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The following letter is from a friend of a single young woman. The woman wants to help her single friend but doesn’t know how, because, in her opinion (and in others’), it’s her friend’s personality that will chase off the young men she will date. How can you tell someone that her personality is off-putting or annoying? In instances such as these, I feel that you can do your best; but unless the person admits that there may be an issue, there isn’t much you can do. Only arguments and rifts in friendships can result in telling a friend that he/she doesn’t have any social etiquette and comes across way too strong. Like it or not, in these types of situations, you have to be the parent letting the child fall while learning to ride a two-wheeler. They need to figure things out for themselves, and the hard way may be the only way for them to do it. But then again, the single friend doesn’t think that her personality or anything else about her needs tweaking. Don’t worry, dear friends: She too will stand under the chupah one day, b’ezras Hashem, with a chasan who may be just like her, or who accepts her for whom and what she is. I think that it is wonderful that the friend wants to help, but sometimes you just must let it go.

A couple of weeks ago I published an email from a woman who was asking the frum community in general to give her some space, not to push her back into dating after her marriage of eight years came to an end. I’m not exactly sure if she had gone through a divorce or if her husband passed away, because she wanted to keep that part private and it didn’t have anything to add to her narrative. In a nutshell, the life she dreamed of and actually lived for eight years was no more, and she needed more time to adjust to this new life and being a single parent to her son without being guilted into dating or having a nosy neighbor ask why she wasn’t dating yet.

Many may not know, but very recently I handed in my two weeks’ notice to the agency where I have worked for the last 17 years. I actually handed my notice in on my 17^th anniversary. It wasn’t planned like that, but it worked out that way.

You don’t have to be an avid reader of my column to know that I will not advise people what to do in whatever situation they are in. I may provide my opinion, I may share different points of view of the same situation, but I won’t make a decision for someone. We must be free to choose what we want, and live with whatever happens after. It’s like a parent not helping a child with a math problem or even riding a two-wheel bicycle. No parent wants his or her child to fail at something or to get hurt physically or emotionally, but children will never learn from their mistakes if they don’t make any.

This email had such an effect on me, when I read it, that I just sat back for a moment. I won’t introduce it. I will let the email speak for itself.

This is a topic that I know a little bit about: dating someone who has just gotten out of a long relationship – or whatever is considered long in the shidduch world.