Backseat Dating Advice

I was traveling from Newark to Manhattan, and my Uber driver was a 22-year-old young woman named Clara. It is not often that you get a woman, and for sure not one so young. So, I started schmoozing, and she told me she had been driving since December and had never had a bad experience. I asked her what dating was like in Newark.

“Not great,” she said. “I have been single for a while, since breaking up with my high school boyfriend.”

And then she began to tell me about hooking up, one-night stands…and her yearning to meet the right guy to marry.

“Clara,” I said. “Imagine you meet a guy at a bar, you have a couple of drinks, you dance, you flirt, and you invite him back to your place. Things begin to happen, and in the middle, he stops and says, ‘Can I see your bank returns?’”

“‘Excuse me?’” you say.

“And while you’re at it, can I see your tax return from last year?’”

“What!? Are you kidding? I don’t even know you!’”

I look at Clara’s eyes fixed on me from her rearview mirror.

“Get it?”

And then I asked her, “Clara, you wouldn’t show this guy your financial statements, but you would take off all your clothes and show him everything else—Clara, what’s sacred to you?”

Good thing we were at a light. Clara was dumbstruck. All she could say was: “Whoa.”

And then, I shared a lot of Jewish wisdom on love, dating, and marriage because this wisdom is not just for Jews; it’s for the world. She took it all in, asked some questions, and shared the pain of her life, growing up in a broken home and having her heart broken.

I asked her if the type of man she wanted to marry, who would be the father of her children and the grandfather of her children, is the type of man who would have one-night stands, and she said, “No.”

“Then be the person who would attract the right kind of guy. If he won’t go out with you unless you sleep with him, then he’s not the man for you.”

When we got to my destination in Manhattan, she took my bags out from the back and said, “I believe G-d makes everything happen for a reason.” And then she hugged me tight.

I gave her a blessing—I said, “Clara, I bless you with your name. I bless you that you should have incredible clarity in every aspect of your life and the courage to live your clarity.”

And then, I told her that I was a speaker in the Jewish world and to learn more about what I was sharing, she should go onto YouTube and watch a talk I gave in South Africa called “Falling In Love, Staying In Love.”

….and of course, I gave her 5-stars and a big tip. May she merit to find her true besheret.