$500 a day is about 180k; drop taxes and drop taxes and you’ve got 140k, which is about what it takes to support a healthy sized family in the tristate area without tuition breaks and make normal chasunos. Certainly not the high life.
Though it’s pretty nice to get from the shver, I’ll admit.
Sacri –
Your sentiments are kind. And potentially correct –
Same applies for girls. The Ikar HaIkarim, is not even brains or haskafah – or looks or middos (though it’s a close second) – is to be a girl. Be a woman. And not a man. Feminity and masculinity are what a marriage is. It’s what makes a marriage more then best friends – which is great, and should be there are well, but doesn’t fulfill what a marriage is suppose to be.
Everything else makes it better. But the ikar is to be a girl – respectful, trusting, – looking for a guide and protector – healthy feminity – capable of allowing yourself to be taken care of. Healthy feminity encourages healthy masculinity and there becomes a healthy cycle which bounds the two people together, and fills a woman with a feeling of safety and care – and man with confidence & strength, and that is the bracha of marriage.That is what it is.
Of course, you will need to find a gentlemen you respect & trust, and want to follow; the date is a test drive – let him lead. If he leads you into a ditch, or doesn’t know where to go , and cries and panics and ask you what to do – be helpful, be kind , figure things out as he was your younger brother and promptly dump him- because, you know, there just no chemistry but he’s good for Raizy…
If he mess up the directions, says no sweat & laughs, and pulls into a nice looking park, and confidently leads a pleasant improvised date & makes an event out of the pond – even if you never made it to the cafe – he’s got the potential to be a keeper.
Yeshiva Guys are often intimidated by girls – who know far more about the world then they do, and have often been successfully employed for years – need to confident enough in their identity as Talmid Chacham to compensate for that lack of knowledge. Of course, if they are a shlepper who’s done nothing for the last few years – well, how can she respect him- ? That’s what we call no chemistry in french.