I’m not Yente: Dating coach focuses on clients who are marriage-bound

 (This is the final, published version of an article I turned into the St. Louis Jewish Light two or three months ago.)

Mimi David makes it clear that her role as a dating coach is not akin to Yente the matchmaker in “Fiddler on the Roof.”

A lot of people don’t know the difference” said David, who is director of women’s studies at Aish HaTorah and married to its executive director, Rabbi Yosef David. “A matchmaker is someone who might say, ‘I know this guy and this girl, and it seems like they’d be good for each other,’ and she introduces them.  I don’t do that professionally, although I do that when I can.

“A dating coach normally gets involved when a couple is already dating each other. What I help with is realistic expectations from the dating process; like what productive dating should look like.”

David explained that her overall role is to help couples navigate the relationship that goes from near strangers to best friends if they are right for one another. She does this through a healthy progression that includes maintain expectations and building the relationship in a way that can potentially lead to a deeper connection.

Originally for New York, Mimi, age 49, grew up in an observant family and went to a Jewish grade school and high school. At age 20, she married Yosef David, began having children, and in 2007, moved to the St. Louis area.

“I did not date very much,” she said.  “I only dated men who my parents vetted. Most of the guys were short experiences; just a few dates. It was pretty clear to me that they were not for me. Dating for marriage is extremely targeted and extremely goal-oriented. It becomes pretty clear, very soon, if someone is not the right one for you. 

“I had no real complications in knowing that my husband was the right one soon after meeting him. We only dated for one month, then got engaged, and were married seven weeks later. We’ve been married nearly 29 years now!”

David has been a long-time teacher at Esther Miller Bais Yaakov High School.  During that time, she developed close relationships with her students, who also started viewing her as a dating/life coach.

“They knew I was an objective listener who had their best interests in mind and would not be emotionally involved like their mothers,” she said.  “Eventually, what really started me as a dating coach was my students started calling me with their Mikvah questions after they got married. That wasn’t my expertise, but they felt comfortable with me when dating and after they got married.” 

David said that nowadays, she works with clients of all ages and stages. Men and women. Old and young. Widows, widowers, and those who have been divorced.

“The largest criteria is they have to be dating for marriage,” she said. “If they’re not dating for marriage, I do not coach them. They can just have fun and don’t need my help.”

David generally works with clients over the phone, though occasionally she will Zoom with them.

“I actually prefer not seeing a client because I have no judgment about them on my own.  I think everybody is wonderful and I can tell a lot by what they tell me; not in terms of their looks but by how they are as a person, then I can focus on that as opposed to being distracted by some physical feature, which I think helps me be more objective.”

Every year, David goes to Cincinnati for a singles convention with people in different age groups. She recently did a presentation for a group of 55+ singles in Baltimore on Zoom. She said that’s more of an overview of a productive dating process instead of coaching for a specific scenario.

David also does a local event for the Orthodox community every couple of years as an overview of the dating process for girls who are starting to date for marriage.

“I’ve been a dating coaching professionally about four years, and unprofessionally for about 10 years before that,” she said.  “I did it just for my former students.  I didn’t have a system at that time. I was just their mentor before I went into training. “Now I do it more as a paid business, but if I wanted to get rich, I’d probably be doing something else.”

David explained that everyone she coaches gets a free get-to-know-you session. She hears from her clients about themselves so she can get a better idea about them and what they are looking for in a partner.  In addition, David tells them about her background, her experience, and provides a quick overview of the dating process.

Susan B, a former student of David’s who asked that her real name not be used, said that last year at age 29, a mutual friend from St. Louis introduced her to a man.

“We exchanged information so we could kind of check into each other before, then I handed it to Mimi David to set it up,” Susan said.  “She started on one level then got into a deeper level and I found things I had to work through in order to get married to anybody. She was there for the heavier stuff, too.”

Susan said that it wasn’t love at first sight, but the man was nice and a good conversationalist.  They dated for about two months, were engaged about three months later, and were married this past March.

