How it happend, Part 1

So this is my story....A story about faith, trust, and above all - Hashgocha. Two bloggers going about our blogging business, clicking from link to link. Over the months the number of blogs on my favorites list increased and after a while, I got to chatting with some bloggers. I was trying to remain anonymous and had no ulterior motives in my blogging endeavors, other than to air my views and rant about the shidduch system. Little did I know what I was about to discover.

I think it was over the Chanuka/winter vacation, when I was out of the office and had plenty of time on my hands. This is when Shopa and I met via our blogs and started IMing. A lot. After a while, it was apparent we had quite a lot in common - apart from the 3500 miles between us. It was good chatting to someone on the same wavelength, someone I could relate to and who related to what I said. We kept up general chat for a while until I eventually found out her first name! I mean, it’s not that it means anything because we are 3500 miles apart!

So the weeks go by, shidduch suggestions come & go, dates from hell, dates from the boring world of grey normality. And each of us would come home and blog about how bad it was, how lonely we felt and how useless the system was. We chatted some more and did our own thing. There was at some point before that when P-Life started his blog of Jewish Orthodox single bloggers, with a network to join. P-life suggested that J.O.S.B. Was the way forward - I mean, you'd know so much about the person from their OWN writing and both people could read about each other first. I was not convinced. A) I could not relate a blogger to a normal suggested shidduch; B) who would want to meet me after reading what I write and C) there were no prospective orthodox female bloggers within 1000 miles from me that I knew of.

And so, Shopa and I continued to chat, until it was very apparent it could no longer go on like that. Either we met up for real or dropped the whole thing.

It was late one evening, after an office team meeting down at the pub and a few pints (of blood left in my alcohol system). As always, traveling back I had time to put thoughts to email - which is exactly what I did.

"Take me drunk, I'm home" was how it started off. Despite the fact that I wrote it 4 times because my battery kept dying, and I had the wrong email addresses. I still can’t recall exactly what I wrote. All I remember now is that I got a simple reply. My name is _____ _______. My number is ___ ___-____."

I called her (numerous times) over the next few days and she sounded even better than she typed! (DUH!)

Over the next week or two everything goes great and we swap references too! We have more in common in real life than first thought!

You may think, as the saying goes, "... and the rest is history" but just as I get things rolling in the next telephone conversation she says she wants to cool off for at least a month.....


"IF NEITHER OF US ARE ENGAGED BY THEN ... WE WILL TAKE IT FROM THERE"


to be continued....