The Ghosts of a Secular Youth

"I returned to the faith at 22, after coming to Israel from Los Angeles. Since then my life has turned 180 degrees: yeshiva, serious study, a strict way of life. But my past before 22 hasn't gone anywhere. I have a secular college degree, I know how the world works outside the community, and in my youth I, of course, had relationships.

Now, in shidduchim, that past of mine hangs over me like the sword of Damocles. When I meet girls who are religious from birth (FFB), I feel like an undercover spy. They speak about things with such childlike naïveté, while I sit there afraid I'll accidentally use a secular term or mention a popular movie. Their parents are looking for a guy with a sterile biography. Once a shadchanit asked me point-blank: "Yosef, is there really nothing in your past that the girl's family could be ashamed of?" I answered that I was clean. But inside me lives a constant fear that someone will dig up my old teenage photos or secular contacts, and everything I've built over these 7 years in religion will collapse because of the system's prejudice."