Transcript
Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
This week's question is, I'm always stuck after a date where I don't find the boy to be attractive. He has other qualities that I'm looking for, but attraction isn't there. Any advice? I'll share with you that one of the more awkward things that we had in our shear, and I was zaicha to learn by a review to punish shlika for many years and have a relationship with him for many years, and one of the really kind of awkward, One of the most important and most important things is when the boys were dating. They would always inevitably go to Rebbe for advice and share with Rebbe where they were holding. And Rebbe would ask different questions. And one of the questions he always asked was, do you find the girl attractive? And this was of course a little uncomfortable. Rebbe at the time that I had him was in his late 70s, early 80s.
And so it can be uncomfortable to have a conversation with Yerushal Shiva about how attracted you are or are not to the girl that you're dating. I asked Rebbe why he would ask that question. He explained to me that first of all in terms of Midos it's not nice to marry somebody that you're not attracted to because it's very difficult to make someone feel loved and cherished if you're not really attracted to them. But also he explained to me that a relationship, the goal of a relationship is to become one, to Attraction is an indication that there is a soul to soul connection. If there is not an attraction, then you cannot get married. Attraction is exceptionally important. We are trying to build intimate relationships. Attraction lets us know if intimacy is possible. Attraction is also malleable. First of all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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And so what sometimes happens is that we know people who we aren't attracted to. And then as we build the relationship with them, we become more attracted. Have this very often in Yeshiva and Seminary. A guy and a girl will tell me, oh, nothing would ever happen with that person. They're my best friend. It's like my sister. It's like my brother. It's totally... It would be inappropriate for us to date. Besides which I'm not attracted to them and very often that person will come back to me and say you know Rebbe it's a little uncomfortable for me to say to you but you know that girl we were talking about a couple those months ago like I don't know what happened she's just it's different now I'm like okay well of course it is because when we build relationships with people attraction tends to grow and so just because we're not attracted to somebody right away doesn't mean that attraction won't inevitably Be there but it's not always there And so again referring back to our first point We need to make sure that we're actually paying attention to whether or not we are attracted But we also have to be open to the possibility that attraction will grow The more vulnerable we are in a relationship the more connection there is The more connection the more attraction Not Always But Definitely Often So that would be the advice that I would have
But finally and I think this is exceptionally important If you've done all those things, you value this person, right? And you say, okay, there's a lot of things that this guy has or this girl has that I'm looking for. Great. And you've worked on building the relationship. Great. If the attraction isn't there, you have to end the relationship. Because ultimately, you're going to be spending the rest of your life with this person. Now, beauty is only skin deep. And it's very true that sometimes we look at people and we're like, how did that girl find that guy attractive? I have confidence to say this could be a wonderful guy, this could be a wonderful girl, but it's not necessarily wonderful for me.
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