dating
It’s been years since I was anywhere near the dating scene—thank God. I was terrible at it. I couldn’t put on makeup without looking like a little girl playing dress-up, and I never learned how to giggle on cue. Luckily, I married a man who hates both makeup and giggling.
All this returned to me the other evening over dinner with younger friends—bright, restless, still circling that exhausting ritual of dating. For Jews of the diaspora, the script grows more intricate: not only Do we like the same music? or Can I imagine mornings with this person? but What kind of home will we build, and where? Which part of myself must I leave behind, and which part will follow me? Love, for us, is never just two people—it’s the weight of belonging that sits quietly at the table with them.
Of course every community wrestles with this question, but for Jews it carries a different gravity. To marry “out” is not simply a matter of the heart—it is a choice our mothers warned us would echo through generations. Marry out and Hitler wins, they would tell us.
Before the dinner, one friend called to ask, shyly, “Is it alright if I bring my goyfriend?”—her non-Jewish partner. I assured her it was and silently promised myself to keep an eye on him, to make sure he felt not like an outsider but a guest.
Later, over dinner, we teased him about the title. “How does it feel,” someone asked, “to be called a goyfriend?”
He smiled—a northern smile, wide and amused. “Better than being her goy toy,” he said.
Dinner continued, the wine flowed, and our conversation circled back to the question of dating across faiths. How much do we owe to the small world of our hearts—the micro—loving someone for his kindness, his playfulness, his humor? And how much do we owe to the larger world—the macro—our people, our faith, the community that shaped us?
We talked about it for a long time, all from the Jewish side, letting the non-Jewish boyfriend drift politely through the waves of our self-pity and self-critique.
When I brought out cake, I turned to him. “How did all this feel for you?” I asked.
He grinned. “It’s fine,” he said. “That’s what you get for dating one of you Shlomo-sapience.”