Forever 21?

A bar mitzvah in the paternal side of the family this weekend means traveling to the city most occupied by the paternal end of the family. Perhaps the paternal end of the family looked upon this as ripe opportunity to set me up with an eligible local bachelor. Or perhaps sending me an invitation merely reminded them that they’d been meaning to set me up with said bachelor for a while now.

At any rate, they did the shadchan-thing, and I was bcc’d on the email sent to the bachelor-in-question’s father.

The first half of the email was occupied with descriptions of my parents  so laudatory that even a teenager would have been proud to be related. For a brief moment I basked in the glow of such wonderful forebears. Then I eagerly rushed to the paragraphs at the bottom covering myself. Hey, I can always use an ego boost.

After a glowing introduction, which I thoroughly enjoyed (though it sounded vaguely familiar), the paragraph got down to the essentials. For starters, I was 21 years old.

Um, wait?

I’m going to be 23 in August.

I continued reading, and a sneaking suspicion snuck up behind me and started reading over my shoulder. Height as 5 feet 4.5 inches? That decimal point… The list of things I enjoy, that turn of phrase describing my goals in life… Yep, there was no doubt about it: this had all come straight off my shidduch dossier.

Not that I minded. I hadn’t seen this branch of the paternal end in years, so what else would they have to work with? But clearly, if people were going to be using my crib sheet as, well, a crib sheet, I was going to have to do some maintenance.

It’s not that I don’t update the thing. I’ve changed the references as more friends have gotten married and others have drifted away. I’ve updated my education as I acquire it and my employment as it changes. I guess it never occurred to me to scroll to the top and change my stats. I mean, my name hasn’t changed, my height hasn’t changed, and, um, what else is up there again? I guess my age. It changes. But not that often – only every 12 months. Why would I remember to change it?

I resolve to update my dossier next time I’m near it (I conveniently keep it on the family computer hard drive, which is now about 100 miles away). But then I think about the ramifications. I scroll back down the email to the list of my accomplishments. To do it all by the age of 23 – meh. No biggie. But by 21? Now that is impressive.

Hm. Maybe I’ll leave it for now.

The Moral of the Story…

Random follow-up musing about NEF #13 – I believe she’s proof that you can be a perfectly turned out Flatbush meidel, from the tip of the ballet flats to the top of the ever-present bump, and still have to date close to four-dozen guys and stay single past the age of 22 before getting engaged.

…and if that’s the case, why bother?

NEF #13

After a few years of intense dating, NEF #13 has found a guy who makes her starry eyed. Not that I’ve seen her eyes yet, but she’s weird enough via g-chat that I feel confident on this point.

She doesn’t have to date any more! If that isn’t a  good reason for a national holiday weekend, I don’t know what is. I think they’re going to schedule fireworks for tomorrow night as celebration.

Congrats!

When Women Mess Up

I found this post refreshing because it includes stories of dumb things women have done on dates. Somehow, all the bad date stories I hear have men as the central pathetic character. But women must mess up too, right? I mean, we’re not infallible until after we marry the guy.

Jekyll and Hyde

I was reading this post by FnF about being a different person at work and on a date. And my gut reaction was, “I sooo disagree.” Then I realized that my disagreement didn’t mean much, as I’m still single. And then I realized that her statement didn’t mean much either, because she’s also single. (But seriously, FnF – you were exaggerating, right?)

Now, don’t get me wrong. One wants to be more businesslike at work and more personable at play. But pretending to be a soft, silly, feminine thing when you’re not is bound to fail in one way or another. Either you’ll bore him, because he wants someone with a drop more spine; or you’ll fail, because you can’t hold the charade that long (my problem); or you’ll dump him, because you can’t envision spending your life with the kind of guy who wants a milksop hanging off his arm.

I have definitely tried both tacks. Indeed, I  start out by being mild and agreeable. This, I think, is generally advisable when you’re spending time with someone you don’t know very well (or at all). We have long ago established the disaster that can ensue when someone lets their personality unchecked liberty, without consideration for the opposite party. But even when I’m mild and agreeable, I’m not awfully feminine. My handbag doesn’t sit in the crook of my elbow, and I tend to walk at NYC sidewalk speed, which sometimes leave the OOT guys behind. But otherwise, I’m definitely more charming than I tend to be IRL.

