Still Single

The rest is commentary.

Yes I am OK

I have received so many emails from people asking what has become of me and they hope I am OK. It is nice to know that even through an anonymous blog there are so many people in the world who care about me. The reason I have not updated this blog is simply because there is nothing new to write. Yes I have been in Israel now for a few months and that is going well. I am making new friends and love being in Eretz Yisrael so very much. And since I am new here I have had more dating activity than what I am used to. I guess there is a pool of men in any particular place and when a new woman moves to town there is a period of lots of possibilities. New people to meet on websites, new events to attend, new shadchanim to use. Just like in America not every offer and not every man who reads my online profile turns into an actual date, but it is nice to be in a new place meeting new people.

However I have not had more than 2 dates with any one man, and so there is nothing substantial to write about on this blog. I have not had a new relationship. Sometimes I am OK with that and sometimes I feel very sad. Sometimes I feel terribly terribly sexually frustrated and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I am terribly lonely and sometimes I feel OK. Sometimes I blame it all on my weight and sometimes I am more philosophical about being single.

I can say that the memories of the one time I kissed someone more than a year ago are both fading and still meaningful. For a while the experience uplifted me and helped me. Now, it is becoming more and more of a non-issue. It is something that I did a long time ago and I am grateful that it happened because as sad as I sometimes feel without that memory I would be much much sadder. It has not changed my views about halacha. I know that I am willing to make very big sacrifices for halacha and also I know that sometimes people reach their limit and thoughts of suicide is an indication of the limit! I do not think about it so much any more. Maybe because I moved to a different country. Every day is a chance to be a different person and I am too busy thinking about where I am now and where I want to be to dwell too much on an event from a year ago. Except that I think about it when I decide to feel sorry for myself, I think about how little one kissing date is to go on for more than a year.

Anyway there is one small piece of news which is that someone contacted me about using material from this blog for a theatrical monologue. I gave her permission under certain conditions. So now the blog is a dance and it will also be theater. Who could have seen that being Shomer Negiah would lead to so many multimedia creations?

I do not think I will post again for a long time since as you see I do not want to post unless there is something new to say. Who knows when that will be? I have been thinking about making this blog into my feelings about being overweight but I am not ready. Being overweight is a reason for a “primal scream” all by itself but I am not ready to do it. Maybe in a few months, who knows.

Until then thank you for caring about me and to all the people who wrote to me about their own substantial personal issues, I wish you happiness.

Doughnut

The last few days I have been thinking about the man I recently dated and I have been feeling lonely. Part of me misses him very much and part of me knows that it is not him I miss but the him I wish he was, the him he would be if he were the person I could spend my life with. He is not that person, so what I really miss is that person, whereever he is.

In so many ways my life is better than it has ever been. Professionally I am in a good place with employers who value my work and are willing to hold my job for me while I go to Israel for a year. I am going to Israel for a year which is wonderful. Thanks to all the work I did on myself when I was depressed I know myself better and have more patience with myself. I have a wonderful family and good friends. My life is very rich.

But I feel like my life is like a doughnut. It is rich and good and has many good things, but still there is a hole in the middle where a good man and a good relationship are supposed to be.

Onward

It has been a while.

I have been doing mostly OK. Baruch Hashem, I am not depressed any more and have even been able to lower the dose of my medication. I have been very productive in both work and outside of work and am basically all right. Of course I have my times when I am sad about being single but in general there is no reason to worry about me any more than you should worry about anyone else who is single and is sad sometimes.

I have been thinking about a few things related to this blog.

The first is that I have been thinking about all the accusations that my blog is a Chillul Hashem and that I am not really frum because I said that I do not know for sure whether I would be Shomer Negiah in my next relationship. I feel that in one way I have been dishonest with readers and a little with myself. When I read over my many posts on this blog I see that long ago I decided not to be S.N. the next time I had an opportunity to not be. The people who are accusing me of planning to sin are absolutely correct. For a long time, maybe several years, I was S.N. not because I wanted to keep that halacha but simply because I did not have the opportunity. I guess you readers will have to decide for yourselves whether that makes me really S.N. or simply unlucky in love.

However I am still glad that I was S.N. for halachic reasons when I was younger. I learned something very important from being S.N. which is that even just kissing and holding hands is very meaningful if it is saved for someone special. That is why I would never do those things until I have dated someone long enough to know that I feel safe with him and that I will not regret it. It is also why I emphasize that I would never do anything that is out of proportion to how well I know someone. I cannot promise to be S.N. in my next relationship but I certainly can promise not to do anything rash and to treat my body and my emotions with the respect they deserve. I certainly do still want to wait until I get married to have sex.

So I suppose that to be perfectly honest this blog was never by a S.N. person but rather by someone who used to be S.N. and then later was simply unlucky in love. Either way I had never experienced the most basic of human sexual contact and was starving for it. So I ask those readers who are angry about my attitude toward the halacha to take that as you like but if so to read my blog instead as being by someone who really tried her best to keep the halacha as long as she could and these were the results. They are not the results for everyone but this blog is true for me.

You may be wondering how I feel from a sexual and emotional point of view now that I have experienced a little bit of touching. The truth is that I do feel better. I never realized how much I felt like a loser because I felt so much that I was different and was missing out from something so basic. Now whenever I start to think that no one is attracted to me I remember that it has happened once before and therefore might happen again. The man with whom I experienced my first kiss and I did not do very much together physically, but it was enough that I got a taste and no longer feel so separate and isolated from the human race. The memories are not much and they are in the past but they are something and it is definitely better than nothing.

I wish I could say I feel guilty that I broke a halacha or “wasted” my first kiss on someone who I did not marry in the end but the truth is that I am not sorry. On one hand it is in the past and was just a little kissing with a boyfriend. It does not make me “cheap” in any way. I certainly do not feel cheap. Maybe if I were younger or had not chosen carefully I would feel cheap, but Baruch Hashem I am 35 and chose wisely. On the other hand it was significant for me in a positive way. From the point of view of halacha I am supposed to say that I feel guilty and hope to do better next time but the truth is that I got past that long ago as I explained above. In the matter of Shomer Negiah I am no longer functioning in the realm of halacha but in the realm of survival. Baruch Hashem there are 612 other mitzvot which keep me very busy and very connected with the Torah and with God.

I think I can honestly say though that I do feel a little guilty about the fact that I do not feel guilty. That is true. I feel guilty about not feeling guilty.

Of course the problem now is that I am once again alone and still looking for the right person. It is so very hard to find him. Once again I sometimes cry myself to sleep because I am scared to be always alone. Once again I am very sexually starving. Once again the problem is not lack of physical contact but the lack of someone to have physical and emotional contact with. But I have written about all of that in the past. I do not need to write about it again. I would just be saying the same thing. The worst parts of being single are the same for every woman whether she is or ever was Shomer Negiah or not.

So now I have to think about the future of this blog. As far as I know I have said everything there was for me to say about being single, about being S.N. whether for halachic reasons or because of lack of opportunity, and about my feelings about having broken my Shomer-ness. So what is the point of this blog anymore?

I have decided that when I feel ready I will use this space to do another “primal scream” about dating and being overweight. There is a lot of pain and shame involved in it and I think it will help me to put those things into words. I will write a post about it when I am ready.

Another thing I need to announce is that I have created yet another email account called shomernegiah@gmail.com. I have done this so that in very limited circumstances I can write back to people who send me emails without my ISP address showing to them. I will continue in general not to respond both for my privacy and because I do not want this blog and the emails about Shomer Negiah to take over my life. But every so often I do want to respond and this way I can. Please do not be insulted if I do not respond to your email.

I got an email from a book agent asking me if I would like to turn this blog into a book. At first I did not respond because it is already frightening enough for me to write this blog and be afraid that my real identity will be exposed but a book is too much. But I have gotten so many emails from people all around the world telling me how much this blog made them feel less alone and so maybe letting it be published as a book would be OK. I have not decided yet. I will talk to my rabbi and to the agent and see what happens. The most important thing to me is that what I do is as much of a Kiddush Hashem as I can do. I know some people think this blog is a Chillul Hashem but there are so many who have written to me that it is the opposite and that it gave them faith! The second most important thing is that I stay anonymous.

The last announcement is the one about the move I have been thinking about. I have decided to do it. I am moving to Israel! For now it is just for a year but if things work out professionally then perhaps I will make aliyah. And of course if I find a nice man in Israel I will stay! Of course I am not writing here when I am going or where I will live or what I plan to do there but so far things have fallen into place. Baruch Hashem I was able to arrange a leave of absence from my job so I have nothing to lose by going for a year. Please daven for me that now that I am moving my luck will change too. It is said “mishaneh makom mishaneh mazal.” If you change your place you change your luck. I hope that is true for me.

I am OK.

I just had to spend an hour deleting comments. Some I deleted for various reasons but in particular I deleted the argument at the end of the last post, where a commenter was pretending to be the "blog admin" and was also pretending to be other commenters. That is not nice! I believe there is something called "netiquette" and pretending to be other commenters is not part of it! Please everyone, the only "blog administrator" on this blog are me and one very loyal friend who helped me set up the blog. But she does not make any changes to the blog unless I ask for her help in changing something. So really the only person running things is me.

Since the comments are sometimes ridiculous and disprespectful I will try for a little while to moderate them. So from now on your comment will first come to me and I will decide whether it will go on the blog. It is unfortunate that I have to do this since I anticipate that it will be time-consuming.

Of course I will allow supportive comments to go up. But I will also usually allow comments that are critical of my decisions as long as they are written in a way that is respectful to me and to the other commenters. I cannot give a definite rule, just that if I feel challenged it will go up but if I feel insulted or do not like it for some other reason it will not go up.

I will have to write at length some other time about my current feelings about negiah but here is a little more information for all of you to think about and argue over in the comments (that now I will moderate.)

First of all, we never had sex. East Side Bubby is certainly a sanctimonious person for jumping to that conclusion and I am very glad that she is not my Bubby. Remember the relationship was short, a little bit troubled, and conducted over a distance of hundreds of miles. We did not even get to see each other in person too many times. In fact that first time we kissed was probably the steamiest thing we ever did. It was all very innocent. A little kissing, a little cuddling, a little hand-holding. That was all I needed and wanted at the time.

Second he definitely never pressured me to do more than I was ready for. The idea that we broke up because I would not agree to his physical demands could not be more untrue. He was very protective of me and also of himself when it came to that. We both knew there were problems in the relationship and wanted to take it slow.

Another thing I must say is that I am definitely not regretful that I "wasted" or "gave away" my first kiss to someone who later it didn't work out with. The negiah aspect of our relationship was wonderful and just what I needed at that time. He was a gentleman in every way, I will always treasure those memories. Especially since the alternative was to be Shomer Negiah with him . . . and you all know how I was feeling about that before we went out. I just could not do it. I did not have it in me. If we had been SN, I would be writing a post saying how I wasted an opportunity to find out how it feels and to finally be held. I am very glad I took my chance and that I chose to take the chance with a nice man who was patient and very sweet to me.

Fourth I will not detail the reasons that we broke up but I hope everyone realizes that relationships are complicated and negiah was just a tiny piece of a much bigger and more complicated puzzle. People have histories and expectations, and there are many stresses that people have to be able to work through, especially if you are older and have already done many things with your life. Does it really matter why we broke up or whether it was his decision or my decision? The important thing is that we could not overcome the problems that we had. But I will be grateful always that he came into my life when he did.

I am feeling OK. Yes I do resent and feel angry over some of the things he did. I did feel hopeful about him for a while and it hurts when your hope is broken. It hurts a lot. But I see very clearly that I am not meant to be with him and it is OK. I see very clearly that Hashem sent him to me as a gift for the time that I had him in my life, if for no reason than just to make sure I got some kisses and cuddles before I lost my mind.

I have been thinking about many questions such as whether I would want to be SN in my next relationship. Every day is a new one, just because I made certain decisions now does not mean they would still be the right ones later. But of course with things the way they are it might be 10 years or more until my next relationship. That is very scary. I am also nervous about what will happen when the memories of this relationship fade a little, if I might go back to feeling desperately frustrated, physically.

But remember that there are many things in my life besides the fact that I have changed from "never been kissed" to "kissed just a little." I am busy making some other big decisions about my employment and possibly moving! My family and friends have been very good to me. So really I am OK. You do not have to feel sorry for me. I am OK.

We broke up

I do not want to write details about it now. I just wanted to let you know. I will write more when I have had time to process this.

How to contact me

I have posted an email address but I guess that post is buried deep within this blog so most people do not see it!

Yes you can still reach me at shomernegiah at yahoo dot com. I read every email that goes to that address, but remind you all that I almost never answer.

One of these days I will set up a gmail account since I think that gmail does not report the IP address of the sender. I have to investigate that more but if it is true then I will set that up and then I will start answering emails.

You can also contact me by leaving a comment on the blog but then of course it is not private.

I am sorry I do not have a better system but in addition to wanting to maintain my privacy I also do not want the emails to start taking over my life, as they would if I felt I had to respond to them all.

Thank you to everyone who emails me and leaves comments.

PS Yes I am still dating the man you are all wondering about. We are having our ups and downs. When there is something to tell you one way or another I will post it.

My blog is a dance!

I just received an email from a Masters student in Dance at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in Manhattan.

He choreographed a dance based on this blog (or whatever inspiration he got from this blog) and it is showing at Tisch for the next three nights! Wow, how cool is that!

I myself am not in New York right now (whether that is because I do not live there or because I am on vacation for the chag is for you to guess) but if any of my readers attend this event please report back in the comments about how it was.

I am sure that this student, Benjamin, would love to have more people come and watch his show.

His show will be performed tonight, Friday, and Saturday at 8 pm (please, Jewish readers should not be mechalel Shabbat to see the show!).
Admittance is free. The Tisch School is at 111 Second Avenue, between 6th and 7th street.

Thank you, Benjamin, for this honor. I wish I could see your show myself.

Benjamin, you are welcome to post more information about the choreography and history of the show in the comments. I did not want to post more because I was not sure how much of the information is for the public.

Now Nice Jewish Girl is not only a person, I am also multi-media!

