hopefully you won't-- but you do NOT want some secret in your past that she might find out about in the future and harm the trust between you. You want to give yourself the best possible chance for a contented and loving future.
Whatever happens may it be with mazal and more imortantly, may it go easily!
you're ready.Now act like Nachshon.Take the plunge.
Ahuvah, your question is one of disclosure. My current question -- and I'm writing a blog entry on it now as we speak is -- disclosure of WHAT? Everyone including myself have realized that we were likely barking up the wrong tree. Do I disclose a mental illness that might not even be there? Evidence of this is the Adderall and its effectiveness and Adderall is not a bipolar medication. I'm struggling with this question too. -Zoe
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