But I’ve yet to go out with a perfect guy, and the best laid plans of mice and men go awry. (I date men.) And having that wonderful, Jewish attribute of mercy (is it also feminine?), I can’t bear to see a guy flounder.  So I’ll suggest a  restaurant that doesn’t have a line out the door, a museum that is actually open, an attraction that has its own parking lot, a good place to walk that isn’t littered with sunbathers, or whatever is necessary. And I’m afraid that once that ruthlessly efficient genie starts peeking out of its lamp, it is perishing difficult to squish it back in.

I mean, is there a feminine way to give a guy directions?

Hm. Probably. The GPS does it. I guess I can cultivate a husky, musical voice and practice making imperatives sound like suggestions. It must be something in the inflection. That way of saying, “Turn left” and lifting the tone at the end oh-so-slightly… Or would sounding like a GPS make me seem more mechanical and less “feminine”?

What on earth is “feminine” anyway? At least we can say that the “gentleman” is some sort of idealized archetype. But isn’t there some rule that feminine is as feminine does? Come on: we all know that femininity today is something quite different than in days of yore. Case in point: I’ve got this multi-function tool in my handbag. It’s a pliers, officially, but the guys at Gerber decided to make it more useful by sticking extra functional gewgaws into the handle. So in one handle they put the always versatile blade and screwdriver. But then they were stumped about what to put in the other handle. The committee sat down to ponder the question: what does the kind of person who carries a pair of pliers and a knife really need most in the course of a day?

The answer, of course, was a nail file.

But back to the problem of taking charge while trying to seem pliable and admiring and feminine…

(Why do I have this feeling that I’ve written about this already? Because I have… Femininity over here.)

And about sounding smart: so, yes. I’ve had trouble there. But there were many more times when the guy was gratified to have someone who not only understood what the heck he was talking about, but could also ask intelligent questions on the subject (!!). It should be noted that the sort who found smartness disconcerting were not generally the high-power yeshiva guys. They were usually the low-end of both yeshiva and college types. Keen minds appreciate keen minds. It’s only the humbugs who feel insecure.

I’ve got a friend who can go on for a solid half hour about the medical aspect of varicose veins. This does not – I must point out – detract from her femininity; she is among the more feminine people I know. She just happens to be obsessively inspired by the sort of medical details most of us would prefer not to think about. When she gets started about medical nomenclature for holes in the heart, I find it riveting. So does her husband. Not because we’re absorbing much, but because it’s fascinating to listen to someone who is really and truly enthusiastic about what she’s saying. And this will work for any person and any of their interests.  (The friend who walks around with a camera stocked with photos of epithelial tissue is also married. Just goes to show.) If someone likes you, they’ll be fascinated by the things you’re fascinated with. Or just fascinated by your fascination. Either way, it’s irrespective of the subject.

Now that point about agreeing with everything he says – hold fire. I think that deserves a post of its own.

A Good Laugh

Via The Curious Jew by way of SerandEz, the Miriam Webster Shidductionary, your guide to defining shidduch terms.

My favorites:

Bright: always had a lot of potential throughout high school, no achievement, just potential

Tall: (for a man) 5′7″

The Top Boy in [fill in the blank]: when the bachurim get together to form a human pyramid so they can hoist one guy high enough to reach the cake that the cook hid, he is the “top boy”

No Hat: tries to observe the Torah and all of its commandments without the aid of a Borsalino

Dresses well:
…
(3) businessman: The cost of his shoes and belt are equivalent.

Yeshivish: her family puts the Yated on the coffee table, keeps Hamodia in the kitchen

Middle-of-the-Road: her family puts Hamodia on the coffee table, keeps The Jewish Press in the kitchen

Breakup Reasons:

She doesn’t have time for a man in her life: She put a three-hour cap on our phone conversations.

We are looking for different things: He is looking for a young bride; she is looking for someone who was born in the same decade.

Signs the Date Isn’t Going Well:

7. She pops out her lens, swishes it in her mouth, and pops it back into her eye, pronouncing it “good as new.”

About the last one – of course you always turn away first! Happy dating, folks.

Should Men Read Austen?

Rereading the last post, I noticed a common thread. Most of the bad moves fell into the category of “not taking it like a man” or “not being a gentleman.” Sadly, modern men don’t have a Casanova role model to learn from. Really, the wonder is that we have dates who act like gentlemen, rather than the other way around. Maybe guys need to be exposed to more of the right kind of literature? I know and agree – Austen, Bronte, they’re all romantic chick lit. But if you’re out to get a chick, maybe it pays to find out what chicks like?