Many notes and an apology

I have read all the comments to my latest post. I thank all those who are supportive of me, each in his own way. I want to emphasize that most of the people who are expressing sadness that I have broken halacha do not offend me in any way. I agree with them. It is very sad that I have remained single and could no longer wait to feel some basic human tenderness. It is sad that my loneliness finally became stronger than my faith. It is sad that after all I could not live up to the ideal that I have had ever since I was an 18-year-old seminary girl of experiencing my first kiss in the yichud room. There are many things in life that do not always turn out the way we dreamed but we must deal with the circumstances as best we can when they arise. I never asked to be still single and lonely when I am 35. I have kept the halachos of S.N. as long as I possibly could and forever that will be something to be proud of, especially since it seems that there are very very few others my age who can say the same. It is true that in all the months of keeping this blog I have only received one or maybe two comments or emails as far as I remember from someone who was at least 35 and had never broken the laws of S.N. Everyone else is either married, or still single and S.N. but younger than I am. I have much to be proud of, but breaking halacha is never one of them. I am happy for myself that at last I have experienced something so basic to the human condition but pride would not be the right adjective for how I feel. Relieved and excited and hopeful for the future. But not proud.

I am aghast however at the vitriol from those few people who cannot seem to feel both compassion for me and faith in halacha at the same time. They seem to be experiencing some cognitive dissonance over the fact that on the one hand we are obligated to keep mitzvos and that as Orthodox people we do not feel there are any excuses for ever breaking a halacha, ever, except in cases of sickness or other danger to life . . . and yet all over the place are Orthodox people who break halachos all the time because keeping all the halachos all the time is very very challenging. Much too challenging for most people. Are there not any halachos that they, too, break in secret? Do not they, too, have something for which to repent this week? And is not our job to continue to do our best, though only angels are perfect in their service of Hashem?

And yet they have a point in the fact that I have not kept my failing a secret, I have posted it on the internet for all to see. And I have stated publicly that I do not feel guilty about this failing at this time because I know that I have reached the end of my own potential to keep this law anymore. I kept it and kept it and kept it . . . and honestly I am glad I kept it, especially when I was young and impressionable and less sure of myself, and there was the potential to be hurt and violated as so many of my non-S.N. readers tell me they were when they were younger.

And they also have a point that it is callous to break the law and write about it during the Aseres Yimei Teshuva. I will not attempt to justify or apologize for my having kissed for the first time, without being married, just before Yom Kippur. But I do agree that it was wrong of me to write a blog about it before Yom Kippur. My post obviously dredged up a lot of issues for a lot of people, perhaps about their own sins, their own sexual history, or their own guilt for whatever they are repenting this week, and by posting when I did I complicated their thoughts and made their own process a little more confusing, or depressing, or filled with anger.

So I apologize to my readers for not at least having the sensitivity to my audience to wait until after Yom Kippur to post what I did.

Also I want to say very clearly to all the S.N. people who are reading my blog: Keep it up as long as you can! It is a good and holy and pure and beautiful way to live even though it is very very very hard. Like some of my readers I do fear that there are people who read my blog and will use it as an excuse not to be S.N. anymore. Especially young people in their teenage years, when not being S.N. can really lead to things that people regret later. I have gotten so many emails and comments from people who said that their experiences of kissing (or sex, depending on how Orthodox they were or how dedicated to S.N. they were) when they were younger left them with many emotional scars because they did things before they were ready, or with people who were very bad choices for them. I pray that none of my readers will do anything as a result of reading my blog that will give them any regrets later in their lives. Please have faith in yourself and in the Torah as long as you can.

But a point of my blog is that “can” is not an easy term to define. It is impossible to live without food or air, but possible to live without kissing and hugging, and so some people seem to think that of course any single person “can” be Shomer Negiah if only their faith and self-control are strong enough. But I remind those people that there is a big problem in our society of people getting married later and later, and relationships that do not work out for one reason or another, and in particular it is a well-known problem that there are many more frum women looking seriously for marriage than men who are compatible for them. Therefore the task of remaining S.N. goes on for years and years for some people. And so I reiterate that unless you, too, are at least 35 and have never been married, you cannot possibly determine for me whether I “can” be Shomer Negiah anymore. And even if you are my age and still S.N., if you have never been inside my brain and my body and my life you also cannot know if I “can.” Only Hashem knows. Hashem will not judge me based on whether I am as pious as you, but rather on whether I am as pious as I, Nice Jewish Girl, have the potential to be. And I know, I KNOW, with my whole heart, that when it comes to S.N. I have reached my potential. Over-extended it, even. And that is why I do not feel guilty. Because I am completely, utterly shalem that in this area I did absolutely everything that is expected of me and more. My only regret like I said is in writing about it before Yom Kippur and any chillul Hashem I have committed, or any michshol I have placed before others who are similarly weak, by writing about it on this blog. For any sins committed by others as a result of my blog I am deeply ashamed and hope that both Hashem and the people involved will forgive me somehow.

A few more things before I disappear for a little while:

First, the man I have kissed is absolutely not pushing me to go any further. In fact he told me that the next few times we meet he wants to go back to being S.N. at least for a little while so that the physical pleasure does not “get ahead” of the emotional bond we are trying to build. He is a very intelligent and kind man.

Second, the people who are encouraging me to try to get a marriage proposal "out of him" in order to “test” whether he is really serious are not considering that perhaps I myself am not quite ready to get engaged to him. Yes it is true that my goal was never just to be kissed but to get married so that I will have companionship and a family. Yes it is true that I would not be dating him unless I thought that he has strong potential to be Mr. Nice Jewish Boy. And he also is taking a long view and only dates people who have the potential to be a lifelong partner for him. Neither of us considers this a game, or casual dating, or just for fun. We both have serious goals. However that does not mean that either of us has enough information to know whether getting married to each other is for sure a good idea. The point of dating is to get to know each other well enough to see if we would make good marriage partners. It has been only a month. It is a long-distance relationship. There are many situations in which I have not seen him. I have never seen him get angry for example. I have never met his family or seen how he is with them. And of course there are many differences between us because of differences in how we were raised that we need to talk about and make sure that we can work them out. There are many important things to consider before getting married and while in my circles people do get engaged faster than in general American society (usually after 3 or 4 months), I cannot be 100 percent sure that he is compatible for me until we know each other better. At this point I am maybe 80 percent sure that I could marry him but the other 20 percent will take a little longer to come. I am though 100 percent sure that he is a nice man with good values who is good to me, and if this all leads to marriage with him I will certainly not mind! I am 100 percent sure that this is the best relationship I have had for many many years. I am 100 percent sure that he is a good enough man, whom I know well enough, that kissing him does not make me feel cheap. I know him well enough to know that he is worth the risk of making myself vulnerable. There are decisions that one can make at 35 that one could not have made as intelligently when they were much younger. But one month is too fast for me to get engaged.

Third, I am definitely not blogging about my actions anymore until something major happens, like an engagement or a breakup (I hope very very much it is the former but know in my mind there is the possibility for the latter until there is a ring on my finger.) Relationships are confusing and emotional enough without 70 strangers leaving comments about their opinions on what I am doing! I am not blaming people for leaving comments since if I am writing a blog I have to expect comments, but I definitely will not do it anymore. Maybe I will write another post or two answering reader’s questions, but there will not be any updates about whether we are S.N. or not or any other details about my relationship. If something truly dramatic happens I will post it since I know that there are many people who have come to care about me and will be wondering how I am doing – thank you! But no details!

Finally, in the future please everyone make up some name for yourself in the comments section. If everyone calls themself “anonymous” then there is no way to distinguish between the commenters. It is also helpful but not required if you could write whether you are Orthodox or not so that we will better be able to understand where everyone else is coming from in their opinions. But only if you want to. But definitely make up a name for yourself. Thank you.

I hope everyone has a gmar v’chasimah tova, and to everyone who is feeling guilty about their wrongdoings in the past: Do not despair! Hashem gave us Yom Kippur specifically because He wants us to return to Him! He always takes us back with open arms. We are His children. Though we may sometimes forsake Him, he does not forsake us.

Nice Jewish Girl has been kissed

Wow. Wow.

I wrote a long post describing how it was, how good he was to me and cuddled with me first and how nice that felt. I did not like kissing while we were standing up but sitting down it was much better, even though it still felt very strange.

And I wrote how in the middle of it I had to stop for a few minutes because I felt sick from all the excitement and fear coming up. I was afraid I might throw up.

And later I asked him to kiss me on the nape of my neck and he did, and how! He is a very generous man. And that was when I finally felt what this kissing stuff is really all about.

Wow.

But I decided not to post all the details. I want to save some of it for myself. It is enough for you to know that I did it, and yes we kept all our clothes on don’t worry, and he was good to me and it felt nice, and I do not feel guilty at all.

Actually what I feel is that Hashem gave me a very precious gift. In my darkest hour he gave me exactly what I needed. Never in my life have I felt as beautiful as I do right now.

Taking The Chance

This is a very difficult post to write. It is hard for me to admit to myself some of the thoughts and rationalizations that have been going on through my mind for the last few days. Much less write about it for anyone to read on the internet. But as always this blog is an important outlet for me and so I hope that writing will help me to clarify things to myself as well as to whomever might read my words.

I cried in shul on Rosh Hashanah. The prayers were so beautiful and I felt so awed by Hashem and His power. And so scared and guilty. Because I am faced with an opportunity to do something that I believe is a sin and I know deep down that I am going to do it. I hardly feel like I have a choice about it. The thought of not kissing this man at the next opportunity is hardly crossing my mind. Yet also even when I feel the most scared and the most guilty I feel very deep down how much Hashem loves me and that everything from Him is a gift. Even this opportunity to sin is a gift. Hashem knows how starved I am and he has put a plate of non-kosher food in front of me. He is giving me an opportunity to nourish myself and I feel deep down that He is saying “do not worry about what is in the food. Just eat and take care of yourself.” I am about to disobey Him but I feel that He is a loving father.

I am worried that some people will read the last paragraph and mistake my thoughts for something else. Something that I am definitely not thinking is “God will understand.” Not the way people usually use that rationalization anyway. Usually when people (including me) say “God will understand” they just mean “There is something I want right now and I will not let my own guilt stand in the way of taking what I want.” They say “I do not feel like waiting another hour before I eat milk, even though I am still fleishik, God will understand,” or “I am really tired and do not feel like walking to shule right now, God will understand.” Sometimes I think that God must look at us and be thinking “Yes I understand that you are a bunch of lazy bums!”

Anyway I guess in a way I am saying “God will understand” but this is after many many days of deep reflection and crying and of course all the months of doing this blog and all the time before that that I was suffering from deep depression. I know that everyone who sins feels at the time that they are in a special situation somehow and that when they do this wrong thing, for them it is not wrong. Thinking that does not make it right of course. But since this is my blog I can only explain how I feel about it. I think that if I do not take the opportunity to kiss with my new boyfriend (do people use the word boyfriend when they are 35 years old???) then I will be like the proverbial person in the flood who refuses to get in a boat because “God will save him” and then refuses to get into a plane because “God will save him,” and when he drowns and goes to Heaven, he says “God, why didn’t you save me?” and God says “I sent you a boat and a plane and you didn’t take them!” For so long I have been saying that I would not be Shomer Negiah anymore if only a good man came along who I liked and was attracted to and who liked me and was attracted to me. I have cried to Hashem because I am so so lonely and physically starved. I have written here that I would give up food if only a nice, religious, intelligent man would put his arms around me and tell me he loves me. I do not think this boyfriend loves me (yet), but he does like me a lot. If I give up my opportunity when it comes then it means . . . well I do not know what it would mean because I simply cannot imagine letting this opportunity go by.

I know it is possible that this relationship will not end in marriage. You have read about my dating history. I know very well that things can suddenly change quickly. If I kiss him and then we break up I am sure I will feel very bad. But the idea of breaking up and not having kissed him, letting the chance go by, makes me feel even worse, because considering what the dating scene is like these days it may be many years before I find another man who I “click” with. It might never happen at all.

If in another 40 or 50 years I am on my deathbed and I am still single and still a virgin, I would rather have memories of kissing a boyfriend when I was 35 even if we later broke up, then to have no memories of kissing anyone at all and know that I could have done it once but I let the chance go by and now I will never know what it feels like.

I know I should wait a little bit before going ahead, maybe date him a little longer. The ironic part of this is that I do not want to wait because I am not sure enough about our relationship that I really believe we will definitely stay together long enough. I might not have the luxury of taking my time to make a decision. Men have a tendency to end relationships for little or no reason. I hope this one is different but who really knows. This is not an ideal situation. Once again I do not have good choices. I can kiss him now and maybe we will break up or I can wait and then maybe we will break up. There are no guarantees. But to me the lesser of two evils is, if we are going to break up, I want to know at least what it is like to kiss. I am tired of feeling pathetic about myself. The curiosity and emotional and physical brutalness of being Shomer Negiah are killing me from the inside. I wish I knew for sure that this was the right man. But in reality all I can say is that he is a good man at the right time. I will take what I can get. Yes that sounds desperate but you have read my blog, I have every reason to be desperate!

I know that some of you are thinking “do not waste your precious first kiss on someone when you are not sure how strongly he feels about you, after all the time you have waited. Do not let your efforts go to waste!”

I think in particular the commenter named ClooJew will be thinking this. I have appreciated his comments very much. He has articulated many things that I have been thinking myself and many things I believe or at least used to believe for myself. Ironically he himself (I think ClooJew is male but my apologies if that is wrong) gave me the way to articulate why I think that argument is wrong. He wrote “(the position of many commenters here), is that unhappiness is a good reason to abandon one's faith and system of observance. That position belittles all the effort and pain that NJG has gone through all these years. I'm here to support and admire NJG for her faith, her past, her toil, and her standing tall in the face of adversity.”

That comment meant so much to me that it brought tears to my eyes. To have a frum person recognize that I have worked so hard to uphold my values means a lot. And it means a lot to have someone acknowledge that I have done something hard, something so difficult that not so many other people manage to do it. I forget that myself often. It is easy for me to feel pathetic, like I am some kind of loser because I have never been kissed, and ClooJew reminded me that I am not a loser. I am a Jew. It is something to be proud of. And up until now I have managed to work very hard at being a Jew.

