Are the people around me different, or am I?

I feel lost.

A few night ago, I went out with a group of friends to celebrate my recent roommate engagement. We were four, the four of us used to have such great times together, back then.
We went out for drinks, two of them married, the recently engaged friend, and my, the poor nebach single friend of the group. I couldn't follow discussions. It revolved around choosing a wedding gown, selecting a hall, then moved on to how hard it is to be in college and run a house, and even as far as discussing how they felt when they and their first baby.

You have to understand that I'm not a jealous person. I really  don't care that the discussion doesn't revolve around me and that I don't care about the topics that are being brought up. And I usually don't really mind small talk. But for a reason I can't understand, I felt like i wasn't even there. I spent most of the time playing with my friend's baby, and it looked like they didn't even realize I wasn't taking part in the reunion.

I get it that when girls get married, their interests change and blablabla...
But I wonder if they really changed. After all,  they all felt comfortable around each other, chatted and whatever. I didn't find any interest in their discussions, didn't feel the connection I used to feel around them, didn't even look forward to the reunion.

So, have they changed that they don't interest me anymore? Or have I? Am i different?

I think that one good thing about extended singlehood is that you have time to think, reflect, analyse, and make your own opinion about life, things, challenges and lots of other fascinating things. I like to look at it as a chance my friends who got married young didn't have, although they have lots of much better things to do than torture their mind wiht questions like I do. But what can you do, I don't have a baby to get up to feed during the night...

So maybe their talks don't interest me anymore because I have changed, I matured.
Or maybe, because life led us to take different paths, we were bound to change, all of us, according to the way we live?

I don't care what the anwer is, all I want are my friends back... no matter what it takes, I want my friends back...

About problems, and their solutions...

1000 !!!

Just a short post to thank you all, this blog had more than 1000 visits since its creation !!!

Thank you all !!!

Multiple dating

I had an idea, and I came across that post from Premium Non Nocere, and as I commented there, my idea is slightly different.

Just to summarize, he offers multiple dating as a solution to increase your "chances of meeting that special someone"

I don't think triple dating is helpful if what you have is to pick the one you liked from the three, and possibly entering a conflict with your now-rival-dating-mate On the contrary, I think it might increase headaches, commitment issues and make decisions much harder to take.

Instead, two couples should be set up, but instead of having coffee face to face, they should have it all of them together, have a nice time, and from then on, if it went well, continue on regular dates, and keeping the other guy (if you're a girl, or vive-versa) totally out of the game.

The rules should be that none of the four ( or six ) people should know each other beforehand, nor be set up twice with a person, be it a same gender part, or opposite gender, occupying the position of the actual date or teh co-dater.
This will save us from awkward silences, from boring conversations just to fill the conventional 2 hours a first date is supposed to be, and I'll spare you the rest. You can just imagine from your own experiences...

A problem that might occur is that the human nature is to desire what you can't have, so great are the chances you'll look more into the person that isn't intended for you. Are we willing to take the risk?

Now, of course, Halachic authorities will never agree with this, as the will equate it to mixed socializing, and therefore not appropriate...

But I like my theory, and if my friends would set me up this way, I would definitely go for it... Or I think I will.
Only problem, I get really nervous before a date, so now I'll be twice (or three times) as nervous... Ouch !!!

Friends-in-law...

If there's one thing I never figured out how to handle is communicating with my friends-in-law.

As you might have understood, friends-in-law are the husbands of my friends. They are really close friends, and I consider their kids as my nieces and nephews, so I guess that turns their husbands into friends-in-law.

As I mentionned in my previous post, I never actually knew how to speak to a guy before I started dating ( and apparently, I still don't...). When a guy would come and talk to me, I would become suddenly extremely aggressive, as if I was trying to prevent any sort of communication and protect myself from the harm theses guys might cause to me.

But when a guy is off-limits, by being my best friend's husband, I don't feel that way. But nevertheless, it doesn't make me comfortable around them.

My best friend often invites me over, and I love going to her and I love my "almost niece". But I always ask if her husband's home, and if she answers positively, I kindly decline the invitation.
Now, her husband is a really nice guy, and talks to me, joins discussions I have with his wife, sometimes suggests a friend of his and so on...

