Greetings, those of you who are still tuned into JDatersAnonymous. I wanted to apologize for my absence these last several months – there are two main reasons that I wanted to share.

The most major reason for my absence was the death of my mother, Shulamit Kustanowitz, mid-May. (Those of you who read my other blog, My Urban Kvetch, undoubtedly already know this, as the last two posts over there were about my mother.)

I’m making my way back to life, through the process of the Jewish year of mourning, and her memory and spirit informs my writing and my progress toward a new normal. But both the writing and the progress are slow. So I beg your patience during this time. And may her memory be for a blessing.

Beyond that very major reason for my disappearance, I’ve frankly become aware that writing for this blog about the challenges of dating (and specifically Jewish dating) in a modern, connected world fills me with despair. And it’s not the process of writing itself – it’s the responses: the despair of others, the negativity, the name-calling, the derision of men from women and women from men, the anti-Semitic slurs against Jewish men and Jewish women, the perpetuating of stereotypes that aren’t fair to anyone.

So I’ve been absent. And may remain so. At least for a while. If I’m motivated to write, I’ll write. But this hiatus is important enough for me to violate my own blogging advice (“blog regularly, so your audience knows they can rely on you!”) in favor of emotional balance.

I would still really like it if – on and off the blog – we could live up to the motto I had in mind when I founded this non-geographic place: “Group therapy in a blog…welcome home, singles.” But home is supportive, where everyone knows and accepts you for who you are. This place has not been that kind of home in some time, but I hope that it will be again one day.

Those of you who have been readers for a while and want to submit guest posts, please feel free to do so: jdatersanonymous at gmail.com. But it is likely that, aside from those posts, this blog will not be updated for a while. Thanks for your readership and your support – I will be back when I can.

Until then, wishing you good health, friendship, love and happiness.