But the past that ClooJew admires is the past. I am not the same person I was even two or three years ago. I have been so depressed, so very very sad. My faith might be as strong as it was but my strength is not and my ability to toil at it is not. This is the part that I feel deep down Hashem “understands.” I feel like a little child in Hashem’s arms. I know that He understands my innermost heart and loves me and will continue to love me even though I am weak. I am not a teenager in rebellion, trying to “get away” with something. I am a little girl who has been through too much, and Hashem is rocking me and saying “it’s all right, it’s all right.”

If I give up an opportunity to be held and kissed and reminded that I am a woman, only so that I do not “waste” my efforts of the past, then I will be hurting my present for the sake of honoring my past. I cannot do that and stay whole anymore. I am different now and my needs are different. Each day we make choices based on who we are at that time.

And also, no matter what I do now my past will never be “wasted.” Most single people no matter how observant they are in Judaism do not make it to 35 while still being Shomer Negiah for all intents and purposes. The past that ClooJew is admiring will always be my past and will always be admirable from the point of view of halachik Judaism, no matter what I do in the future. Keeping halacha is never a waste.

But this is a halacha that I just do not have it in me to keep anymore. I simply cannot do it. I love halachic Judaism so very very much but this is one area where my strength is failing me and it is simply impossible for me to go on this way.

I wrote in the comments something I want to repeat here: “I think there are maybe people who read this blog and want me to represent the halachik lifestyle. They want me to wait until I get married before kissing because they want to believe that it can be done, by someone. They would like to believe that someone in the world is holy enough to keep this halacha even for years and years because knowing that would inspire them to try a little harder with their own halachik tests.

I cannot promise to be a poster child for Shomer Negiah. I do not think I am strong enough. I am sorry. Very sorry. I just do not have it in me anymore. For so long I have been valiant but now I think it is time for someone else to be the poster child because I am not strong enough right now.”

This is not the best reason to engage in my first kiss, I know that. I am disappointing many readers but more importantly I am disappointing myself a little bit. I really did want to wait until I was married or at least until I was more sure of the relationship. But this is the chance I have, and I will take it. This is a very special man who is very good to me. I am scared but also very excited. This must be the way a person feels when they go parachuting for the first time and they are about to jump out of the plane! I am not 100 percent sure that the parachute will open but I will enjoy the view while I have the chance.

Answers to readers questions

Even though I rarely respond to the comments on my blog I do read all the comments that are left here for me and appreciate them very much, especially the supportive ones.

Some people have left comments with questions that I think should be answered either because they are very good questions or because I want to emphasize the answers, or because the question is funny. So here are responses to some of the comments.

COMMENT: How do you all think your gay brothers and sisters feel, knowing that not only can they never be kissed, but that their very desires for intimacy are considered perverted and shameful, even evil? Even by the most conservative estimates a couple of percent of the population is gay, which means there are certainly thousands of closeted gay Jews in the most yeshivish communities. These people have no hope of ever being kissed, and have no outlet for sympathy or understanding. Why does no one in the frum world (besides the Exodus-type quacks) care about that singles crisis? –Anonymous

ANSWER: I cannot speak for anyone else but I can say that I personally feel a lot of sympathy for homosexual Orthodox Jews. I have thought about this question very much, because for all that my love life has felt barren and hopeless, at least I know that my fortunes could change someday (maybe even very soon. See my last post that I posted today!) I cannot change my empty, kiss-less past but my future could be different if I ever get married. But Orthodox people who are struggling to keep the Jewish laws against homosexual acts are in a truly hopeless situation. They must forever either be celibate or break the halacha. There is no way out for them.

You have perhaps read my blog and know how miserable it is for me (and other single people who are waiting for marriage before they do various things) not to have a way to express my sexuality. I have written about how trapped I feel. I can only imagine how much worse it is for someone to know that there will never be a way out of that trap, other than to do something that is explicitly prohibited in the Torah (for men at least).

I have written here that one of the lessons of my blog is not to judge a single person harshly when they fall and break halacha, even by having sex, before they are married. The alternative of being celibate for years and years and years is just too horrible as I can bear witness to. It is possible but it is a nightmare. Obviously I also believe that people should be thoughtful and careful about what they do and make wise choices that they will not regret later on. For most Orthodox people that means at the very least making their physical relationship being proportional to their emotional relationship, that is for example not to have sex with someone on the second date. I have a big problem with promiscuity whether it is heterosexual or homosexual.

Anyway since I know first hand how horrible it is not to be halachically permitted to have sex with people I am attracted to (because I am not married to any of them) I feel absolute sympathy for others who cannot halachically have sex with those they are attracted to even if it is for a different reason (because they are attracted to people of the same gender).

Even though I understand the severity of the laws against homosexual activity I personally cannot bring myself to condemn homosexual Jews who find relationships and engage in homosexual acts. I realize that like me they have choices and it is physically possible to refrain from sex but again I know better than almost anyone what the physical and emotional costs are of that choice. I would never tell someone that homosexual activity is OK according to God, but I would leave it up to the person and to God to figure out how to judge such a person. Personally if I had a friend or a relative who was homosexual, I would want them to try to keep the halacha as best they could but if they caved I would have utmost compassion for them, because perhaps for them the alternative is as it was for me: depression, suicidal thoughts, and the complete unraveling of their self-esteem and relationship with God.

I must write that I have heard about homosexual people who have managed to remain celibate all their lives and still love God and have a religious life and I have to say that I am in awe of those people. It is superhuman what they are doing.

COMMENT:Morty Kwestel said. . . I'm a little confused how a girl who wants to come off frummer than thou can be talking about her sexual fantasies to men.

ANSWER: If I am coming off as you say “frummer than thou” I am sorry. A point of my blog is that no matter how frum someone seems (and indeed according to my actions vis-a-vis sex indeed I am very very frum) you never know what is happening in a person’s mind. It says in Pirkei Avot that a strong person is “he who controls his evil inclinations.” In my actions I am very very frum (most of the time) but that does not mean that my inclinations are always pure. Even the most innocent girl has hormones. That is why I do this blog anonymously, I want to be able to write about how I really feel without my “real life” self being not-tznius.

COMMENT: Can I ask you a question? In your form of Judaism, do women marry out of love (movie type love)or do they marry b/c they think the guy would be an okay math ...a good provider, religious etc.? I assume both but just wondering your thoughts on that. –Bklyn

ANSWER: Of course I can only speak for my form of Judaism, that is the way I personally see things and I cannot speak for others, even people who are in my own synagogue. I cannot say what other women marry for only what I want to marry for. I want to marry someone that I love. I want to feel really happy about being with that person and feel lucky and excited that the person is in my life. But also I know that love does not conquer all. If I marry someone who does not share my basic religious beliefs and religious lifestyle then we will constantly have conflicts about how to live and how to raise our children. I suppose the answer to your question is that I plan to marry someday for love but I do not fall in love with men who are not “an okay math” for me as you said. If he is “an okay math” then I am willing to date him and see what happens but I would not marry him only because of the math I would need to love him also.

One thing I have been taught over and over by rabbis and teachers is that there is no such thing as "movie type" love as you call it. Any loving relationship will have some problems to be overcome.

COMMENT: Another thing I'd like to point out is your virginity.When a female uses a sex toy she can rupture her hymen.Men can notice this and tell in bed.I don't mean to put you on the defense but what will you tell your husband????? – DesperateGirl4MarriageToo

ANSWER: There is no question my hymen is long gone. From a medical standpoint I suppose this means that I am not a virgin but when it comes to my experience with men there is no one more virginal then me that is for sure, and I think that halacha is more concerned by what I have actually done than what my hymen looks like. I am sure also that if I ever get engaged I will have a long and intimate conversation with my fiance about our expectations for sex and when we have that converstation I will tell him that yes I am definitely unexperienced with men but I am quite experienced with, um, inanimate objects. I fully expect that the type of man I would marry would not be so immature or close-minded that it would bother him. If he does not trust me, if he thinks I might be lying and really may have slept with other men then I could not marry him anyway. If he is so immature that he would marry me only on condition that I could fulfill some sort of breaking-the-hymen fantasy for him, then he is not for me either. But I can truthfully assure him that I have never slept with another man and would hope that he would find that meaningful, and that he would trust that I am telling the truth about it whether I have an intact hymen or not. Any educated person knows that just because a woman does not have a hymen does not mean that she is not a virgin. There are women who are born without one, and women who break their’s while riding horses or doing other sports, for example.

I would like to share, since this may be an issue for other girls who are considering buying a vibrator and using it in a penatrative way, that the first few times I used it that way hurt a lot. It took several attempts over the course of a few days just to get it in. I knew that I was breaking my hymen and felt very sad that I was having that sensation with a battery operated toy and not with a man who loves me. I still feel sad about that sometimes. However I already was old enough that it was also making me feel bad that I had no inkling what it was like to, um, you know, have something inside there. Since it did not seem that marriage was coming any time soon I made a choice to break my hymen in order to experience a fuller range of experimentation by myself. I cannot say that I regret that decision because honestly it feels so good and if I had decided to keep my hymen it just would have resulted in a few more years of missing out on what little fun I am halachically allowed to have. I suppose also that it will be more comfortable someday for me and my husband that the first night will not be painful for me. But yes it does make me a little sad to miss out on doing that with a real live man who loves me and has just married me.

COMMENT: Anonymous said...Last night we stumbled on your Blog site. Some things you fail to mention is how did you end up on the West Side?

ANSWER: I never said that I live on the West Side of any city. Perhaps I do and perhaps I do not.

There were other good questions but I am getting tired from all this writing today. Perhaps I will answer the rest another time.

I wish everyone a happy Rosh Hashanah and good and sweet new year. May Hashem answer all our prayers.

Maybe soon

I have been seeing someone for almost a month! We do not get to see each other very much because it is a long-distance drive between us but we have met a few times and talk on the phone almost every day. He is so very good to me. I feel blessed to have found him.

A few days ago I told him that I have never been kissed. I had noticed that despite the fact that he is very religious otherwise we were engaging in quite a bit of accidentally (on purpose) touching. Nothing conscious really just light brushes against my hand or us bumping into each other a little when we walk next to each other. The type of thing that could be an accident but most of the frum men I have dated would immediately apologize and move further away from me so it would not happen again. He is otherwise very frum but when we accidentally touch he does not apologize and he does not move and that is OK with me! I guess this happens when there is really chemistry, right?

We had a long talk. I had never told any man about my history or non-history as the case is. So this was the first time I told a man I was dating that I have never even been kissed. I told him about how unlucky I have been in my dating life and how I used to be shomer negiah because I was very frum and then later I was shomer negiah by default, because I had no one I cared enough about to do anything with after being S.N. for so long.

At first he could not believe it. He has never dealt with a woman before who had never even been kissed. He kept asking me if I am OK with that and I told him no, I hate it, it is very hard, I have the same hormones as everyone else. But also I know that I have made my decisions and that I cannot change the past and that Hashem has reasons for making my life turn out the way it has. I have to believe it is for the best. I accept it because I have no choice.

I think he is bewildered by me. But why I am writing about it is that he keeps saying that the next time he sees me he is going to kiss me, that it is about time I had my first kiss.

I am excited but confused. First of all I do not know exactly what he means, you know? I think for a while he thought that I meant that I have never gotten any kind of kiss from anyone at all. I told him no, of course not, I have gotten kisses from my father, my uncles, my brothers, my nephews. I told him that I have sometimes gotten hugs at work though not often. But of course those are not the same thing. He said “oh, what you mean is that you have never gotten the kind of kiss that lasts for 15 minutes.” But he did not then say “well I will have to correct that.” I think he means to kiss me on the cheek or something.

That would be nice but it is not really what I am aiming for.

What I want is the 15 minute kiss! I want a kiss that makes me have to come up for air!

I wish I could say that the thought of doing this possibly on my very next date makes me feel guilty about breaking halacha. Especially because it is almost Rosh Hashanah and we are supposed to be atoning for our sins not planning to do new ones. But honestly I do not feel so guilty. I cannot explain why. I know I should say that no matter how old I am I should at least feel guilty about breaking halacha especially at this time of year.

But . . . well you have read my blog. You know what I have been through. You know how strong I have been for so long, and sometimes how weak. You know how I just cannot do it anymore.

I do not know for sure whether I will marry this man. I hope so. He is so very sweet to me. It would be nice to have found the right person. But even if not I do not think I will feel guilty retroactively about kissing him or more. (I told him emphaticly that there are certain things I will not do before I get married and he accepted that). I am 35 and my body has had enough of being alone. My soul too.

What I am though scared about is what if it is not what I dreamed it would be? I do after all have doubts about whether he wants to kiss me because he really wants to or because he feels sorry for me like I have a problem that needs correcting. It is not that I expect there to be fireworks. This is not the movies, I know that. What I mean is that when I kiss him I want to feel safe. I want to know that kissing me is important to him, not some kind of remedial project.

He is good to me. But a month ago I had never even met him.

I have not met him many times. Is it too soon?

On the other hand if not now, when?

I will have a lot to think about over Rosh Hashana that is for sure. How strong do I want to be? What does “being strong” mean now that I am 35 and have a chance at being kissed by a man who so far seems nice, and serious?

Comments

There are different kinds of people who leave comments on this blog and sometimes even the same person might have lots of different kinds of things to say. It is the magic of blogs and a gift from Hakadosh Baruch Hu that in the loneliest aspect of my life I can find a way to get feedback from so many other people. In general there are three kinds of comments from my perspective, the ones I love, the ones I tolerate, and the ones I cannot tolerate.

The comments I love the most are the ones that simply express support for me. Showing me that the reader has read my whole blog, was moved by it somehow, and is keeping me in their thoughts. I especially love hearing from people going through the same thing even though I would not wish this experience on anyone else. Another type of comment I love is the type where a person gives me advice that is actually good advice that I have never thought of before myself. That does not happen often but it has happened, and I appreciate it when it happens.

