I’ve been in love TWICE. Both times, I happened to be in love with Jewish men. At least one of the times, I was almost 99% sure it was love and I thought whatever I was feeling was reciprocated but now that I look back, I was too young to do much more than “play” at love. I also had off the charts too low self-esteem to register true love. The second time…I was 100% sure I was in love, I was clear that there was almost no way my love would be reciprocated and now that I look back, I hope that G-d understands that I truly have better things to do that to be in love with people that do not even know I exist.

Growing up, the first time I decided to be Jewish, I didn’t even know anyone Jewish. I’d never met anyone Jewish except for a Holocaust survivor who came to speak at our school. No Jewish boys for miles until college and after college when it seemed that I was knee-deep in them with the exception of a carefully placed Catholic boy and Wiccan fiance here and there. No man I’ve ever been with has ever rivaled the first 99% sure-too young-love and I was so angry for so long about it that I decided that I didn’t want it. I was engaged to someone that was not romantic…he would ask me what I wanted and just purchase these things for me, he would stash my little cutesie cards in our bedroom and I would find them under the bed or other places.

Recently, before deciding to convert, before even realizing that that is where my life was heading again, I made a pact not to date with my friends. I promised I would not date until I figured out who I was and what I wanted from life…and love. Mostly, I think my friends wanted me to see that I DID want someone romantic, that I DID want to be in love with someone who loved me equally but I had to love me first. Today at a table of friends I was voted “the one with the highest self-esteem,” a laugh to anyone who ever knew me during high school and college when I was quite the broody girl.

Yet, when we (Arona, Chaia, Devora and me) watched Pride & Prejudice tonight—hands down one of the most romantic films I have ever seen in my life and the best adaptation of my favorite book I have ever seen–I realized how far I’ve come from first intense love and second slightly less dramatic love. No more guys for me who are on a hunt for the exotic. No more guys for me who see me as the sister they never had. More importantly, no more lowering of the standards which dropped disasterously low to “no more romantic guys ever.” Yes, it’s just a book, a movie. Yes, I’m clearly a hopeless romantic but I want to fall in love like that again and I want to feel it “body and soul” as he does. I just never imagined that my third (and hopefully final and true) love would be Jewish, too.