“I told Mimi it kind of went from A to Z…from zero to marriage,” Susan said.  “She helped work it through from figuring my thoughts out, what was normal for a guy, totally helped me understand what I was noticing and helped me know how to better communicate.  As in all things in life, especially something as big as this, it brings up your own hangups and things I needed to work on.  She was there for me the entire process.  She’s so wise and understood where I was coming from, and was so supportive while also being totally practical.

“I am very grateful I had her for this. I’m so happy I used her! She’s a dependable confidant who cares so much, and pushes you to make an effort. Having that relationship with a teacher for all four years really helped because I was so comfortable with her and she was always so honest and open.”

 

Whispering Oakwood’s golden anniversary celebration was a true gem

 (This is how I submitted one of my favorite recent stories for West Newsmagazine back in mid-September. Photos are a courtesy of MICDS graduate Michael Kerber, whose brother Kevin starred in water polo and other brother Chris does the radio play-by-play of the St. Louis Blues, including back before we won the Stanley Cup on June 12, 2019!)

In marriage, the 50^th anniversary is a golden one. Back in 1974, the cost of that precious metal was well below $200 an ounce. It has since skyrocketed well over the $2,500 mark. That is precisely how a Ballwin neighborhood has grown in memories since that time.

On Sept. 14, Whispering Oakwood, a neighborhood of about 165 houses, hosted its annual WO500 event in honor of 50 years of existence!  

WO stands for Whispering Oakwood. In the event’s tradition, dads of the neighborhood plan and run a soapbox derby. According to the event’s current president, Michael Kerber, the ‘500’ could be in reference to the Daytona 500 or Indy 500.

“That’s what we all believed,” Kerber said. “But this year, as I connected with more people, I started hearing a rumor that if you measure the distance of the race hill from start to finish in some of the years we’ve run it, the distance was 500 feet.  But that is totally unconfirmed.”

Photo Credit:  Scott Blackwell

With a rock ‘n roll theme, a guitar-playing dad performed The National Anthem in the Jimmy Hendrix style to kick off this year’s festivities. As usual, the neighborhood scouts were in their classy outfits hoisting the American flag.

As customary, Metro West brings a fire truck and an ambulance to lead the parade throughout the area. But the proceedings were slightly altered this year.

“Metro West helped start the parade, but about 15 seconds into it, they got an emergency call,” Kerber said. “So, they threw their lights on and bolted out like lightning! But one neighbor joined the parade with an old classic convertible car from the ‘70s. Also, a brother of one of the neighborhood moms is a Shriner. So, they loaded up a couple of their cars on trailers and joined our parade.  That made it extra special as did some of the 1970’s outfits.”

The race was the next big event. There were 31 kids racing this year; all from the WO neighborhood. One group is third graders racing just half the hill in their first year of the event, trying to get used to the ride that Kerber described as ‘being bouncy and noisy in a manually-driven car.’   The remainder are from grades four through eight.

Those grade levels are also how the racers are divided into their two race brackets a la college basketball’s March Madness. But in this case, the two different groups are placed randomly into double elimination tournaments. So, each kid gets to race downhill at least twice.

“We don’t really have anyone who builds cars because we have to keep to our budget,” Kerber said. “So, what we do is refurbish the cars and reuse them every year. The week before, we size up every kid in the car that fits them, and if you take a car home and store it for a year, you get to paint it to look however you want.

“By the time the race is over, the winners have probably raced down the hill seven or eight times. We do trophies for the winners, and for every racer, we have a medal engraved with their name. It’s daunting going down that hill in a car made or wood or plastic with a brake made out of a four-inch square tire and a foot pedal made out of wood.  So, the fact that they went down the hill is pretty valiant. The first, second, and third place winners of the overall race bring home a trophy made up the street at Crown Trophy.”

The dads this year, referred to as ‘The Pit Crew,’ ran the activities during the day after loading bales of hay and setting them on the street the night before the race.

Kerber added that one means of reenacting the mid-1970s look was having wives secretly purchase shorter-than-usual white shorts to wear. It was a secret until the week before, and as Kerber added, ‘that’s when some of the dads realized they were going to expose some of their tan lines.’