A very great percentage of the comments fall into the category of comments that I tolerate. This means that there is something unhelpful about the comment but I know that it is not the commenter's fault that he was unhelpful. I had this most when the blog first became popular and I only had a few posts and there were many things I had not yet explained about my situation. I cannot fault someone for trying to help me but missing the mark because they do not have all the information. At the beginning I also had many commenters who were not Orthodox and really did not understand where I was coming from, but they felt bad for me and wanted to help so I cannot blame them for missing the mark. I am happy that there are so many people in the world who want to help even if they do not understand how.

Sometimes a person gives advice that I try something that I have already tried. But I may not have written on the blog that I have tried it because I am trying to protect my anonymity. So how were you supposed to know? Or perhaps I have mentioned it on the blog but it is buried in a post somewhere and I know it is unrealistic to expect that everyone who visits this blog will carefully read every post before leaving a comment. Still it is the tone of some comments that bothers me where the commenter seems to think they know something about me when I have never said anything about it on the blog one way or another.

So I am not upset about those types of comments but I do have two requests for the future.

1) Before offering advice try to read as much of the blog as you can so you will be more knowledgable of the nuances of my situation. If you do not have time for that then I understand. I am asking because sometimes when you ask you recieve.

2) Please remember that I have a daily life that is unrelated to being shomer negiah, sexual frustration, or anything else on this blog. It is very funny to me that people think they must know what I am like only on the basis of this blog. Do you know I have been in situations where people talked to me about this blog without realizing that I am her? They say "I know you are not Nice Jewish Girl because you are ____ while she is _____" (fill in the blanks with whatever opposites you like) because they assume that the blog says everything about me.

According to people who have talked about my blog in my presence, I definitely live outside New York, I definitely live in Brooklyn, and I definitely live on the Upper West Side. I am obviously Modern Orthodox, obviously Yeshivish, obviously a baalas teshuvah, and obviously frum from birth. I am clearly intelligent, clearly popular, clearly have no friends, and clearly am a loser. Well I guess that clears everything up. :-)

There is the third type of comment which is the type I cannot tolerate. It does not happen often. I do not usually for example delete comments no matter how ridiculous I might find them because perhaps they will help someone else or just as a testament to the variety of people in the world.

However when the same commenter consistently leaves unhelpful advice in an all-knowing tone and then starts advising things that not only are dirty and dangerous and possibly illegal but also is something that I have said about 50 times in this blog that I will not do, then I just cannot take it anymore.

And so I respectfully request . . . no I take that back I demand that the person who calls himself NeedsABetterJob stop commenting on this blog. Do not leave a comment to apologize. Do not leave a comment to explain yourself. Do not take on another pseudonym and continue commenting under another name. Just go away.

But to everyone else, thank you for visiting my blog.

Update

I have gotten requests by email and in the comments to put up a new post to tell you all how I am doing. I appreciate all the concern shown to me. It makes me feel good.

One reason I have not posted for many weeks is that I have nothing very new to say. Since the last post I have had a few dates but none of them “turned into anything.” My depression is slowly getting better, I continue to volunteer in my community and see friends. Lately I have been making time for a new activity I have always wanted to try and now I am trying it and it is fun.

I am researching whether it is feasible for me to travel for a few weeks or months to Europe or Israel, to date and/or to study or work for a little while. I have a good job so I first have to make sure that I can take a leave and I have to make sure it is financially feasible for me. If it is then I think travelling will be nice and will open up new dating opportunities. If that does not work out I am also thinking about adopting a puppy as I love animals and it is true, as a reader said to me, that dogs are playful and love people unconditionally. It would be nice to come home to something and have something to take care of.

One thing I must mention, since this blog is all about the truth of what I am feeling, is that as Shavuos approaches I am irrationally thinking a lot about a comment by “Eesh Aish” in which he said about two months ago “by Shavuos she’ll be engaged for sure.” I want you to know, Eesh Aish, wherever you are, that your comment is coming back to haunt me, and now you. What was the point of it? I am not engaged, not having much more success than 2 months ago at least in dating, and now your comment is just one more weapon I can use against myself when I want to feel sorry for myself. It was such a stupid thing to say. I do not want to say that it is “ruining my Shavuos,” because of course I am not quite that petty or self-pitying. I will focus on all the wonderful things about the holiday. But your ridiculous comment has been crossing my mind sometimes, and every time I remember it I feel grim. That is why I wrote in a previous post that you should never tell a single person “I am sure you will get married soon.” Because how are they supposed to feel if they do not? It was not very nice of you to go against my advice on my own blog. There, I needed to get that off my chest.

Another thing that is a little different since my last post is that almost as much as I think about sex now I think about having a baby. Not being pregnant or raising a child but giving birth. I have this strange instinctive craving for it. It seems that as I enter the last years that I can bear a child my body is craving it very badly and trying to get me to get moving. It feels like a purely biological instinct.

Well there is not much I can do about it. I have already posted that I do not feel financially or emotionally able to raise a child by myself right now and also I do not intellectually feel comfortable with the idea of bringing a child into the world without a father, when there are so many babies available for adoption who have no parent at all. But it is interesting that the physical instinct to be a mother is so strong. And it is very hard to overcome one’s physical instincts. It seems that so much of my life is about that. Which leads me back to the question, by lifting myself above my physical instincts, am I being holy, or am I being stupid?

Lessons

This is the last post on this blog for the forseeable future.

I started this blog really as a “primal scream.” I was hurting so much and needed to express all the pain I was in. I felt angry at halacha for the fact that I had never been kissed and angry at Jewish men and the Jewish community for the fact that I was alone. Not all those feelings were rational but they were what was inside and I needed to scream! I wanted other people to understand how I feel, to know that there are people in the world who are trying to be good Jews and who are lonely and suffering very badly. I was tired of hearing things like “if you were really serious about getting married then you would just get married.” I wanted people to know that being single for me is like being in a black hole and I would do anything, anything, to get out of it – with the right person. I have tried so many things but the right person has not come. Perhaps I also have not been the right person to someone else – but I am not any “worse” or “at fault” than any of the other normal but flawed people my age who got married 10 or 12 years ago and now have several children.

I did not think about how much this blog would help me. I did not expect that writing would be such a helpful exercise for me because I never considered myself good at it. It is true that it is so important always to try new things! Writing my feelings has helped me to put them somewhere else, on this blog – so they do not have to be inside me anymore.

I also did not expect to be helped so very much by the people who found and commented on my blog. Yes some of the advice was shall we say extraordinarily unhelpful but I have learned that there are so very many kind, supportive people in the world who really want to be as helpful as they can. It has made me stronger to know that. Also even though I still do not entirely believe I deserve it, it is very nice to be told that my words have inspired others, that I am an aishes chayil, that I am strong, etc. I never thought of myself that way and it feels good to have it pointed out. A very little bit I am allowing myself to believe it and that shines some light into the dark.

Finally I never expected that after expressing all my feelings and getting comments from others that I would actually feel better about being S.N.! I thought that the blog would be my last expression of excuses of why I can not be frum anymore or at least not S.N. I thought that the blog would end by saying “being S.N. until you are 35 is impossible and so now I will go and find myself someone, anyone, to not just kiss but have sex with because I can not take this anymore.” But instead I have realized how much worse I would feel if I did that. Even if I never get married which would be very sad, even if I never am kissed ever in my whole life, which would be horribly terribly sad, I would rather have that than give something away before I am ready or to a man I do not trust. I hope that soon I will find a man I trust and that always always whatever I do with him will be in proportion to how well we know each other and the nature of the commitment we have to each other. I cannot promise to be S.N. until I get married but I can promise to myself now that I will not do anything rash.

Here are the things I have learned from writing this blog and reading the comments and emails left by the readers:

• Being sexually frustrated is indeed frustrating and terribly terribly difficult but after all it is the lack of emotional intimacy that is even worse. The true problem is not that I am S.N. but that I have no one in my life I am close enough to be be not-S.N. with.
• I became depressed because I was sad about being single and S.N., but once I was depressed the goal became to feel better in general. When I feel better in general I will feel better about being single and S.N. That should be the goal, to find a way to be happy somehow even if I never get married and I am never kissed.
• The halacha about being S.N. is not as important to me as it was 10 or 15 years ago but it is still important to me. Maybe 10 percent because it is the halacha and 90 percent because for me doing something physical with a man will also have a large emotional component and I do not want to cheapen that.
• I am not a pathetic loser just because I have never been kissed. First because there are many other normal, sexually healthy people who also have never been kissed for one reason or another and Second because maybe, kissing someone you do not care about would be the truly crazy thing. I have heard from so many people especially women who have not been S.N. and now regret it because they feel they were used. So who made the worse decision? We are taking risks either way. I took a risk to be S.N. and lost because now am still single and I have never been kissed. Other people took a risk and were not S.N. and now have memories they regret. Who can say which is worse?
• There are some very nice, supportive, and smart people in the world.
• There are also some mean and/or stupid people in the world.
• The world really is more cruel to fat people than to skinny people.
• I knew this before but some of the comments reminded me more that the goal is not to get married it is to get married to a good person who I can have a happy, healthy relationship with. As sad as I am to be single I feel worse for the people who are in unhappy marriages.

Here is what I hope other people have learned or thought more about from reading this blog and the comments:

• The “singles crisis” is not just about singles who do not want to get married or are not serious. Even people who are very serious and focused are not getting married sometimes for reasons beyond their control. Even if there is something “wrong” with them it often is not any more “wrong” than what many married people have “wrong” with them.
• Just because a person is Shomer Negiah does not mean that they are not a sexual person or do not want to have sex.
• Many women do in fact have strong sexual urges and men should not assume that all women only want emotional intimacy. Men: Every woman is different and the important thing is to be happy with the particular woman who is in your life! Women: Even if you are S.N. it is still possible to be a sexual person. Our bodies are not dirty or forbidden to ourselves. Explore and have fun!
• This may seem like a contradiction of the last point but well life is complicated. For women in particular any kind of touch, even just kissing, can feel like “giving something away,” especially if the woman is frum and had previously been S.N. but even if not. Emotional intimacy and sexuality are very intertwined.
• When teaching children or students about the halachos of S.N., people should keep in mind that intimacy and sexual fulfillment are both basic human needs and if a person lives without them for a long time it can have a very very detrimental affect on their psychological well being.
• People in good marriages should please appreciate that you have companionship and that you are one of the lucky ones.
• If you know someone who is single and becoming less frum as time goes on please do not be too quick to judge them. You cannot know for sure what kind of pain this person is going through or what choices you would make if you were in their shoes.
• If you are single and S.N. you are not alone! We are a small group but it exists and you are not alone.
• If you are single and cannot be S.N. anymore because you cannot take it, there is someone here who understands. I myself do not know what I will do about that when I do find a meaningful relationship, if I ever do.
• If you are having signs of depression please get help! You do not have to suffer. I know what it is like to be so unhappy and lonely that you feel like you would rather be dead. Please do not let yourself feel that way any longer. Go to your doctor and ask for help. It really does work . . . slowly but surely.

May Hashem answer our prayers.

Depression

This is probably the hardest post I have written so far. It has gone through many many drafts. I hope it is finished now because the time has come to post it already!

When other bloggers first discovered this blog and started commenting about it a response I saw a lot, mostly from bloggers who are not observant, was something like “Is this what Judaism has come to, making someone suffer so much that she is considering suicide? What kind of religion is this? Are we really to believe that the Orthodox community would rather she hurt herself or be this unhappy than just kiss a man?”

When I first started the blog my answer was to write a post directed to the Orthodox community saying that before you tell people to be Shomer Negiah at least consider the possibility of what you are committing them to, possibly a lifetime of not just loneliness (which no one can control) but also sexual frustration that may indeed culminate in suicidal thoughts or even attempts or other self destructive things. For a long time that is what this post was going to say.

But I have thought it over and I admit that writing that would be partly irresponsible because it would be blaming the Orthodox community for something which is my fault and my fault alone which is not getting professional mental help earlier.

It was maybe two years ago that I started feeling even sadder than before about being single. It was not only being single, there was also my health issue and some other things and I started feeling even sadder than before. If I had seen a therapist then perhaps I would have worked out my issues better. Yes it is true that maybe I would have decided not to be S.N. anymore. Perhaps I (or other people in a similar situation) may have come to the conclusion that indeed it is a choice between breaking the laws of S.N. and becoming completely depressed. Then I could have made an informed decision to avoid becoming almost suicidal by breaking halacha. But a more likely possibility is that I would have found ways to be S.N. and happy as well. I would have been making decisions more consciously and feeling more strong about them. Who knows which way I would have gone then? The important thing I am saying is that what was important was not necessarily deciding to be not S.N. anymore, it was getting professional mental help. What you should be saying is not “what kind of religion is this” but instead “if she is feeling so bad why did she not seek help earlier?”

Instead of getting help when I should have I did nothing and the feelings got worse and worse. Over time I stopped participating in activities I had previously enjoyed because I no longer wanted to bother. I was crying myself to sleep every night and then later I started crying at other times like on the subway on the way to work. Then I stopped being able to sleep. I was tired all the time but jittery and would spend all night watching the food channel and nickelodeon. Then I started spacing out at work and forgetting things. This all happened slowly over a period of months and weeks. Finally there came a day that I could not get out of bed in the morning and I called in sick. And the next day too, and the next. I used all my sick days to lie on the couch watching the Iron Chef and wanting to die. When I ran out of sick days I called my doctor and made an appointment and that is how I started getting help. I wish I had called my doctor before that when I first started feeling so sad but you live and you learn. The feelings I express in this blog are not half as depressing as what I would have said just a few months before.

In therapy and frankly through this blog I am indeed feeling much stronger and happier about being S.N. No I am not happy that I am alone. I still feel lonely. But I do not feel as pathetic as I did a few months ago because I have never been kissed. It means a lot to me to know that there are others in my situation who are strong and relatively happy and it also means a lot to me to know that there are people out there who have been kissed and even had more sexual relationships who also are feeling sad. Depression is something that both Orthodox and non-Orthodox people can relate to because people of all religions experience it for all sorts of different reasons. In my case it was triggered by my feelings of loneliness and sexual frustration but once I was in it it was not about those things anymore, it was a medical condition requiring professional help. The problem in my life right now is not in the Torah but in my head.