Yet, I never feel comfortable around him. Or any other friend-in-law for that matter. And the reason is because I don't know where to set the boundaries. I never know when my friend will start to think that I'm being to friendly wiht her husband, yet I don't know if she feels I'm being to distant.

Halachically, I don't exactly know how this issue is dealt with, but what I do know is that there are boundaries to set.
Well, what are those boundaries? Not speaking? Politely smiling? Eating at the same table and having a free conversation.?

I don't know, and I keep hoping things will be different when I'll have a husband to "make things look right", but I'm not sure. If I am the one who has trouble developping a healthy relationship with my friends-in-law, no husband will change anything to the situation.

I have to find a balance between being tensed and pressured around them and developping an halachically healthy 'relationship', to hurt my friend the less possible (in either way)?

But how do I do that? Any tips?

Staying single, Staying yourself... An oxymoron? (2)

Thanks to SIR and Sporadic Intelligence for the tip, I found my post on Google Reader, although it didn't appear on the blog itself.
Thanks to my friends from the blogosphere, you're being much more helpful and supportive than my friends in real life these days...

Ok, granted, I have absolutely no answer to this question.

But, when I give it some thought, look at the present situation, and see how the future presents himself, I can help it but wonder: Will I stay a good girl?

I am now what you'd call a good girl. I don't drink, smoke, or do drugs... Just kidding.
Seriously, I am a good girl, in college, away from home, and still dresses tzinius, stay in good company, don't have interactions with males outside the shidduch context, don't watch sick movies or listen to forbidden music. I have some values I am not ready to compromise for, yet not anymore under the influence of seminary craziness... Whatever, yeah, I guess a good girl.
But that doesn't mean I will stay like that forever. It's easy to be a good girl when you know that Big Brother's watching, or on a more realistic tone, that Hashem is watching every step of mine.

But, I have a deal with Him. I do my part, and You do yours. Yours being giving me everything I need to serve you to the best of my abilities.

But what if He didn't give me everything I need? I assume that at a certain age, what you need to feel some kind of acomplishment is a home of your own, a husband to admire, to love and to care about, children to feel you're giving and so on. Moreover, you need to feel part of a society, feel you have a status. Let's agree that yo have none of that when you're single in the Orthodox society.

So what if, at that critical age, I wasn't living this way?  Then I wouldn't have to keep my part of the deal. I can do what I please.

With maturity going, I feel it's easier to detach yourself from other people principles and take responsability for your actions.

Theses two points combined, and I think I have every single chance of going off the Derech if I felt my life isn't going right and I don't care what people think.

And that scares me. I already feel I allow myself more and more leniency on different areas as time goes on. And I am fighting against my own self to stay strong and faithful to the way I grew up. But what if I loose this strength to fight, or even worse, the will to fight?

A post that disappeared...

My apology...

I don't know why and how, but I wrote a post called "Staying single, Staying yourself... An oxymoron? ", and it got deleted, and no draft saved anywhere...

Weird...

I'm upset but I'll try to rewrite it and will repost the amazing comment I got from Sefardi Gal ...

When to tell? When to expect to be told?

I have never been the type to get insulted because someone got engaged without telling me beforehand. I totally respected their privacy, and if my friends didn't feel like telling me they were seeing someone, it was OK with me.

But now, things are different. I rent an appartment with four other girls. One of them, my roomate is actually a friend from school and from seminary. We have kind of an history, and we don't have what you'd call a trustful relationship. She has been doing stuff I don"t approve, but I told her straightforward I wanted to stay put of it She didn't like it, but I didn't care.

One of all the stuff  I disapproved turned out to be a serious story with a guy, and now they are to get engaged officially in a few weeks. I found out by teasing her to know if, during her stay home for Pesach, something came up. And she answered with an evasive "maybe, maybe". A few days later, I asked her to tell me more about it, and she ignored me. I figured that after all, I've been watching her going out with him for 5 months, I was entitled to know more than what I guessed. But, after all, I turned away when I told her I din"t want to be involved....

Vicious circle....

I feel insulted that she doesn't tell me more. We're still friends after all. But I turned her away. So she turns me away even more.
I turned her away because I didn't care. But I did.

I don't know. I'm so confused. I don't know why I feel insulted that she doesn't let me in her life when I was the one to leave it?

PS Totally useless post, I just needed to jot my feelings down.