Well I made a “big” decision. I am quitting JDate. Two years — one in Jerusalem and one in St. Louis — is long enough. That method is clearly not working for me.

So how does an “older” single person go about dating Jewishly in St. Louis?

I’ll keep going to Jewish single events in case someone new moves into town, I’ll have to force myself to tell people that I’m a single person who would like to meet someone if they know of anyone to set me up with, probably it would be a good idea for me to go to different synagogues on Shabbat mornings and see who shows up, and I’ll keep going to the Jewish activities that I enjoy…am I missing something obvious?

One avenue I’m trying is I’ve heard about these Jewish matchmaking websites that sound very interesting and apparently are very successful. You fill out a profile and then you get a few personal matchmakers. They view the male profiles FOR you and send you suggestions if they see someone they believe would make a good match.

They do all the looking and screening for you, and you just have to accept or decline the suggested match. If both sides accept the other, telephone numbers are exchanged and it goes forward from there.

I joined one of these sites and the very next morning one of my matchmakers called me to get to know me better. Very impressive. She did have a piece of bad news for me though: out of 1000s of male profiles nationwide, none of them were from St. Louis. I let out a deep sigh of disappointment, though not surprise.

Would I be willing to relocate? she asked me. I decided to say “maybe” just to keep the doors open for matches. But I’m not so sure I’d leave St. Louis. After all, I left JERUSALEM to come back here and live near my family. Why would I now leave St. Louis for Richmond, VA? Still, I told myself, I need to be flexible for now.

Within a week I had 5 matches. A few I declined, a few declined me, but one was a mutually accepted match. We had a very long conversation and he is open to relocation…to be continued!