Anyway one reason I am writing about this is that it does have to do with singles becoming less frum over time. You see when my depression was at it’s worst I did stop keeping Shabbos for a few weeks unfortunately. This was not the same as what I described in my last post although once again it was not a rational decision that I think the Torah is wrong or that keeping Shabbos is not important. It was more a feeling that nothing is important. Not me and not Shabbos and not whether I might go to hell for breaking it. I did not care about anything any more and so I did not care about Shabbos either. It says in the Torah that one must serve Hashem “with your whole heart and your whole soul.” A person who is severely depressed has no heart left with which to serve Hashem.

So to answer all those critics who wondered “is this what our religion is really all about” I say no. Being suicidal is not what it is supposed to be about. But if I had gotten help earlier I would not have become so depressed. Probably I would have found a way much earlier to feel “shalem” (whole) about being S.N. and maybe even single and there never would have been a reason for this blog.

To all the Orthodox people who are reading this and saying “you see, there is no problem with halacha or with our community. Torah is perfect” I have to say that I do see a problem in our community, which is that as a community we often prioritize halacha over emotional and psychological well being. I understand why this is the case. If we started saying that “the most important thing is to be happy” then everyone would start saying “I am having sex when I am 18 because that will make me happy” or “wow keeping Shabbos feels so confining, I will feel more happy if I break it.” Orthodoxy is not for wimps, it takes fortitude to keep the mitzvos day after day year after year.

Yet there is a difference between “taking the easy way out” and “trying to stay functional in life.” Once again I ask you to not immediately and negatively judge an Orthodox person who seems to have “fallen” somehow. You cannot judge until you have been in their shoes. Perhaps right now for some reason “casting off the yoke of Torah” is the only way they know how to stay functional instead of lying on the couch wanting to die. Of course that is rarely really their only choice, there is usually some better way they have not learned yet. But until someone figures out in therapy what they really need people often do irrational things because that is the only way they know how to survive. Baruch Hashem I have realized that indeed I have some fortitude left and I am recovering and staying frum both. But I cannot bring myself to tell a person who lacks it “well halacha is halacha so you have no choice. Orthodoxy sure is tough is it not? It sure is hard to be a Jew.” For most people it is hard but for some people I can easily imagine that it is so hard that they can not get to work in the morning and they cry on the subway. Not because Orthodoxy is hard but because life is hard, and when a person is desperately unhappy they are unhappy with everything, which for a frum person includes being frum. That is what happened to me. I was in so much pain and I got angry at everything including and especially Torah which is an easy target. Being observant is a lot of pressure and I can understand why a person who feels unhappy and trapped would choose to try relieving the religious pressure even if it is not the religion itself that is causing the unhappiness. Still I would urge others in this situation to get professional help too! After a while I changed my mind, maybe others would too or maybe not.

Also I emphasize once again that the singles crisis is affecting people in serious ways. Depression is a physical problem but for me and for many other people it was triggered at least in part by the ongoing loneliness and the strain of denying our bodies for so long from something it needs. Yes it is possible to be Shomer Negiah until you are 35 and beyond as I have proven by experience but it should not be surprising that the strain of it led me to a psychiatrist office.

To anyone who is S.N. and reading this thinking “I do not want to be S.N. anymore if it leads to depression” I have to say: there is no way to tell if it will lead to depression for you. Maybe you are not wired to get severely depressed or maybe you will get married soon. And also one thing I have realized from therapy and from doing this blog is that if I had done something rash like hire a prostitute or sleep with a guy I hardly knew it definitely would have made my depression worse. I would have felt not only lonely but cheap and I do not think I could survive if I felt cheap.

To anyone reading this who is showing signs of depression for any reason please take care of yourself and make an appointment with your doctor or with a psychiatrist. You do not have to feel this way forever. It can get better. You can be O.K.

Becoming Less Frum

Someone brought up in the comments the issue that the longer people are single the more likely they are to stop being frum or at least to become less frum than they were when they were younger.

As I mentioned in one of my first posts when I was in my early twenties I did not understand this. I thought that if someone believes in Torah and halachah then it should not matter whether they are married or not. As people have commented here sometimes life is hard and I could not understand why being single would make someone become less frum. Even if you are single we are still obligated to keep most of the mitzvos such as Shabbos, kashrus, etc.

Well I am sad to report that I have had my own experience with this phenomenon even though it was subtle. For most of my twenties I was always very comitted to halacha even when I was alone at home because I felt that even if no other people are watching that I still have a responsibility to God and to myself. Even if I was not a wife or mother I was still important as my own unit of humanity.

But a few years ago I stopped washing before I ate bread when I am at home. It was not a conscious decision. Just one day I went to eat a sandwhich and I knew I should wash and I decided not to bother. Who would see? Who would know? I knew that Hashem could see but I said to myself He will understand and just went ahead and ate.

Then a few months later I stopped waiting so long after eating meat before eating milk because who would know? If I went out to dinner and had chili and then came home alone and 2 hours later wanted ice cream then who would know or care? Just Hashem but He would not care so much after all, right?

For me it was not that I was angry at God about being single though often I was. But that was not what made me stop keeping those halachos. It also was not that I stopped believing it was the halacha. It was simply laziness combined with not having people for whom I have to set an example or meet any standards. Certainly when I was out with friends or on dates or with people in my community I continued to wash and be careful about everything just as before.

It might be hard for Orthodox people who are married and have families to understand or admit how much of their religiosity is motivated by their families. You wash even when you do not feel like it because your children are watching you and you want to set a good example for them. You wait the whole six hours after meat because your spouse will know if you break that halacha and he or she will be disappointed. Of course there is the element of believing in it yourself just as there always was for me, but is your belief really so strong that it would repel the laziness or anger or whatever else tempts you to sin if it were not for the family whose standards you want to keep up?

At this point you might say that the halachos I was breaking were relatively “minor” (whatever that means). But what I am saying is that I now understood the phenomenon of my seminary friends whose skirts were getting shorter and necklines lower and who were no longer S.N. I understood how it is that a male friend who used to complain about people who relied on “Shabbos elevators” now relies on non-Jewish doormen to push the elevator buttons for him on Shabbos. I understand now how it is that people who used to go to yeshivas or seminaries might decide to have some fun in their lives and go to a bar and dance together because who is around that will really care? Maybe God. But like I am saying it takes a very strong person to continue being motivated only by that. It is easy to stop caring and hard to continue living up to standards that you set for yourself years ago when you thought you would always have a support network that would help you stay in it. It is very easy for married people to negatively judge the “loose” standards in the singles community but can you really be sure that you would be so frum if not for the children bringing home their parsha sheets and a spouse to whom you have made a commitment to live a certain kind of religious life?

By the way this blog has helped me to become strong again in my commitment to halacha. When I am tempted to break a halacha I think of all the people who said they are praying for me and I think it would be betraying all of you to “waste” the merit you are giving me by turning around and breaking a halacha! So you see I really am paying attention to the comments and appreciate all your caring and supportive words.

I have one more serious post on the topic of “becoming less frum,” and then a sort of blog summary, and then that will be all I have to say, bli neder.

What To Say

In the comments to my last post people asked what they are supposed to say to singles. I want to emphasize that I am not saying that the phrase “I hope you find your bashert soon” is bad. Of course it is the natural response to everything I have written in my blog and I appreciate that people are wishing me well. I was just using it to illustrate a point not to say that that comment annoys me (though the comment “I am sure you will find your bashert soon” does annoy me even though of course I know the people saying it have only very good intentions.)

Anyway here are my personal observations of good and bad things to say to singles.

A rule of thumb is that anything you would not say to a childless couple about being childless you should try not say to a single person about being single. Thus saying at a wedding “you are next” or “soon by you” has lost much of its appeal. Personally I think it is fine just to say “It was very nice to see you. All the best to you” just like you would say to any other adult. If you feel an irresistable desire to give them a bracha may I suggest “May Hashem grant you all that you desire” or “May Hashem bless you with success in all your endeavors.” If you say something specific about getting married then the single person may indeed interpret it to mean that you do not value all the other good things in their life such as their job, friends, hobbies, service to the community, etc. as has been mentioned in the comments.

If you want to set up a single person may I suggest that you first make sure you know something about them and what they are looking for? It is fine to call and ask them! This will show that you are making a thoughtful match and not just putting two people together because they are both frum and near each other in age.

If the single person has been complaining to you about being single then it would appear this is a single you know well and who trusts you so you do not have to be as worried about saying the wrong thing since it appears you are already friends and you tend to say the right thing to them! But here is a suggestion. You could say “You deserve to be happy and since you want to get married so badly I hope you get married soon. Meanwhile I am happy that you are my friend because you are a great person and the world is a nicer place because you are in it.” In other words to say that you hope for them the same things they hope for themselves but also to remind them that their existence has value even if they are single. Personally I like it when a friend (or commenter) tells me they are davening for me but that is because we are friends (or because I have opened myself up on the blog). I do not think I would like it if a person who hardly knows me told me in shule that they are davening for me. I would rather they daven for me and not tell me!

I agree with the commenters that setting a person up is much more helpful than just giving them a bracha but may I add another suggestion. Inviting a single person for Shabbos meals is also very nice and helpful to their lives even if it does not directly help them get married. You are still doing a chessed for them. Even if it seems like they always go away for Shabbos or have plans and you say “the next time you need a meal just call me” then still keep inviting them anyway. If you rely on them to call you they may be too shy or embarrassed to “invite themselves.” If you keep calling them then they will feel more welcome as opposed to one time being told “call me if you need a meal” and then never hearing from you again.

(By the way I think singles who have space should invite back families who hosted them. It is hard to cook for so many more people and childproof the house but if a family has had you over many times then it is time to invite them back! Even if they say no at least you tried. I am saying for Shabbos meals not to sleep over for all of Shabbos.)

People do not like to think that they have disappointed their parents by not getting married. If you have a child who is single then a nice thing to do is tell them “I am proud of you.”

"Soon By You"

Many of the people who have left comments have said either “I am sure you will find your bashert soon” or “I hope you find your bashert soon.” Both of those are very well meaning responses to my blog but I think they point to some basic problems which I want to point out:

First are the people who write “I hope you get married soon.” This is very well meaning but I want to point out that if that is all you have to say then you are confirming that like me you can not think of any way for me to be happy other than to get married. In many ways these people are right because what can take the place of lifelong companionship? Not a career, not friends, not learning Torah, not doing chessed. There are many worthwhile things I can do with my life but none of them can stop me from feeling lonely inside without a partner who loves me and who I can love. My life can have a lot of value from doing other things but I will still be missing something. Two things actually, emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy.

This is not a problem with the Jewish community, I think it is part of human nature. We are social beings. People want to be loved and part of a family. I do not think that Orthodox single men are happier about being single just because they have a “role” in the community that women do not have. Being part of a minyan or learning in the bais medrash does not take the place of a wife. Also I do not think that non-Jewish people or people who are not part of a religious community at all are any more happy if they want to be married and are not. There are many wonderful and lonely non-Jewish people as well.

So I am not complaining that people who only say “I hope you get married soon” are wrong or saying something bad, I am just pointing out that the comment confirms the basic problem in this blog. Still I wish that someone could offer some advice of what I could do if I never get married that will actually make me feel fulfilled. People are saying to learn more Torah and do more chessed but I tell you I already do those things and yes they are very good and fulfilling but I still cry myself to sleep at night.

Second and more problematic is the comment that “I am sure you will soon find your bashert.”

How do you know that? Do you realize that people have been telling me for more than a decade that “I am sure you will get married soon.” They say “You are such a great person I am sure you will get married soon.” They have always said that and it turns out they were always wrong. Just like you are probably wrong.

I think people say that to make themselves feel better not to make me feel better. When you think about it it is a dismissive comment. It is their way of saying that I feel bad for you and it bothers me that you are in pain so I am going to tell myself and you that the problem will soon go away and then I will not have to worry about your pain any more. You are basically saying There there now, the pain is not so bad because if you wait a little while longer it will soon be over.

I want the people who have little girls to think about my pain and let yourself remain bothered and afraid, not for me but for your daughter. Yes there is a singles crisis and if our community does not work hard to figure out its nature and why it is there and how to help people build relationships and get married, then your own daughter who is now being told “Someday you will be a mommy too” or “Of course the boys will love you sweetheart” or “I am sure you will have no problem finding your bashert” may well prove you wrong as well.

Commenters

A few days ago I got very annoyed by many of the comments and deleted some because some commenters left “advice” that I believed to be not only irrelevent to my situation but possibly harmful to other people who might read it. Then other readers reacted to them and the commenters ended up having arguments about issues that had very little to do with being S.N. so I just erased the whole thing, the whole argument. Some people are very very annoying!

I noticed that lately very few women have been commenting and I wonder why. Are women more shy? Have the male commenters been driving women away? Is it because men relate to my blog more than women do? I am curious to know why it is the case that most of the commenters are men. Or at least most of the repeat commenters are men. There are some women who have left very beautiful comments but then they seem to disappear. I would like to hear from them more.

I have also noticed that not so many commenters have never broken being S.N.into their thirties. Most people who comment or send me emails say “I am S.N. but broke it a few years ago one time” or “I was S.N. until I got married when I was 25” or things like that. If you are S.N. and in your 30’s or older and have Never Been Kissed please speak up. Please leave a comment even if it is anonymous and only says “36 and never been kissed in New Jersey” or “I am 33 and have never been kissed on the Upper West Side” or something like that. If you could also write how you manage to stay so strong and how you deal with the frustration that would also help so much! If there are not so many of you then really I am starting to feel like the last gullible goody-goody seminary girl remaining on earth!

Thank-You Links

Before closing this blog I want to thank the other nice bloggers who have linked to this one and sent me many visitors. I apologize if I am leaving anyone out, these are just the blogs that I noticed sent me many many visitors. I did not make a complete list of every blog that has linked to mine, sorry. But thanks to everyone who linked to this and forwarded the link by email this blog has gotten over 7,000 visits since the end of March! I am proud but also a little frightened of that. I do not know what to think!


