Reply To: The OTD Crisis: Observations

BS”D

SJS, you are an adult and it is very different – you’re not hanging out together, not worried about your parents not wanting you seen with her etc etc.

Maybe I come from a particular dynamic where the difference in the lives of frum and OTD are so sharp that there is no way the twain could meet – our young men spend free time putting tefillin on with people etc etc etc and the off guys tend to hang out in various places and smoke and drink OR they go to a drop in center where they can “find themselves” and are not forced to be frum but are not allowed to do anything ossur on the premises. The rav who runs it is a friend of mine and a mutual friend of ours does similar work in E”Y but more informally so that I am connected there. It works very well because it is very open and there is no judging either way – the guys invited me, the blackest of the black, to spend time with them which I would have done had I not relocated.