Question of the Week:

I am open to being set up with girls and have been on a few blind dates. But it's going nowhere. I'm just not attracted to the girls I'm set up with. Are there no good-looking girls around?

Answer:

You remind me of an old friend of mine. A few years back we were walking down a main street in Brooklyn talking about the dating scene. He complained, "Every girl I am set up with I find unattractive."

Then he nodded towards a girl across the road and said, "Why can't someone introduce me to someone like her?"

At that moment the girl crossed the street and walked straight past us.

"Oh," my friend whispered, "I did go out with her!"

We can be so kind in our judgment of strangers on the street, while being so harsh on the person we are dating. If she doesn't knock our socks off with her dazzling beauty, then we go into ultra-critic mode, waiting to pounce on any little flaw that we can find and say, "She's not for me."

I'm sure you have had the experience of meeting someone who at first didn't seem attractive, but as their personality unfolded their beauty emerged and you became attracted. Equally, we have all met someone who at first struck you by their beauty, but as you got to know them better an ugly side of their personality surfaces, and their beauty is soured.

A person is a multi-layered being, a soul as well as a body. These layers overlap and influence each other. An inner charm can spill over into outer beauty. An attractive inside makes someone more attractive on the outside too. Allow someone to share their whole being and you may surprise yourself and find that you are deeply attracted after all.

Of course you need to be attracted to your wife. But she doesn't have to knock your socks off. (And by the way, she doesn't have to pick them up after you either). Better find someone who leaves your socks right where they are, but draws your heart closer and closer as her inner self is revealed.

View your date as a soul, not just a body. Then you will find beauty is not to be found across the street, but sitting right in front of you.

Good Shabbos,
Rabbi Moss

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