Blogs in English:

Craigslist

Jewlicious

Renegade Rebbetzin

Chayyei Sarah

Bloghead

My Urban Kvetch

Seraphic Secret

Kingdom By The Sea

Blogs in Hebrew:

"Rak Kidei Lihair" . . . . A 30-year-old single Israeli woman

Kipa.org.il . . . . I am sorry I cannot find the specific page that has the link but I noticed that hundreds of people came from this site so I am listing them out of hakarat hatov.

A Few More Different Things

There are many things in the comments I want to respond to. I am trying to compose my thoughts.

If no new issues come up in the comments then I have just three or four more posts to write and then the blog will be done.

The blog will not be taken off the internet. It will stay up for people to find and read in future. Just I will not keep posting. Perhaps I will write updates now and then if something major happens like if I get kissed or married or am institutionalized or something (I am half joking about the last thing).

A few things I can say now:

Yes I have tried internet dating and continue to.

Yes I have moved to another city – more than once.

Yes I am in therapy and it is helping very very slowly.

Yes I am considering dating Conservative men who are at least somewhat observant but do not want to marry someone who is a Conservative rabbi because then I would be a Conservative rebbetzin and since I do not believe in Conservative ideology then that would probably not be a good idea now would it. It is one thing to make compromises within my home so that I will have someone to love and will not be lonely anymore, but it is another to make a public statement by virtue of my husband’s communal position that I think Conservativism is OK as a religious outlook. It is a hard choice because I know that in their lifestyles Conservative rabbis are often indistinguishable from Orthodox people. But how could I be the rebbetzin of a Conservative synagogue? For me it would be like moving to Mars.

No I have no desire or plan to sleep with women to try to solve my problem. Forget the halachic issues I just find it disgusting, the very idea. But uh thanks for the tip.

To the person who emailed asking whether I am S.N. now because it is halacha or because I have no opportunity to not be, I think it is the second but it is hard to say. It is all very confusing. I wish I could say it is because it is halacha but I would be lying. I think it is more because when I break the halacha I want it to be with someone who cares about me so it will be worth it emotionally and spiritually and I do not know when I will find that.

There are other things I want to say too but they have to wait because I have to compose my thoughts.

Sensitivity To Touch

Lately there has been a good-looking man who touches my hand for professional reasons. Let us say that he is a violin teacher or an occupational therapist or something like that.

He does not just touch my hand, he holds my wrist and moves my fingers. Do you remember the scene in “The Age of Innocence” where the main character and the countess are in the back of a carriage and he unbuttons her glove and slowly peels it off? That scene sometimes is described as one of the most erotic scenes in the history of the cinema. That is how I feel when this man touches my hand even though that is not his intent. There is something about the skin to skin contact and the way he is paying careful attention to the way my hand is moving. It feels intimate even though I know it is not. Just having a man gently hold my wrist and move my fingers makes me hold my breath.

Excuse Me While I Indulge In Self-Pity

Soon it will be my 35th birthday.

I will say to myself

“Today is ______’s birthday. How old is she?

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

Thirty-five years old.

And never been kissed by . . . anyone.”

Almost Beaten

I was talking once with a married friend about the upcoming birth of her first baby. My friend is fond of natural remedies and yoga and such things and she was very opposed to epidurals. She was very judgemental against women who had epidurals until her rebbetzin told her that for some women, the pain of childbirth is so great that it causes wounds not just physically but on their soul. Some women can handle it and some women finish the experience with scars on their souls that never heal fully.

When my friend said this I was a little bit skeptical of it because how can one get a scar on their soul? Everyone knows that the soul is perfect. One can have psychological scars but I was skeptical about soul scars.

It is a few years later and I have been thinking lately that maybe the rebbetzin was correct. I cannot compare my emotional and physical pain with childbirth of course because I have never had a baby and also I realize that in many ways my life is very privileged. I am one of the lucky ones.

However, the idea that a physical experience can leave spiritual scars feels real to me lately. I feel very much that the strain of denying my body for so long from something that it needs so much has left an imprint on my psyche.

I believe in God very much. I believe that He controls things that happen in the world. I believe that everything happens for a purpose if we can find meaning in them. I believe that God does not give us tests that we cannot pass.

But I no longer find meaning in my loneliness. I no longer feel better by reminding myself of all the wonderful things I have time to do because I am single. I no longer see myself as a holy servant of God who is saving Negiah and sex for her husband. I no longer believe that it is likely that I will ever get married so what am I saving anything for? I see myself not as a holy servant but as a slave, suffering under the lashes of God’s double whip of loneliness and sexual deprivation. I have passed the test so far but inside I am dying like a sick bird.

Response to comments and e-mails

I have many things to say in response to comments and the e-mails I have received.

Please in the future: Instead of calling yourself Anonymous please give yourself a pseudonym of some kind so it will be easier to differentiate between the comments. When posting click on “Other” rather than “Anonymous” in order to do it that way.

Many of the comments have been very helpful and have given me chizzuk. I appreciate all the wishes that I soon find my bashert. From your computer to G-d's ears. Thanks especially to the many women who have written here or by email to tell me they relate to my words and have also been completely S.N. for many years despite their sexual appetites. It is good to know I am not alone. It worries me that there have been so few of such comments but even if we are a small group it is good to have a sisterhood. Also I was very moved by the comments to the post about the biological clock. I hope we all find a way to be happy soon. And to the men who have been S.N. or are trying hard to be: yasher kochachem, and may Hashem give you strength as well.

Thank you also to the woman who in response to the last post about taharas hamishpacha told me that TH is easier in her experience than being S.N. Your comment that being S.N. is a "gnawing desperate hopeless hunger" showed me that you truly understand and your message gave me hope, maybe just because I am so relieved that a married person really understands. Also thank you to Rabbi’s Kid for the brachah that "you find a guy and the sex is so good that he tires you out for 10-14 days a month". Your comment made me laugh because yes that is exactly what I am hoping for! Whoever my bashert is I hope he goes to the gym often because he will need good cardiovascular health for what I have planned for him! :-)

Some of the comments are well meaning but just go to show that when Hashem was distributing the gift of logical reasoning he was more generous to some than to others. V’hamayvin yavin. I say this because I want you to know that I am not blindly following any advice that is put in the comments. In particular I think I have to say that one thing I have realized by writing this blog is that getting hugs and kisses let alone sex from a man I do not know well would not make me happy. I am too sensitive to touch now and it will be my first kiss. It will mean too much to me and certainly it would mean more to me than it does to him if he has not also always been S.N. The goal is to find a relationship not to stop being S.N. with someone who does not really care about me. My threshhold of how long we have to be dating may be lower than it used to be perhaps but I still have some standards.

To all the people who have written to offer to set me up or have asked me out yourselves: I will think about each offer and see what I decide. There may be cases where I never contact you but please do not take it personally. There are many reasons that I might not contact you which I cannot explain for reasons of anonymity. For example one person wrote offering to set me up with a man who I already know.

To the man who sent me an email warning me that there are men who might try to take advantage of the vulnerability I express here on the blog, and try to weasel their way into dating me in order to take advantage of my sexual frustration and emotional vulnerability: Thank you very much for your concern and your warning. It is one reason I am being especially careful about which emails I respond to. If I do date anyone I have met directly or indirectly through this blog somehow I will have all my alert systems on!

Speaking of alert systems: To the person who wrote to me with twisted “halachic” reasons that premarital sex is preferable to being shomer negiah and suggesting that I become a pilegesh (concubine) – you are a sick and vile person. Go prey on someone who might fall for it because I certainly will not. You are a vile snake.

Yes I am very happy to date baalei teshuva.

No I did not attend Bais Yaakov. Far from it.

There Is A Spectrum

I am surprised by how many men are surprised by how much I think about and look forward to sex. Unless of course it is the same man writing many anonymous comments. Anyway why should it be hard to understand that there is a spectrum of human sexuality? Some women who are S.N. are petrified of sex for one reason or another, some do not mind the idea of sex but do not particularly look forward to it, some look forward to it but the lack of it does not bother them too much and some like me are so bothered by the lack that I sometimes cannot function and think about little else. All those feelings are normal and are only a problem if the woman is unhappy about feeling that way. For example I am unhappy because I apparently have a huge “sexual appetite” as one reader aptly put it but am living the life of “who is a strong person? She who overcomes her desires.” Thus this blog and meetings with a psychiatrist. If a woman who does not look forward to having sex wishes that she did then that would be something to discuss with her doctor or a therapist. Similarly married women have different outlooks about sex as I am sure many of the married men who read this blog can attest to. Some are more “into” it than others and if the man and woman have very different sexual appetites then that is something they have to work on in their relationship.

You should know also that even within one person a person’s sexual appetite might grow stronger or weaker depending on the day or week or month regardless of whether they are married or S.N. or not. Even I have had times when I did not shall we say use my vibrators for a few weeks because I was depressed or under a lot of stress. If I am feeling depressed or under stress then sometimes my attempts with the vibrator are shall we say unsuccessful and I feel like a cold fish. I know that happens in the context of marriages too. It is part of life whether you are single or married and the difference is only whether another person is affected by it.

Irrational Outburst

One or two comments people have left are to the affect that “at least being Shomer Negiah is good practice for keeping the laws of Niddah.”

That comment made me so unexpectedly angry that it took all my self-control (of which I clearly have perhaps too much) not to create havoc in my apartment by breaking everything in sight and screaming until I am hoarse (the primal scream!)

What I have to say about this is not an intellectual discourse about hilchos niddah or our obligation to keep it. I know what the halachos are and I know what I am supposed to say about them. But this is how I really feel just now:

After not being hugged or kissed or even having my hand held for 34 years, anyone who thinks I will give them up for any time after I am married has another think coming. That includes G-d. If He wanted me to spend half my married life not being touched He should have made me get married at least a few years ago when I would not have minded so much. I am at the end of my rope I tell you. I am finished with being pure. I am done with being Good and Holy. You can forget it.

I can agree to refrain from sexual intercourse for half of my married life if I ever have a married life and I can agree to go to the mikvah so that when we have sex it will be “kosher.” But most of you people- you have gotten thousands of hugs and thousands of kisses either before or after you got married or both. How often have you cried yourself to sleep because no one has ever caressed your cheek? Have you ever gone for 34 years without being kissed? The thought of keeping all those harchakos and not being touched half the time even after I get married makes me enraged. Any obligation I used to feel to keep those halachos has been wrung out of me and what is left of me has been left to dry in a private hell of loneliness and sexual deprivation. My spirit is broken. Damn it, if I ever get married I will get all the hugs and kisses to make up for lost time even if I cannot always have sex, and if God does not like it then He is the one who can go to hell.

The only people who can legitimately give me chizzuk about keeping all the halachos of taharas hamishpacha are people who were never ever kissed until they got married at least at the age of 35 (it will be my birthday soon. 34 will come and go and I will still be “never been kissed.”) If you got married when you were 23 and now want to tell me that even after I am married I should “be strong” and “do the right thing” then just shut up. Tell it to the juniors at Stern College not to me. I am broken. The only thing stopping me sometimes from doing something drastic to hurt myself physically or emotionally is the teeny tiny hope that perhaps I will get married after all someday. But give up being touched even after that? No way. You may as well tell a marathon runner “congratulations you have reached the finish line. But no water here. You have to run another 26 miles for that.” Forget it.

Update: Already I am not sure how I feel about what I wrote in this post. It is a big struggle and a terrible question for me. I want to have a marriage with kedusha but when I think about effectively being shomer negiah half the time even after I am married I feel dead inside like God has taken something away and I am not myself anymore just an empty shell.

I don't know.

More on My Fault?

In response to people who asked: No I have never had any major psychological trauma at least not any worse than most people. To be more specific my parents are still happily (most of the time) married to each other and I have never been physically or sexually abused. Sexually deprived but not abused! My family has their issues but so does everyone. I have issues and some baggage obviously but I am at least as well-adjusted as most of the married people I know or at least I was until recently. It is only recently that I have become this bitter and hopeless about my situation. For most of my dating years I was more psychologically healthy about it. Like I said I have been on anti-depressants for a long time now though but it is hard to say whether I am alone because I am depressed or whether I got depressed because I have been alone and sexually deprived for so long.

What is my problem? My weight? That I am not immediately exciting enough? I promise that on dates I smile, ask the man questions about himself and listen to the answers, and when he askes me questions I answer fully but not forever. I avoid talking about unpleasant topics and although it takes me a little while to “open up” I am a pretty decent person in a conversation. I have hobbies and a pretty interesting job and things I do in the community and so I have some interesting things to talk about though I must admit I cannot regale my dates with tales of bungee jumping or hiking in the Himalayas. I do not wear perfume but I promise I shower and put on deoderant and some makeup before dates (but not too much makeup). I wear clothes that are modest but tailored and look nice on me.

I do not know. I try to be myself but for most men it is not good enough. They want some sort of instant feeling that I am the One without spending time to build a real relationship. The worst is when a man who is overweight and short and bald does not want a second date with me because I am not thin enough. I do not even know what to say to that. I do not know what they think they will find out there.

My Biological Clock

There has been some comments on this blog and others to the affect that “if she does not hurry up she will not be able to have children anymore!” Some commenters mean “you better hurry and marry someone, anyone,” and others mean “you better hurry and get pregnant with someone, anyone.” I have a few things to say to this.

First of all I am not an ignoramus. Do you think I do not know that the “biological clock” is ticking? Do you not think that I already think about this all the time? I get enough warnings about this from my mother (oh boy I could write a whole blog just about her) without also hearing it from an anonymous commenter who calls himself Shleppy. I am not like some women who decided to focus on her career in her twenties and put off getting married on purpose. I have been trying to get married and then have a family for more than 14 years.

Second, what do you mean “find someone, anyone?” No one can tell me that I am too picky. Most of the time I am willing to date someone a second or third time even if I think they are boring or unattractive, because I am willing to get to know someone and give them a chance. It is rare however that a man will extend to me the same courtesy. Many of these times I do not care because I was not terribly thrilled about them either but I am very rarely the one to say that it is over.

Perhaps you would prefer that I had married the man for whom I felt nothing even after dating him for three months? Do you think that would have been a good marriage? Or the man with the gambling problem? The father of my children should be a gambling addict? Do you truly think I would be happy now if I had married him?

