"I Don't Want to Hear Such Things"

Confusing frumkeit with social retardation

One day I was sitting in the student lounge talking to a guy about something random. Another kid who I shared a class with walked by, so I asked him for his opinion. Normal conversation, nothing crazy. Eventually the topic drifted to relationships, so I asked him the most basic question a functioning adult can answer: “Have you ever had a girlfriend?”

A simple yes or no would have done. Or even, “I’m uncomfortable answering that.” That would have been socially normal.

But his reaction was completely different. He turned his face away from me and covered his ears. From his facial expression, it appeared that my question put him in a lot of pain. It looked like he had just scarfed down that super spicy herring all the guys are challenging each other over. I thought maybe he just went through a bad breakup and I started feeling really badly until he opened his mouth (he still looked like he was enormous amounts of pain at this point) and this is what he said: “I don’t want to hear such things”.

I was quite unsure as to what that means, as it was a very vague statement, but I assumed that he was trying to say that he was so religious that he didn’t want his ears ruined by hearing such a question. It wasn’t like I was reading excerpts of 50 Shades of Grey out loud to the poor kid, I simply asked him if he ever had a girlfriend. And even if I was reading excerpts of 50 Shades of Grey to him (which would be very weird), his reaction still wouldn’t have been a normal one.

This is what happens when a child is raised inside a religious sensory deprivation chamber and then chucked into the real world. At twenty years old, if the mention of a relationship gives you a panic attack, that is not frumkeit, that is narishkeit. I know many VERY VERY religious guys who are normal and the topic doesn’t make them cringe. They understand that intimacy is a mitzvah once you are married, not a radioactive substance that melts your ears off. It’s not a topic that they sit there shteiging over, but they don’t have a seizure if they hear the word sex.

Now, if this boy was honest, and I had asked him the reason he never had a girlfriend, the answer would not be “because I’m too religious for that”. The true answer would be “My parents sheltered me all my life which has turned me into a socially not normal person and no matter how hard I tried, I could never get a girlfriend which is why I have no choice other than to use the shidduch dating system; that will hide my social retardedness until after the chupa, when it is too late for her to return the merchandise.

People like this always pull the same spiritual gymnastics; they pretend their lack of social development is righteousness. They convince themselves that inability is holiness. That is a lie. The truth is that they are socially retarded, and the condition was engineered by the geniuses who raised them. Teachers with zero life experience. Parents terrified of the world. “Mentors” whose only qualification was that every other career path rejected them first.

The fact is that they are now at an age that they can actually do something about it (the guy in my first example is 20) and yet they convince themselves that they are ‘being religious’ by not being normal, and therefore continue to live in their delusional world. It is like an alcoholic saying it is fine that he drinks every day because he’s Chabad. Delusion disguised as chassidishkeit.

Even Rabbi Zecharia Wallerstein, in his marathon career of dramatic hysteria, once stumbled into a useful idea. He said, “If you need something, you cannot have it.” He meant things like smartphones. Of course, in his worldview, Facebook is shalosh klipos hatmeos and probably responsible for the Mabul, so he is not the best example. But the idea stands.

I know religious guys who are normal and choose not to date until they are ready to get married. That statement doesn’t apply to the majority of religious guys outside of the Chabad velt, as most of them would love to have a girlfriend if they could (the Chabad guys who want girlfriends are pretty good about getting them). The guys outside the Chabad velt know that they are socially off because of the way that they are raised and think that no girl would go for them. Well no normal girl would, but rest assured, there is a whole crop of equally brainwashed girls out there who are in the same boat as them. There is still hope!