I have a nagging little concern. Since I converted to Judaism, my big dating dilemma has been that I'm too religious for secular Jewish men but not religious enough (or maybe not Jewish-by-birth enough) for the rest. I found that mostly secular men were interested in me, but then they'd be turned off by the religious bit. Men who were practicing Jews, on the other hand, never showed any interest at all.

I know that past performance is no guarantee of future returns, as they say. Just after the September 11 attacks I read a great article in the New Yorker about our troubled economy, and how everyone was trying to predict our economic future (I remember thinking that if I heard "double-dip recession" just one more time, I would go absolutely mad) based on how the economy had behaved in the past. The author's point was that in the aftermath of those attacks, we couldn't assume that the economic downturn and recovery would be like other downturns and recoveries. Everything was changed, for all we knew. It was not a pleasant thought. I worked for the president of a trust company who was wholeheartedly optimistic about the economy, insisting that a recovery was imminent, and he based all his predictions on the past. I gave him the article, and he seemed a little glum after that.

Two years later, I still think about that article every time I begin to wonder about the future. I try to remember that things happened a certain way in the past, but that doesn't mean they will happen that way again. In my case, this would be good. Great, even. As much as I try, though, I still find that fear creeping up on me and coloring my thoughts.

So when feel pretty much disregarded by the single Jewish men I know, and I meet a nice guy who doesn't happen to be Jewish, but is screamingly funny and intelligent and seems to like me, what do I do? I have a friend who says that maybe I need a nice guy who might be non-Jewish but is nonetheless supportive of my religious pursuits and maybe even interested in learning something about Judaism. Most likely I won't be having any more children, so maybe it's not so crucial. And the righteous of all faiths have a place in the world to come, we're told.

Okay, maybe this nagging concern isn't so small. It might be more like a medium.

I shouldn't have rented "Keeping the Faith," that's for sure.

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