So I do not understand what people want me to do to find “someone, anyone” to marry or have a baby with. What, I should stand on a street corner with a sign that says “Please Impregnate Me?”

Third and most important is this: You do not have to be Orthodox to decide being a single mother is not something one wants to do if she has a choice on the matter. I have thought about this very much. These days even a single Orthodox woman has the option to adopt or have artificial insemination if she lives in an open-minded community and is independent enough. But I do not think that I am emotionally or financially able to raise a baby by myself. I work full time just to take care of myself. Who would watch the baby? I cannot afford to buy a baby everything it needs let alone pay someone to take care of it while I am at work. If I got very sick or something happened to me what would happen to the baby? Also that is besides the emotional commitment of taking care of a baby who cries at night and needs new diapers and a lot of attention and nutritious food and never getting a break because I have no husband. Believe me I watch my friends who have babies and even with a husband to do some of the tasks they go crazy, so I can not imagine what I would do if I was all alone trying to raise a child.

Nevertheless since I have a choice about it if I am still single in a few years I would like to adopt a child if I can afford it and if I have a support system to care for the child if I get sick or something happens to me. I do not want to be artificially inseminated even though the idea of never being pregnant and having my own baby makes me very sad. I cannot imagine myself bringing a new baby into the world who would have no father when there are so many babies with no parent at all who need a home. What I might have to offer a child is not as good as having two parents but it is better than living in an orphanage.

Since adopting will be as much an option in a few years as it is now I am not in a rush, am I? Except to save money for it.

And also except that my ideal is still to get married for many reasons: emotional companionship, sex of course, and also to have babies. For all three of those reasons I want to get married as soon as possible. For all those reasons I have been trying to get married for a decade and a half. But I have tried everything and do not know what more I can do. I try to stay strong and not get bitter and unhappy because certainly that is also a turnoff for men and not a nice way to live. But I cannot help it. Most of the time I feel that it is hopeless. I cry a lot, especially at night.

My fault?

There has been some curiosity about my dating history, I think because people want to be able to judge whether my loneliness is my own fault. I am going to tell you about my dating history so you can judge for yourself. I think that yes I have made some mistakes along the way but I hope you will agree that it is mostly just a matter of how things have turned out. It is a brutal world and sometimes no matter how frum and nice and serious about getting married someone is they still do not get what they want.

In college I dated someone for a few months (in my circles, people usually get engaged after a few months). We considered getting married. We felt very connected and there was a lot of chemistry. We were S.N. the whole time purely for halacha. I was very attracted to him. We were both very frum. It was hard but neither of us even considered being not-SN. We were young and very frum. Being S.N. did not feel like a burden. It felt religious and spiritual and like an interesting challenge. However there was a lifestyle change he wanted me to make that I did not want to commit to and we broke up. If I knew then what I know now I would have married him (he is now married with five children). He was a good man and I should have compromised more. 14 years later the lifestyle change he wanted me to make is something I would not mind but when I was younger I thought it would make me feel trapped. I did not know then what I know now. I was very young.

Then I had a boyfriend whose commitment to being S.N. was probably not so strong but he never pressured me which was very nice of him. I was very attracted to him but managed to stay strong. It was harder because being S.N. was more important to me than to him but still it felt like the religious and right thing to do. There were some problems in our relationship but I thought they were minor and that we could work them out. I guess he did not think so though because he broke up with me on the basis of those problems. If we had stayed together even two more weeks I probably would have offered to be not-S.N. anymore but he broke up with me before I made that decision.

When I was 24 I dated an Orthodox rabbi for about two months (which for me and an Orthdox rabbi is a long time). It was very intense. We spent a lot of time together. I certainly would have liked a physical relationship with him but of course it was out of the question. We hardly mentioned it but of course I fantasized about him. After two months he broke up with me without being able to tell me why. I was very confused and hurt. It was another eight years though until he got married so maybe he just was not ready.

In my mid-twenties I developed a medical condition which is not obvious to dates and does not effect my dating directly but one of the results of it is that I gained enough weight that it was noticable. I am not obese just not as slender as my friends. I am dealing with it as well as I can. Still as you will see I have had boyfriends even after I was no longer my previous slender self. I still like my body usually and am comfortable with it as you can see from other things I have written on this blog, and I think that self-awareness comes through for men who are in tune to it which most Orthodox men are not. I think baalei teshuva sense it more.

But anyway on with the story. When I was 26 I dated a man for three months who I think wanted to marry me very much. By then I knew how precious it was to have a man who treats me so well (I do not mean that in a material way I mean that he was attentive and caring which most men were not) because most of my dates were real duds and also I was noticing a difference in how many dates I got with a man even when I liked him, maybe because of my weight and maybe because I was getting older (my friends had a similar experience and they are slender so it is hard to tell). He was very good to me and I appreciated that and so I stayed with him for three months even though I was not attracted to him at all. I do not know whether he was S.N. himself or whether he was being S.N. to be considerate to me. The question of breaking halacha with him never occured to me because there was no physical chemistry at all. But he was a nice man so I gave it a college try and hoped that I would become attracted to him as I got to know him better. If anyone accuses me of being too picky and not trying to make things work I will kill them! But after three months I knew I could never love him so I broke it off.

In my late twenties I dated someone for a couple of months which again for someone as frum as me is a pretty respectable amount of time. I was very attracted to him. We were both very frum but by then we were older and I was starting to feel that I would be willing to be not-S.N. much earlier in a relationship. He had a wonderful sense of humor and was very attentive to me but of course I wanted to wait a little while just to be sure that there was really a connection between us. The first month we were together was again very intense and after just 3 or 4 weeks I probably would have broached the subject of being not-S.N. except for one problem. I was starting to suspect that he had a hidden problem. There were things he did and said that were very strange. I started paying more attention and asking questions and discovered that he was a little overfond of gambling. Because I liked him so much I stayed with him for a month after that but was more guarded and careful and spoke with rabbis and psychologists about what this issue might mean in the future. Finally I broke up with him because maybe I have never been kissed but I am not stupid.

I know that you will tell me that if I lose weight I will increase my chances but if you think that being Shomer Negiah is hard I could write a whole other blog about my efforts to lose weight. Please do not give me advice about that because I have heard it all before. It is between me and my doctors.

My friends who are still as skinny as I used to be also have trouble finding men to date and they tell me that the shadchanim tell them also that there are not enough men and they are also miserable so I know it is not just me but I think that my weight puts me at the bottom of the list now. One shadchan told me that she will only set me up with men who are also overweight because if she sets up overweight women with men who are fit then the men do not come back to her (I stopped using her services after that. Is it just me or is she perpetuating a problem?) It is very frustrating because if only the shadchanim and the men knew how sexual I am then maybe my being “a little more to hold” would bother them less but I cannot tell a man “I may not be a size four but it is worthwhile to marry me because I will make sure the sex is fantastic.” That is not something you can say on a shidduch date and if they will not give me a chance for a relationship then how are they supposed to find out that if they marry me I would enthusiastically do whatever they want me to do to them? I cannot say that on a shidduch date.

I know I am not perfect and I have my issues and have made my mistakes but there is not anything so bad about me that I do not deserve to be married. Also there is no logical reason for my single friends to be still single. They are beautiful, slender, smart, generous and will make excellent wives and mothers. I do not understand what is happening.

A Few Different Things

I think this blog will continue for another few days and then be done. I have a few more posts to write and some responses to comments and then I will have said everything I have to say on this topic. My points will have been more than thoroughly made.

Thank you to the people who have emailed me already telling me about the similar issues you face even when it is not exactly like my story. I wish we could all find more happiness but it is good to know that we feel empathy for each other.

I have seen on other blogs that some people are saying that I am self-obsessed. Well of course I am self-obsessed on this blog because it is a blog about me and my problem. I do not go around all day talking to my co-workers or friends about my problems. However when someone offers criticism it is wise to consider if maybe it is true. Maybe my critics are correct. I will think about that.

Thank you to all the people who have offered to set me up on dates. At this point given how personal this blog has been I am more concerned about protecting my anonymity. For you to set me up I would have to tell you my name and where I live and more about me and it would be strange to have a stranger know who I am and also know the personal things I have written here about myself. I appreciate your offers and sincerely wish I could take them but it would be compromising myself too much. However if you know a nice, sincerely religious Jewish man there are certainly many nice religious women like me to set him up with. It is not so hard to find us if you try and who knows, maybe the woman you set him up with will be me after all.

Free will

I do not understand it. Some of you are saying I am a tzadekes and an inspiration when I am blogging about wishing I had an emotionally satisfying way to break this halacha and am thinking about starting to date non-Orthodox men! I do not understand that. Certainly there were times in my twenties that I almost broke the halacha with my boyfriends and would have if we would have gone out longer. If I am a tzadekes it is only because I have not had a lengthy enough relationship to have much of an opportunity to be otherwise. With some of my boyfriends, if we would have gone out a few more weeks then probably I would not have been S.N. with them anymore. The only halachic choice I have made is in dating men who were Orthodox and not getting into physical relationships too quickly. After that my story is one of happenstance not holiness.

Perhaps the other small impressive thing is just that it has taken me this long to start falling apart emotionally because of the long-term sexual deprivation. That is a point of my blog: that different people may get to the point at different times but it is understandable if eventually a single person decides they are not strong enough to keep this halacha. I do not think I am any religiously better than an otherwise Torah-committed woman who is 24, ten years younger than me, who decides with some feelings of religious guilt to make out with her boyfriend or even have sex. How can I judge her for that when I know that if she denies herself she may end up like me, fantasizing about suicide and drowning her pain in Zoloft?

Yes it is true that by succumbing she is breaking the halacha and we are obligated to keep halacha, and also she is taking different emotional risks and may also end up unhappy about it. She may also feel very guilty. But we have free will to sin or not sin. I cannot judge such a woman for taking her chance to quench her physical needs, even if it is only a temporary solution. Only God can do that and personally I think God is more merciful than some other people make Him out to be. I would encourage her to think carefully about why she is doing it, and how much does she trust the man, and to consider how she will feel if they break up and to try to do the Jewish thing instead, but if she cannot, I would not blame her or think she is any less Orthodox than me (assuming she believes that being S.N. is the halacha and that she should be following it even if it is too hard for her at that time).

If she succumbs to temptation she is taking an emotional and spiritual risk and if she does not she is taking a physiological risk. I have made my choices about which risks to take in the circumstances which I have had and do not truly regret them as much as it may seem. But I cannot blame others for choosing a different set of risks. Every Orthodox person has some halachot that are too hard for them or that they just ignore or where the emotional costs demotivate the person from keeping the halacha even though they know they should keep it. We all have different challenges. Let he who is 34 and never been kissed cast the first stone.

Hypocrisy

At first I resented the comments of people who said “come on, just stop being Shomer Negiah. How ridiculously religious can you be?” because if they were saying “just stop” then obviously they did not read my blog carefully and did not understand how complicated this all is for me. With whom do they think I should be not-S.N.? A random man on the street? But after thinking about it I understand the comment better because frankly deep down I have the same attitude about Orthodox men who do not pleasure themselves. The idea that there are men who do not even – you know – leaves me speechless and a little angry. “God will understand” I want to tell them. Just go ahead and do it. Have some joy in your life. Do not let religion ruin your life and your happiness. All the things that people are saying to me about negiah, see? But now I stop to think about it I realize that it is just my way of putting them down to make myself seem better. I know that I would never have the strength to do what they do and it is easier to pressure them to sin or decide there must be something psychologically wrong with them than to admit that I am more dependent on self-pleasure than they are or that I do not have as much self-control or dedication to halacha as they do. We all do that I suppose. But it is not nice.

Exercise

On this blog and others people have suggested exercise as a way of relieving sexual tension. This is in fact a very good idea though for me it is better at preventing tension than relieving it. When I come home from the gym I do not miss sex as much as I do when I have not been exercising. For the readers who “relate” to my problem I highly recommend it.

The man from Indiana

This non-Jewish man from Indiana who works on my floor, I cannot tell you how painful it is to work on the same floor with him. Sometimes when I am supposed to be working I am really thinking about what I would like to do with him on one of our desks after everyone else has gone home.

Emailing me

Some commenters have asked for an email address for me. I have set up this address: shomernegiah@yahoo.com

The problem with email is that if I send an email to a reader then you will be able to see my IP address which will tell you where I live. So you can email me at that address if you do not want to post a comment on the blog but I will not respond to it. I will only read it. I am sorry.

The Real Problem

I have noticed in the comments of some other blogs that linked to this one that some people are angry on my behalf. They wonder if being Shomer Negiah is what Judaism is “about” and pointed out that our religion is not meant to be ascetic. We do not have nuns in Judaism which is basically what I have become. Actually I feel not so much like a nun and more like a virgin sacrifice on the alter of “the singles crisis.”

You see I am not as angry at the requirement to be S.N. as I am at the fact that I am not married. I do believe that being S.N. makes sense especially in a person’s teenage years and their early twenties if they are still single then. Maybe later too. I agree very much with the commenter who said that I would not want a relationship with a man who was staying with me in order to get the physical benefits. When I look back at the men I have dated, none of whom I guess were for me since we did not stay together - I am glad that at least I did not make myself even more vulnerable to them than I did. In the relationships that I had we made decisions based on emotional and intellectual clarity not physical passion. I think that is a good way.

The trouble is not being S.N. it is what happens when a person is S.N. and then they do not get married for a very long time. It is true that in Judaism we are meant to be sexual people, we are not meant to be nuns or ascetics. That is because we are meant to be married.

I am not angry at the Torah for telling me that I should not hug or kiss men outside my family until I get married. It is a good way and I will stay strong for as long as I can. If I ever do have a meaningful relationship I will surely talk with the man about this at the appropriate time and we will make decisions together about what kind of relationship we want. Now I think about it I think deep down I really would like to stay S.N. until I get married if I can. If I was in a relationship where the question was even practical I would just be so happy to have reached that point of emotional intimacy. It has been a long time. For many years I have been S.N. by default as I explained in my first post. Perhaps truly it is the emotional closeness I crave even more than the physical closeness.

