She left the dating parlors and courting buggies of Lancaster behind. Now she’s learning to date from scratch.

Susanna Nolt grew up in Ephrata, the eighth in a family of 12 kids. They were Old Order Mennonites and lived similarly to the Amish, though Nolt said her community pushed back against the comparison: “Our buggies are black! The Amish buggies are gray!”

There weren’t arranged marriages, but Nolt knew what was expected: Around age 18, she could begin dating a young man who was baptized in the Church. After marrying, she would raise her own large family within the Old Order Mennonite community, just as her parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had done. A family tree Nolt made when she was 16 went 14 generations back, featuring almost all Mennonites.

When Nolt was 27, she had what she described as a “spiritual rebirth” and decided to leave. She was excommunicated and kicked out of her family’s home.

After a few years of living in Lancaster and nannying in Reading, she moved to Roxborough.

Now 39, Nolt works as a nanny, drives for Lyft, and is earning an online master’s degree in art education from Liberty University. She lives by herself, and is figuring out what romantic partnership might look like in her new future.

The following, as told to Zoe Greenberg, has been edited for length and clarity.

We knew the Church’s rules better than we knew the Bible. They were read to us every half year, the day before Communion: how long the dresses need to be, how big the head coverings need to be.

You didn’t have to work hard to make friends. You had your neighbors, the girls from church. You would go to school in the one-room classroom. We only went till eighth grade; we were prohibited from going to high school or college.

My mom was, obviously, a stay-at-home mom. We did all our cooking, canning, freezing, sewing, baking, gardening ourselves. So that was a full-time job for a mom. We had a ginormous garden.

My dad was a leather worker. He made harness parts for the horses. He was a deacon in the Church, so he was sometimes pretty busy with that, which made our income especially low, because positions in the Church do not pay.

Young people were pretty much allowed to choose who they wanted to date, with the expectation that you date only someone who’s a baptized member of the Church, to ensure that you can build a good Mennonite family.

We had Sunday night dates, usually five-hour dates at the girls’ homes.

The house was very plain, no pictures. We had a dating parlor — it was the most decorated room of the house. The girls’ boyfriends would come over around seven o’clock on Sundays and stay ‘till 11 or 12.

The couple would sit on the couch and chat. Sometimes younger siblings would go in and play board games with them, or we’d play yard games like croquet or volleyball. Sometimes they would go on a walk in the woods. But most of the time they would spend in the parlor, getting to know each other and discussing their future.

Sometimes the boys liked to decorate their buggies, to make them courting buggies. They would have a fancy varnished cabinet in the front, and maybe some dice or feathers hanging, and a nice afghan blanket or some kind of throw over the feet, because they wanted to impress their girls. They’d put reflectors on the buggy and some stripes, usually coordinating with the interior of the buggy.

In the outside world, I’ve learned they see Rumspringa as this year where you go out and experiment with the outside world, but that’s not really what it was to us. Rumspringa was just youth group, hanging out with our friends from church on Saturday nights.

Often it was hymn singing, and then afterward we would have a snack and play volleyball. There was usually a dance. We weren’t allowed to listen to music, so the dance itself was often kind of boring, because dance and music kind of need each other.

I didn’t date much. In my time, guys didn’t really ask as easily, and the girls had no way of playing into it. You just had to wait until a guy would ask you. That felt very constricting to me.

Only about 50% of my friends were dating, if that. My mom especially, she had no problem with me being single.

Our weddings would happen on Tuesdays or Thursdays at the bride’s house. The bride’s family was responsible for hosting the wedding, which was all day: eight o’clock in the morning to at least eight o’clock at night. I never knew weddings were that expensive, because the family just provided it.

Ever since I was 10 years old, I had questions. I wouldn’t ask my questions, because that would make you a troublemaker. Ironically, I was afraid that our rules weren’t strict enough. For example, we weren’t allowed to have cameras or pictures because that was considered a graven image or an idol. I always loved playing with dolls, and I started thinking, “Maybe dolls are graven images or idols.” And I became so obsessed and bothered.

I tried to settle down by getting baptized at 17. But I felt like something wasn’t right, something was missing.

Then, when I was 27, I was teaching out in Kansas for a completely different set of Mennonites. I started realizing that bringing my rules to their community did not help anything. Like, nobody wants more rules.

I had this moment of rebirth in which I realized that Jesus is not the same as being Mennonite and all these rules really have nothing to do with Jesus.

At first I kept it to myself. I didn’t actually get excommunicated and kicked out of my parents’ house until soon after I was 28.

I learned that leaving is a much, much bigger deal than I ever realized, because those relationships were basically severed. I lost all my friends. I lost everything I had ever known. I had no idea how to drive a car. When I finally was able to get a car, it was like, No, you can’t drive it, you have to get a title, you have to get it notarized, you have to get insurance.

In my experience, you just get a horse and a buggy and you go drive.

A year or two after I left, my mom said that they’d been talking about it, and they decided they still want to be family. I’m still seen as the black sheep, but basically if they invite the family, they’re going to invite me. I can visit them, but of course I have to wear a long skirt or dress.

It doesn’t feel like family. It’s kind of this emotional distance.

I had been nannying and I was looking for my next position and all the good ones were in Philadelphia. I moved to Philly, not knowing anyone.

I have to learn how normal people think. I grew up with no music, no media, no TV. A lot of conversations make all kinds of references to singers, actors, movies, shows. It’s a lot of researching all the time to understand what people are talking about.

I was enjoying Christian music already and I wanted to branch out, but found it difficult to connect with the music since it was overwhelmingly new. I could never recognize songs playing in public areas — it just sounded like noise. Until one day I did recognize a song and I felt so connected and happy I got tears.

So one of the guys I dated would send me playlists of 12 songs every time I requested a new list. I specifically asked to focus on songs that you hear in restaurants, malls, offices, etc. He would send me a list and I listened until I was familiar with each song.

My previous employer composed a list of 50 classic movies from the ‘70s to the current day so I could watch and slowly begin to catch on to references. Over the holidays that year when I was lonely, I binge-watched all those movies.

I found acquaintances in Philly who taught me about football, patiently explaining how the game works. I’ve become an Eagles fan.

Most of the people I dated, I met online. I’ve used Upward, which is a Christian dating app; I’ve used Match. Even though I’m 39, in many ways, I’m just starting my life.

There was a guy who was in the film business, and I said, “I grew up without any of this, and so I’ve always been curious, how do they create this effect?” He got so freaked out that that was my background, and he sent me a long text afterward like, “I think you’re a really wonderful girl, but we’re just not compatible.” And he quickly blocked me.

Dating is much more inconsistent than dating in the Old Order Mennonite community. You think you’re dating them, and then all of a sudden they’re like, “Oh, never mind.”

I don’t expect perfectly scheduled dates like we had back there, but just some sense of consistency.

There’s some pretty serious genetic diseases among my people because the gene pool is so small, so I’m really not interested in dating someone from my background. Another reason I’m not interested is that many of them do not really assimilate to the extent that I have.

I’ve taken a number of the people I’ve dated out to Lancaster. They met my parents, and some of them did really well. Others were more just glad when it was over.

I don’t hide my background, because it’s part of who I am. Sometimes I wish it wasn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is.

If I have a long-term committed relationship, I’m going to need to have someone who can be OK with that.

This is the first in an occasional series about life partners across the Philadelphia area. If you want to share your story about who you’re navigating life with romantically, write to lifepartners@inquirer.com. We won’t publish anything without speaking to you first.