M

y stomach drops as I look at the computer screen. It’s my first time signing up for a frum dating site and I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the information there is to fill out. My background, lifestyle, interests, references, descriptions of myself, what I’m looking for in a marriage partner. I’m studying to be a writer; why is writing about myself so hard?

I’m twenty four and I’ve been frum for five years. It all started during Freshman year, when I dropped by Chabad’s pizza and parshah classes, held during lunch hour at Brooklyn College. I came for the pizza, but I was blown away by the depth and intellectual rigor I never knew Judaism contained. I wanted to learn more, so I got involved with Partners in Torah and started learning with Penina, a frum-from-birth fellow college student. I didn’t have a set destination in mind; I was certainly not planning to become Orthodox. But as we learned together, week after week, year after year, I found myself taking on mitzvah after mitzvah, until I woke up one day fully observant.

All these thoughts flash through my mind as I fill out my dating profile. The site wants to know my hashkafah, and it lists the options in a drop-down box. There are so many terms! Am I Traditional? Shomer Mitzvot? Modern Orthodox Liberal? Centrist Orthodox? Modern Orthodox Machmir? Modern Yeshivish? Yeshivish? Chassidic? I just try to do the mitzvos. What does that make me?

I listen to English music, but don’t watch TV. I dress tzniyusdig, but read secular novels. I stare at the screen in front of me, my mouse hovering over the labels. I click on Modern Orthodox Liberal, then Modern Orthodox Machmir, then Modern Orthodox Liberal before pressing submit. Then I wipe the sweat that’s dripping down my forehead. I hope I made the right decision. I honestly don’t know what I am.

The site matches me with Dovid, and sure enough he asks me about my hashkafah over email.

“How would you describe yourself?" he writes.

“I feel like I’m between liberal and machmir. Maybe 'Libmir?' That’s a term I just made up,” I write back jokingly.

“Do you plan to cover your hair?” he asks.

The post Finding My Way first appeared on Mishpacha Magazine.