I am though angry at the teachers, rabbis, friends, and book authors who led me to believe when I was young that if I conducted myself as a holy Nice Jewish Girl surely a Nice Jewish Boy would be attracted to my modest, holy ways and marry me and build a bayis ne’eman b’yisroel with me. I am sure that no one ever promised that outright, I am sure they just said Be Good because that is the law and the way to be a servant of Hashem. The assumption was there though: Be Good, and soon you will have a husband and a beautiful, spiritual Jewish home and children and a sexual relationship with your husband where neither of you compares the other to past partners because neither of you has had any.

No one ever said Be Good, and if a half-decent man shows interest in you then take him no matter what because after you are 26 or 27 it will become much harder to get dates. They never said Be Good, even though it might mean that you will be a virgin until you die. They did not tell me that I might still be single when I am 34 no matter how Good and Nice I am. Definitely they did not tell me that the Nice Jewish Boys would be busy making out with or having sex with other women while I focused on being a servant of Hashem.

I committed myself to a system with the understanding that it would lead to a certain kind of life. I paid dearly for my ticket but long ago the ship left without me.

Now I am 34 and have never been kissed. I cannot go back. I could not undo the life I have had even if I could think of exactly what I would change. I am 34 and I still want the Nice Jewish Boy and the spiritual companionship and home and the children but I am afraid I will never get those things now barring a miracle. Meanwhile in addition to lacking emotional intimacy I have also denied myself from a physical need. Yet if I fill that need with someone who is not offering emotional intimacy as well I know I will feel used and miserable. The problem is not that I have never been kissed. The problem is that I do not have anyone to kiss.

Who do I touch

In response to comments I have seen on other blogs I want to emphasize that I do have physical contact with other people sometimes. I get hugs from people in my family, both male and female. I have nieces and nephews and we cuddle and kiss and play. As I wrote in my first post there are times in my professional work that I touch other people including men.

The topic of this blog is my lack of sexual or romantic contact with other people.

Also it is true that if I do not see my family for a while then sometimes many days pass without touching other people. That is very lonely.

Physical necessities

Many years ago in high school I heard Judge Daniel Butler of Pittsburgh speak at an event about someone in his family who was an American soldier who liberated a Nazi concentration camp at the end of World War II. The concentration camp had many children who had survived but they were sick and hungry. The soldiers started giving out food to them and the children made a line to receive the food.

Judge Butler’s relative noticed a child lying on the ground too weak to stand up. The child was dying. The soldier did not know what to do so he bent down and held the child and rocked him.

One by one the other children left the food line and lined up in front of this soldier to get hugs instead.

I would never dare to compare my situation to the one of those children but I know that I would gladly give up food for a long time to have a kind, intelligent, handsome, religious man put his arms around me and stroke my hair and tell me that he loves me.

Options

What pleases me about most of the comments which other people have left here is that almost everyone is trying to help me. Though, I wish I could confront in person the person who said that vibrators raise expectations too much. Did that person read my blog? I have a choice between shall we say “relieving the tension” myself or committing suicide. That commenter is a self righteous person and I will not write the other names I mentally have for him.

However most of the commenters seem to be nice people who are trying to help me but are missing the mark so I will explain something. Many of you have suggested that I find a middle ground between being S.N. and having sex. If I understand you correctly you are suggesting that I stop being S.N. and get hugs and cuddles from my next boyfriend so that at least I will have some physical contact with another person.

That is a nice suggestion but it supposes that soon I will have a man in my life with whom that is an option. Perhaps you do not understand what it means to be 34 and a single Orthodox woman. It is like applying for a good job and you find out that there are 25 other applicants just as qualified as you are. Everywhere I look are wonderful Orthodox women, and not enough men. The shadchanim say not just to me but also to my friends “I will put you on my list but there are not enough men so it may be a long time before I set you up.” My married friends say “I am sorry, ________, but I cannot think of anyone for you nor for any of our other single woman friends.” Sometimes they say that they know a few men but the men are too picky or do not seem interested in a meaningful relationship and also there is the problem that my friends and I are socially adapted and sometimes the men are not. The local shidduch club announced that they no longer accept profiles of women, only men. I go to singles events and the men are outnumbered 2 to 1 or 3 to 1. The men on dating websites who are my age want a younger woman who will be able to have more children, and the men 10 years older than I am also want a younger woman who will be able to have more children. At least that is what some of them tell me in their responses to my emails if they respond at all. The ones who write to me first usually are in their fifties.

Still I persevere. For the last few years I had about 2 or 3 new dates per year. Usually after one or two dates with a man if he is anywhere close to what I am looking for I am willing to continue dating even if there are many differences between us because I am willing to try to make something work - but always the men move on to the next person on their list. The last time I had what could be called a boyfriend was when I was 27. More about my previous boyfriends in a later post perhaps.

To be happy I need a way I think to explain my life to myself so that I can feel shalem (whole) about it. Yes I might get married or at least have a nice relationship for a while but I cannot count on it. I need to find a way to say “Even if I die a virgin, the story of my life is still a happy story.” At the moment I do not feel that. When I look ahead at a lifetime of being alone, I wonder why God put me here, and why He would be so cruel as to put me in a community that values marital sex so much when He knew I might never have it.

My other option I think is to start dating men who are not Orthodox at all and have no plans to be. The idea scares me a little bit because of course they would expect physical contact right away and I am not used to that. I do not know how I would tell them that I want to wait at least a few dates before touching, and I want to wait until I get married to have sex. I suppose if the man were sensitive enough I would be able to tell him and maybe he would walk away or maybe not. The bigger issue is that I want to have a Shomer Shabbos home. I want to raise my children if I ever have any to believe that Torah and mitzvos are important. I do not want to be married to someone who does not really believe in Torah. I do not need a man who is exactly religiously like me but being Orthodox is a very big lifestyle commitment. How could I be with someone who does not share it at least in some minimal way? How can a Shomer Negiah girl date someone who is not even Orthodox? Even if I decided to try I am not sure how I would go about doing such a thing.

Fear

All the time, I am afraid of being raped. Imagine if my only experience with sex ever in my life was a violent one. Imagine if after “saving myself” for 34 years for someone who loves me enough to marry me if I was violated by someone who was just helping himself. I think they would have to institutionalize me. Always, I am careful of where I park my car and where I walk alone at night. Always, I am aware of where my drinks have been and never get into an empty elevator in a building which might have a closed floor. Always, when I come home, I have my key ready and am aware if a strange person is following me into the building. When I stay in a hotel I never walk to my room if a stranger is behind me. It is a little bit obsessive I think. When your virginity is all you have, you guard it carefully.

What will be the reality?

I wrote that women I know who have been not-S.N. in some of their relationships seem more comfortable than I am in their sexuality (which was refuted by some commenters). You might say: but Nice Jewish Girl, I thought you said you have owned three vibrators! You must be very comfortable.

The difference is that everything I know about my own sexuality is based on fantasy and on conjecture. I know how my body responds to various stimuli but I do not know how it would respond when you mix in a real man and emotions and not knowing yet what he likes and him not knowing yet what I like.

Yes I think about sex all the time. Yes I know how to relieve the tension, as it were. But I have a fear that I will get married and discover that I am bad in bed, or that I just do not enjoy it, or that my husband has some kind of sexual issue that has to be overcome or that I do. What if truly I do not like it? What if I am bad at it? The question haunts me and causes me a lot of pain. I hurt for not being able to find out either way. I hurt for not being able to get on with my life.

Nice Company

Thank you to all the nice bloggers who linked to my site, especially to Renegade Rebbetzin, Bloghead, and most especially to Esther for saying I am Jewlicious. Being called Jewlicious moved me very much. Lately I have been feeling that my commitment all these years to being Shomer Negiah has been pathetic rather than holy. Esther reminded me that I have been strong, in ways apparently which most people are not. I had forgotten.

Thank you to everyone who left comments on my posts. Even though there is nothing that anyone can do to change my situation (other than introduce me to my bashert) it is nice to know that there are sympathetic people reading my words.

I was worried that when I start getting comments they would be something like “This is why I hate Orthodoxy” or “Come on just get out there and have sex already” or perhaps “You should say more tehillim to stop yourself from having lurid thoughts.” I am so very happy that this has not been the case. Almost everyone has been thoughtful and kind. Thank you.

I have already written the next few posts, I wrote them before I saw the comments that have already been written. I worry that it will seem like I am just complaining. How many ways are there to say that being Shomer Negiah is difficult and lonely? Then again I think it is important to express this. It is important for teachers in Jewish schools to understand. It is important for me to have a means of expression and it is important for other Shomer Negiah people who might be reading this to know they are not alone. It is important for me to know I am not alone.

What would I tell my daughter?

If I ever have a daughter, what will I tell her about being Shomer Negiah? What will I try to encourage her to do or not do? I know what I should say. I know that since I actually have kept this very difficult halacha for many years that I can be a role model, I can say “it can be done, it is hard, but be strong because you can do it.” But. But. But. But can I honestly say “it is worth it”? Maybe until you are 23 or 24. Yes, when you are young it is worth it. It saves you from a lot of pain. And of course it is the halacha. Young people in Shomer Negiah relationships often truly feel a lot of holiness for it and that is very important and nice. But to be S.N. until you are 34 is too much. It is too hard. The price is too high.

If I could turn back time

I have been thinking about my last post from Tuesday . . .

What is more important for me to discuss with a rabbi is my mixed feelings about the fact that I have been S.N. all this time. I wrote in my first post that I do not regret it. I know women who were physically intimate with their boyfriends to one degree or another, and afterwards when they broke up the fact that they had done that did not help them and in many cases made them feel worse. But. But. But. But they have more confidence in their femininity, I think. The ones who have been not-S.N. with serious boyfriends seem more comfortable with their sexuality. I am not talking about women who did anything that made them feel cheap, rather women who did things with men that were in proportion to how well they knew the men, and how long they had been dating, and how well the men treated them.

I wonder whether it might have been better for me to go ahead and for example “make out” with some of my boyfriends when I thought I had a chance. This was years ago. Would it make a difference in how I feel about myself? If so for better or for worse?

Needing divine intervention

I sometimes consider going to a rabbi to talk about my problem. I would like to think and hope that a rabbi will have some spiritual guidance to give that would help me. But what could he say? He would not tell me that I have waited enough and it is alright for me to sleep with someone I hardly know. He would not tell me that I could date non-religious Jews or non-Jews in order to increase my dating pool. And there is nothing he could say that would make me feel better about being not just a virgin but never even kissed at 34. The best I could hope for is reassurance that if I am not S.N. in my next relationship, that it is understandable and God will not judge me harshly for it. But even that is irrelevent if I am not seeing anyone. I do not need a rabbi. What I need is more dates. I need a boyfriend. I need a shadchan, and I need a miracle.

She is not me

I am worried that some people might read my blog and think about some woman they know who is Shomer Negiah and smirk inside thinking “inside she just thinks about sex all the time and really needs to get laid.”

So I wish to emphasize that yes I am Shomer Negiah and I am sexually deprived but I am many other things also. Being S.N. does not define who I am. It does define this blog but not me. I have a job, talents, friends, spiritual and personal aspirations. I am worthy of dignity and respect.

I write about the not-dignified things here because I have nowhere else to go. Even with girlfriends, how much time can we spend talking about dating? And also, some of them really are more prudish when it comes to talking about negiah or more especially about sex. Some of them do not want to think about it or admit that they want it. Maybe they just do not want to think about what they are missing or perhaps they are truly frigid in some way. I am not sure. I just know that there are not so many people in the non-virtual world who I can tell about how trapped I feel.

When you meet a frum lady in your community who is single, please do not smirk inside about what she “must be thinking.” You do not know what she is thinking. She is someone else, not me, (probably.). Probably she deserves better than for you to be lewd in how you think about her just because of what you read on another woman’s (my) blog. That is all I have to say.

So Close Yet So Far

There is a man I think about. He is a friend of my friend so I see him sometimes. He is exactly the physical type I am attracted to. He is devastatingly attractive in my eyes.

He is not religious enough for me. He does not keep Shabbos. He does not keep kosher. He certainly is not S.N. He is just a friendly, handsome, Jewish man. I wish I could date him but I cannot or at least that is what I am trying to remember. If he said he wanted to date me, I do not know what I would do. I could not marry him.

We joke around. We make small talk. Then we say goodbye and I do not see him for a few weeks.

He does not know that every time we are talking, I am thinking about what he would look like with his shirt off, and his wrists crossed over his head, handcuffed to my bedpost.

When I see him it is like someone waving a hot meal under the nose of a starving person, and then taking it away. Would it be better never to see him or other men I am attracted to, if for one reason or another I cannot date them? At least when I see them and think my thoughts, I am remembering that I am a woman.

No Good Choices

I go to work and all day I think about sex. Well OK not all day, just whenever my mind is not occupied with something else. If I thought about Torah half as much as I think about sex . . . I don’t know. I would know a lot of Torah I suppose. When I meet an attractive man I think only about what it would feel like to have my hands in his hair. I have no coherent thoughts when a handsome man is nearby. I particularly am taken by a man who works on my floor who is so very attractive. When he walks by I can feel my body temperature rise by several degrees, but of course I say nothing because what can I say? He is not even Jewish. He is a WASP from Indiana.

Sometimes it is not about sex I fantasize about but rather about affection, and I fantasize about holding a man’s hand when I am walking around outside. I will go places for Shabbos and secretly envision a man who loves me sitting next to me at the Shabbos table. I just want him to be there.

A close girlfriend once said to me “_______, you need to get laid.” She meant it half mockingly and half seriously. It is true that I am so wound up . . . what was that line in Ferris Bueller? . . . well, anyway, I am very wound up. But it is like that song, “I can’t get no satisfaction”. What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to go offer myself to a man I hardly know? I want to be caressed and I want to be held tight and I want to be made love to, but I do not want to be cheap.

I want to be in a good relationship and then maybe, if the man feels similar about being Shomer Negiah as I do - get the caresses and the hugs. I want to get married and then have sex. What if that never happens? What if it happens when I am 50 and meanwhile I have wasted all the years of being young? As I already have? I have no good choices. I am trapped.