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It sounds obvious, but it isn't...
I was dating this guy and it was getting really serious, it was our third date. Okay, that was a joke. But as we are reaching our destination on the right thanks to the brilliant gps that was guiding us, he pauses.
I hate those pauses close to the end of the date.
When you just want to go already because you are so tired and you can't...
because the guy has that look.
When I say that look, you know I am talking about the sad eyes which scream out: I am sorry about what I am going to do with you now, the corners of the lips face downwards. He keeps on averting your gaze. And then as if you could not sense the world crashing around you he says in the most morbid of tones that resembles the dull sound of the bells in the darkest of funeral homes: "I have to tell you something."
It is just like the Vayhi Bimey in Biblical texts which predicts tragedy, or the scary background music in the movie which makes you understand that the hero will be shortly under attack.
So that kind of spell was bound on me and all I wanted to do was grab my purse and run for the hills. But since I had no purse, and in the city there were no hills, I just stayed put in the car and clenched my teeth really tights, shut my eyes, and fit my head into my shoulders so that the attack should be leas painful.
Silence.
I open my eyes. What is it? I say in a voice so calm, I cannot believe it is emanating from my own throat.
I am waiting there impatiently preparing for the worse and thinking: "why, oh why, must that happen now when I am so exhausted?"
Anyhow, surprise of surprises, he doesn't say it isn't going anywhere, he doesn't say any of the cliche break-up lines.
He says: "A few years back, I rebelled slightly and I did some things a good Jewish boy shouldn't be doing such as watching movies (use your imagination for the rest)...."
Now I am sitting there as this guy pours his heart out to me and all that goes through my head in big bold letters is: "I AM YOUR DATE, NOT YOUR FREAKING PRIEST!" Why are you confessing all of your sins to me?
I read this article in the Jewish Week's singles edition, where a female rabbi (don't ask me of what denomination) expressed her disappointment with dating, because young men used dates with her as a platform to resolve their spiritual anguish.
Thinking about her and the prospect of me becoming a rabbi scared me to no ends so I decided to end that relationship then and there and I referred my now-ex to the nearest church. I think it might have still been open.
I have a dilemma here and was wondering what your opinion is?
On the one hand, as a relationship progresses, would one want a partner to open up and disclose all private information. Or should one keep potentially harmful information to him or herself dealing with it on his or her own and putting it behind?
P.S. If you are a friend of mine and want to go out with him you know where to find me.
