We watch them come. We watch them go.

Some look like “yes.” Some look like “no.’

We date them all. The bar’s that low.

After a while they all seem like each other.

Don’t like one guy? Try his brother.

(This happens!)

Hey dating girl!

Have you met Shmo?

He’s the nicest guy I know!

You should go out! He’s great for you!

He has a pulse! And is a Jew!

Shmo’s the tops. A total catch.

I think this is the perfect match.

Oh, he’s engaged?… Let’s start from scratch.

Well, have you heard of Yanky Tabor?

He’s chavrusas with my in-laws’ neighbor!

I don’t know him too well… but nevertheless,

I know you’re both desperate. I know you’ll say yes.

Who cares if he is forty-five?!

What matters is: You’re both alive.

Or Eli Stein! A sweetie pie!

Name rings a bell? I may know why:

His high school chevreh made a… prank?

(Tachlis is they robbed a bank.)

I’m sure it was with eidelkeit!

That makes it perfectly all right.

Crime is not your type? I hear.

But beggars cannot choose, my dear.

You’re twenty-five? Not married yet?

You’d better take what you can get.

Be open-minded. Toss your list.

Say you’ll date an arsonist.

Marry someone whom you hate.

You must escape the single fate.

Don’t fight with me. I know the game.

You dating girls are all the same.

You think you’re young, then suddenly

You wake up single at eighty-three.

Such a shanda! Such a waste!

You’ve got a hang-up they call “taste.”

I like your sweet naivete,

But standards just get in the way.

You’re getting old. You smell like mold.

No more betting. Time to fold.

Let your heart, like a kishke, be labeled and sold.

Don’t think for yourself. Just do what you’re told.

This one here should start a blog.

All he does is monologue.

Don’t disagree. The chutzpah! The gall!

He listens to podcasts. He knows all.

He’s never been challenged a day in his life.

I’d be his morah, not his wife.

I like this one. This one is good.

He talks like a ben Torah should.

I come home with a great report.

But he said no. I am too short.

(Perhaps he heard I can’t support?)

This one is mamash a shot in the dark.

His values and goals are all way off the mark.

It must be bashert! It’s so out of the blue.

We only met ’cuz Hashem wanted us to.

We’ve got nothing in common — except that we date.

But that can’t be all that there is to a mate…

Here’s a guy. He has a face.

His nose is in the normal place.

Mazel tov! You’ve won the race

To rent this bochur from the beis!

It’s a privilege to share his air and space!

Farshtays’t es iz a kuvid?! 

…Ya, ich veis.

From there to here, from here to there,

Shidduchim are just everywhere.

They’re full of girls who sit and wait.

It’s been a year. They’d like a date.

They pray for one. And while they pray,

Boys get more résumés each day.

So boys and their mothers wield ultimate power.

Meanwhile girls grow more strained by the hour.

We get older. We think, “It’s my picture. My weight.

It’s the fact that I think I deserve a nice date.

It’s my intellect. Income. The length of my skirt.

I don’t daven enough. I deserve to get hurt.”

We forget that we once knew that we deserved joy.

We forget there’s a G-d. There is only “The Boy.”

We measure ourselves by the standards of guys

Who, no matter how smart, are too green to be wise.

We destroy who we are. We try any disguise

That we think may find favor in their omnipotent eyes.

Oh, something there is very flawed.

This cannot be the Will of G-d.

The G-d I know is just and kind.

This can’t be what He had in mind:

That a bas Yisrael should be disgraced

And have her hopes and dreams defaced

And claw with self-destructive might

For shreds of pride that’s hers by right.

Yeah, we know we need change. But right now you are here.

And you must learn to live with the too-real fear

Upon which your brain unremittingly frets:

Perhaps it is time to start hedging your bets.

Perhaps, mameleh, you should just settle down

With some equally desperate shlemazel in town.

Perhaps having standards is unrealistic.

Perhaps it is time to be pessimistic.

Perhaps you’re the one girl G-d ever designed

For whom He had no happy ending in mind.

You’re a singular failure just stumbling along.

You feel that way. You could not be more wrong.

It’s a circus of awkward! With thousands of clowns!

Thousands of singles in thousands of towns!

And if there’s one thing on which all those singles agree

It’s that we despise dating passionately.

So while you slog on with this anguish inside you,

Remember that thousands are walking beside you.

And Hashem’s walking with us! He’s watching our backs!

Not one single single will slip through the cracks.

He’s guiding each one of us to our destination.

Somewhere ahead there is sense and salvation.

I won’t tell you, “Have faith!” That’s a choice we each own.

Just know that you’re normal. And far from alone.  

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 952)