Lesson Learning

The nice thing about dating is that when it goes right, everyone is happy, and when it goes wrong, there’s always a lesson to be learned. Here are few lessons we can learn from…

…the guy who spat at a man wearing a “free Palestine” t-shirt in Times Square. When the man whirled around, the guy took off running in the opposite direction, where he found a cop and complained about being harassed. Obviously, this guy didn’t realize that politics is taboo on a first date. Or, for that matter, acting like a complete sniveling coward.

…the guy who will forever live on in his date’s mind as “Drunken Vomit Boy.” This is because he thought it was cute on the first date to tell about the time he went drinking with a coworker and woke up three hours later in the hospital with vomit on his shirt and bruises around his head. Granted, you’re supposed to be honest on a date. But there’s a difference between “honest” and “tell-all.” Note for guys: girls tend to be less than amused by tales of inebriated escapades, no matter how funny they seemed at the time.

…the guy who, well… Let’s try it this way: One friend was a bit put out when her date took her to a nice restaurant on their third date, and his parents just “happened” to be there already. “He could have passed it off as an accident if he knew how to act, but he didn’t,” she said. “But, you know, it would have been more considerate if he’d at least been a man and said he wanted to introduce me to his parents. Or even introduced me. Because he didn’t. So I just got the feeling that they wanted to look at me. Totally gross.” The moral is, don’t play games.

In the same vein, there was the girl who googled her guy’s name, only to find… his modeling webpage. It included his portfolio, complete with shots of him with his arms around the waists of pretty women. When she called and asked him about it, he flatly denied it. When she said she had the webpage open and the guy looked exactly like him and also shared his name (what a coincidence), he got sulky and lashed out, saying that “not everyone can live at home until they’re 25; some people need to do something called ‘getting a job.’” Though the obvious moral is “don’t act like an immature jerk,” I think she got lucky here. So if you are an immature jerk, do us a favor and make it obvious from the start.

…the guy who freaked his date out with his choice of conversation. It has always been the male way to attract a mate by showing off. What was formerly hunting skills and brute strength now manifests as wealth and knowledge. But still, not all knowledge is equal. For example, on a first date, while sitting and sipping drinks, the girl does not want the benefit of your encyclopedic knowledge of date rape techniques. It will make her clutch her drink more tightly, sip more slowly, and wonder why, oh why, do you know all this?

Also, while wealth is indeed attractive, obsession with it is not. For example, by telling  a gal who loves writing that bestselling authors should stop writing the better to live it up with their wealth. Nor should you then wax on about how in general you think that people with too much money should just stop working and live a profligate, hedonistic lifestyle, because after all, isn’t that the point? Just an aside: it isn’t the point. Writers generally enjoy writing, and don’t care as much about the money. Indeed, writing happens to be the one profession where you can have zero income and nobody thinks you’re a total failure or weirdo. In the broader view, many people work because they enjoy being productive. Money is not the only thing they think about.  Women comprise a huge proportion of the workforce who do things because they love it (this is why they tend to group in the services industries), so revealing to a woman that you think work is solely about money is not a winning strategy.

While we’re at it, not all women are impressed when you do 60 in a 30mph zone, or wonder aloud who on earth actually stops at stop signs, as you zip past at full throttle. Although all that stuff about treating women as delicate creatures who require extra courtesy is outdated, the stuff about pretending to be civilized and leaving the rough talk and behavior for after the ladies have retired to the drawing room does still hold. Of course, playing the courteous and manly character is always appreciated:

For example, the guy who showed up to a fourth date to find the young lady feeling ill.  “If we’re just gonna go to a lounge,” she suggested, “How about we stay right here instead?” So they sat on a couch in her basement and had diet cokes, and it was just the same as a lounge date would have been, except that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast and had been planning to take her to a restaurant, not a lounge. He didn’t tell her that until after the wedding, though. So you see, being a gentleman never hurts.

Those Good Old Days

So, ProfK posts describing the good ol’ days of shidduchim in which men and women just… met.

I’ve heard about those good ol’ days, but everyone in my immediate family back a generation or two was set up by shadchanim, and missed the good ol’ days. And they weren’t living in Europe. So, please do me a favor and interrogate your parents and grandparents and find out if they lived through those good ol’ days too?

