Your Friends Are Still Waiting

From the COLlive Inbox: While married couples move on with their busy lives, are they forgetting the single friends they once shared everything with?

There have been so many articles on shidduchim- lets talk about something thats not really being discussed…

A girl gets married, baruch Hashem. Then another one. Then another one. Before long, she has a husband, children, a busy life, family commitments, Shabbos guests, school runs and a million other responsibilities. Life moves forward, as it should.

But what happens to the friends she left behind?

Think back to the girls you sat next to in school. The girls you spent years with. The girls you lived with in seminary. The girls whose weddings you danced at, whose secrets you knew, whose futures you dreamed about together.

How often do you think about them now?

Not in a vague “I hope she’s doing well” sort of way. I mean genuinely think about them.

How often do you ask your husband if he knows anyone? How often do you ask his brothers? His friends? His brothers-in-law? His cousins? How often do you actively keep your eyes and ears open for suitable suggestions?

For many people, the answer is uncomfortable.

We throw out a name every year or two and feel we’ve done our part. We see a single friend at a wedding and tell her, “I’m always thinking of you,” but are we really?

The reality is that once someone is married, their social circles expand dramatically. Suddenly they know dozens of new families and hundreds of new people. They have access to networks their single friends simply do not have.

That access is a responsibility.

A girl who is twenty-five, twenty-seven, thirty, or older should not become invisible simply because her classmates have moved on to a different stage of life.

While you’re planning family holidays and organising children’s schedules, she may still be arranging where she’s eating for Yom Tov. While you’re discussing schools and summer camps, she may still be wondering whether anyone has thought about her this month.

And perhaps what hurts most is not being single. It is feeling forgotten.

Many single women can accept that finding the right person takes time. What is far harder is the feeling that the people who once cared about them have quietly moved on.

Friendship should not expire after marriage.

If someone mattered to you when you were eighteen, why do they suddenly matter less when you’re twenty-eight and married with children?

No one is asking married women to become professional shadchanim. But there is a difference between occasionally mentioning a name and making shidduchim a genuine ongoing project.

Imagine if every married woman adopted just one or two single friends and actively kept them in mind. Imagine if every family gathering, every Shabbos meal, every conversation with relatives included the question: “Who do we know for her?”

Not once every few years.

Constantly.

Because the truth is that every successful shidduch comes from someone caring enough to keep thinking.

The next time you sit around your Shabbos table surrounded by family, take a moment to think about the girls who once sat beside you in class. The girls whose lives haven’t unfolded in the same timeline as yours.

Ask yourself a simple question:

When was the last time I genuinely tried to help them?

And if you cannot remember, perhaps it is time to start again.

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