Bad Bad Girls

It always, always bothered me that so-called “bad girls” – girls who fooled around in seminary and high school, you know the type; drinking, smoking, cutting curfew, fooling around with guys – never seemed to suffer any consequences for their behavior. And the most obvious consequence to me was shidduchim and getting married. Their actions never seemed to hinder their shidduch prospects. In fact, they were usually the ones who got married right out of seminary. And this annoyed me to no end. Why, I asked myself, did I bother being a good girl, even when it was hard, if I could just do whatever the heck I wanted? Apparently having a good reputation was not required to getting a good shidduch.

And before you’re all over me for being so single-minded about shidduchim, I have to tell you that I never felt comfortable joining my friends on trips to pool halls motzai shabbos or hanging out at pizza stores, even when I was 15 and a long way from shidduchim. That’s not the kind of person I was. And it carried over into my seminary life. I did not go to a BY seminary, didn’t want to, and there were some very slutty girls in my seminary. But I shied away from them, instinctively. It wasn’t what I wanted for myself. And more it was more than fear for my reputation. I didn’t really know what it was until last night when I was talking about this with my husband, and he was like, “It was your own self-respect, you idiot.” Oh. That makes sense.

But what bothered me – and I don’t think I’m being very clear here – is that there seemed to be no sense of justice.  If  I was a slutty girl, I would not have gotten the same shidduch offers as I did. It seems to follow that therefore, I would not have met my husband. Fine. But I would have been a different person, and met a different man, and wouldn’t I have been just as happy then?

I guess a part of me was always jealous. I couldn’t let myself do it. But G-d, how a part of me wanted to. And it always frustrated me that I couldn’t let myself. Why couldn’t I just sneak out at midnight and go hang out with some bummy guys that my friend’s knew though a friend? Why couldn’t I go to Ben Yehuda after curfew and have a drink or two? Why couldn’t I fool around with some guy in a dark alley? Why cares if no one knew? Slutty girls get married and there are a heck of a lot of good girls who don’t. (Granted, this did upset me more when I was single.)

But as my husband and I discussed this further, and he made sense of my bitter ramblings, something became clearer. I shouldn’t have been worried that the things I did would affect my shidduchim, or that other girls would get married before me even though they did stuff. That would affect their marriage, that’s true, but this isn’t about other people, my husband said. It’s about you. Your self respect (as I mentioned before), and  you becoming a better person for your own growth. You not hanging out and drinking has only positive affects on your life. I could have done what I wanted, and married some other guy, and I’m sure I would have been happy with him. But did I want be a girl who knew that her husband wasn’t the first one she ever touched? Did I want to be the girl who laughed loudly with her envious, more religious friends about the wild stuff she did when she was younger, but whose wishing inside that she had enough self-respect not to go that far?

So maybe I was a nerd in seminary. Maybe I was the girl who looked on with a mixture of jealousy and disgust when my roomate related her exploits about the guy she was currently dating. And weather or not she or I got married first was not the important thing. I know I did the right thing. Getting married is not the only reward for that, though it may have seemed that way to me as a seminary girl. Bad girls get married too. (And I’m sorry to say, but you can tell just by looking at a couple how they were when they were single. Like married like. Guys who hung out at pool halls motzai shabbos smoking don’t stop just because they got married.)

But I see that good girls marry good boys. And I wouldn’t trade my good boy for a wild seminary experience, however much some juvenile part of me wishes for it, for anything in the world.