The extravaganza also included a big-time block party chock full of a variety of food options. There were some different things this year like the playing of a mariachi band, loved by adults and kids alike.

              This year’s dads (aka: Pit Crew) for the 50th WO 500 dressed in Retro Dad Pit Crew attire.  Photo Credit:  Sue Kerber 

Also, during the previous week, Kerber and his wife Sue started a Where’s Waldo hunt. They created a bunch of Waldo characters plus race-related items like keys, race cars, race flags and bales of hay. About 33 neighbors put colored copies of those images in their windows for families to enjoy while walking around the neighborhood.  The challenge was to find all the characters and all the lost items.

Whispering Oakwood is a unique neighborhood without an official neighborhood association. So, Kerber teamed with a vice-president, a secretary, and a treasurer to create the event.

“When we all moved to the subdivision and started getting involved with the race day, we all kind of volunteered,” Kerber said. “‘I’ll be the one to set up the race flags,’ or someone else will make sure we have all the plates and food for the family party, ‘I’ll take care of this tennis ball or frisbee throw event.’ As president, I was in charge of scheduling the meetings and putting things together.  When tough decisions have to be made, you’re required to make those decisions and be the president of the day itself.”

There’s one meeting a month for four of five months prior to the event and the group is responsible for the safety of the kids and pulling permits from the City of Ballwin to enable them to close the street down.

Kerber added that it’s a very special neighborhood that’s had mainly a natural amount of turnover where retirement-aged people leave in bunches about very five years. But every year there are about eight to 20 kindergartners who attend Kehrs Mill Elementary, which is right down the street. Also, the moms have a Mah Jong group, a book club, and there are progressive dinners each year in the neighborhood.

Part of the history stays alive with the help of an ‘I Grew Up in Whispering Oakwood’ public Facebook group page. With a scroll through it over the past 5-7 years, you’ll see people photos of people’s childhood in the neighborhood.  Someone in Virginia posted, ‘I grew up there from the time I was five until I was 12, and I’m still friends with all of my neighbors.’ There’s an old photo from the mid-70s showing the top of the race hill with a bunch of dads in blue shirts, white tennis shorts, and painters’ hats. 

Kerber pointed out that one of the dads has a real classic mustache, and the trees in the subdivision were tiny at that time.  One of the moms was wearing a green skirt or dress in 1970s attire. One is a married couple that still lives in the neighborhood, and their son is also in the photo wearing a football helmet in the car. Their daughter enjoyed growing up in the neighborhood so much that she moved back and still lives there.

“That photo was kind of like, that’s the attitude we want to bring back,” Kerber said. “So, a group of us grew beards and shaved them into mustaches this year.”

               Returning Original Homeowners & creators of the first WO500 -                                                        photo credit: Julie Roesler

One of the major features of the event was the emotional responses it created.

As word started to spread that they were putting this on for the 50^th year, there was a group of people on that Facebook page who were eager to ask, ‘Hey!  Can we come? I grew up in the neighborhood.’

“It meant so much for the original homeowners or the previous homeowners I spoke with, who were crying when they were telling me their stories of the family memories they made in the subdivision and in the race. So, I have a photo of five or six original homeowners who came back. One of them flew in from Virginia Beach. We had another who was one of the original dads who started the race.  He was wearing sunglasses with race flags printed on them. There was also a 90-year-old husband and wife came back. Their daughter still lives in the neighborhood.

“The comment they made to us was how warm it made them feel. They had just started it as a reason to have a little barbecue and for dads to do something with their kids. They were surprised that 50 years later, the neighborhood would still be doing it, and we’ve never missed a year. Every year, we vote in someone into our Hall of Fame like a lifetime achievement award for a dad that everyone feels put a lot into creating it and making it fun every year. So, one of the original dads and homeowners, Jerry Disper was voted that this year. Some of them coming back and reliving the lifetime memories was probably the coolest thing for me!”