Is it even healthy or wanted to look for a Jewish spouse when I’m so disconnected from the culture of being a Jew?

Ok….this post is going to be a lot. It’s a realization after getting a temp ban from the Jewish subreddit and thinking through my relationship with the community overall.

The reasons people care about their religion and want to commit to practicing (at least according to Chat GPT which I agree with) are:

• meaning
• purpose
• sense of community
• moral code

The more I think through the above, the more I realize that I don’t identify with any of the above positively with Judaism, yet I am literally obsessed with finding a Jewish spouse. To the point I broke up with several people who were non Jewish and paying 5 figures for a Jewish matchmaking service. Where I only use Hinge and Jswipe for the Jewish only filters. Go to several Jewish oriented events weekly just to potentially meet a Jewish spouse.

Yet….I don’t even get along with fellow Jews very well. The only Jewish friend I had growing up kicked me to the curb when I didn’t want to take the covid vaccine…and in my experience that stupid shot was more vital than our shared identity throughout the community (and my parents were kicked out of their synagogues for the same reason), which started the questions in my head of how important is this even…

For most of my life, I have been trying to fit into various Jewish communities. When I was younger and religious, it was because I was not Ashkenaz or Sephardic. Or not being Bukharian or Syrian. There was always a subset I wasn’t: just a LATAM Jew who didn’t know nor care about my heritage before then.

Now as a secular Jew, I struggle connecting with other secular Jews, as they are often raised in fairly privileged backgrounds and I differ significantly in ideology, outlook on life, politics, etc.

I don’t really ‘fit’ in anywhere in Jewish culture…and I spent most of my life trying.

Additionally, I feel nothing in regards to the spiritual aspects. Don’t get much meaning from our holidays and certainly not purpose. I think my moral code is stronger than most natively, and I’ve seen a lot of religious Jews do a number of crooked shit growing up.

So why am I doing this? The only reason really is family and to make my parents (particularly mom) happy.

Is that healthy? I feel I’m a bad person for even asking this on a Jewish subreddit – essentially getting permission to date whomever makes me happy….but I just don’t know why I am obsessing over this. I’m even thinking of relocating back to NYC just to facilitate more dates with Jews and fly to my job 4x/month (we only work 1 day a week in the office…if that). No other reason – I like the city I live in now otherwise…but I’m struggling finding good quality Jews to date where I live vs NY or Florida. And I keep thinking now ‘why am I so crazy about this’…