Edit: As ProfK has pointed out, it is important to define what a shadchan is. I’m not going to define it; rather, please explain what you mean if you say that your parents met via a shadchan. I will too, below. Also requested that you clarify, from ProfK:

“Another thing, did your parents/grandparents report to the shadchan after every date?  Was the shadchan involved throughout until engagement and marriage resulted?  Yet another question: if, after a date set up by this “shadchan,” either party did not want to continue, who told the other party?  And perhaps a final question: Did either of your parents or both and either of your grandparents or both ever go out with someone that they had met through an informal occasion, such as the ones I described in my posting?”

Keepin’ It Spiritual

Shidduch dating is a lot like going for a walk in the jungle. You shower in DEET, don your cute safari shirt, take your trail map, have finally reached the point where you’re sure the vine isn’t really a snake and you know just which plants not to touch and which dark places not to stick your hand. You’re strolling along and then you happen to glance over your shoulder and see a tiger padding curiously along behind.

AAAAH!

I thought I had mastered all the questions – like why did my great grandparents come to the USA, why did I attend my seminary if I’m so smart, who’s my rav – no problem. Then a friend calls me up and says, “I’m trying to redt you to this guy and his mother wants to know what you do for spirituality.”

Like I was saying: AAAAH!

Don’t get me wrong. I understand where the mother is coming from. You have these girls coming back from seminary with ideas about lifestyles, Torah, and gashmius, and six months into earning their living by answering phones or wiping runny noses and they’re suddenly losing their idealism and thinking that maybe the support should go the other way around. It’s a concern, I hear it. So what if I’ve been out of seminary for four years now? Backsliding is a continuous process. You may indulge less as you progress from the idealistic age, but it’s always a backup activity for a rainy afternoon.

But… that’s kind of a personal question, unique to each individual, often complex, and certainly not the sort of thing one’s friend can explain over the phone. Isn’t that like a fourth date kind of question?

I agonized over how to answer that. “Um, ah…”

“Like, do you go to any shiurim on a regular basis?”

Oh, that kind of thing. Heavens, no. I’ve never been to a speech I haven’t slept through and felt guilty about afterwards. And there’s a limit to how much guilt a person can feel. I can’t blame it on perverseness; I even space out when my boss has been going on for too long. I hope he doesn’t see my eyes glaze over. Usually I catch myself before the head starts nodding. It’s like one of those learning style things – I don’t do audio. Audio books don’t work for me either.  I remember our high school psychology teacher saying that ADHD is when a kid has a low energy level and needs stimulation to keep from nodding off. Since the class doesn’t stimulate him, he stays awake by being active. Well, maybe I’ve stayed off ritalin by just letting things take their course. Zzzz… Wake me up when class is over.

We finally agreed that having a chavrusa counts as looking after one’s spirituality. Friend called the mother back, and I haven’t heard from either since. Time to find a maggid shiur?

I mention this to a friend who gave me one of those “And you’re an expert on dating?” looks I get whenever I reveal the gaping holes in my strategic knowledge of the game. “Of course. That’s why people go to Rabbi Reisman’s shiur,” she explained patiently. “It’s interesting, it’s at a convenient time in the week, and they can say they go to a shiur regularly.”

Silly me. And here I thought they went for the mussar or the Navi. Now that I think about it… I haven’t been there in a while, but maybe the women’s audience was predominantly young singles and older marrieds? Did the new-shaitel crowd bother to show up? Who knows – who cares.

I’d say I’m in the market for a shiur, but I’m really not. I think it’s aspiritual to be rude to speakers by ignoring them. But, let’s accept for a moment that wanting to know how a person tends to his/her spirituality is a good question – what behaviors might be considered good indicators?

Field Guide to Shadchanim

From the expert, Bas~Melech, who has tracked them in the wilderness for several years now. I don’t think it’s done her a lot of good, but now we get the benefit of her collected wisdom.

Here’s part 1.

There Is No Escape

In the spirit of “Everyone’s a Shadchan“, there’s this post on Frumgirls.

No Bodies, Please

From Frum n’ Flipping: she says she’s discriminated against because her father is deceased.

Now, that got me. I mean, how shallow can you get, right? What’s a missing parent here or there to disturb your marriage? In the grand scheme of things, is that a good reason to ditch a girl sight unseen? I would never do that…

…waitasec. OK, not sight unseen, but still. There was this guy… His father died at age 40 and his references differed on if it was diabetes or a heart attack. The guy was grossly overweight himself, and didn’t seem to have any intention of changing that. So he’s describing, over his coke, how his mother had it tough as a young widow, and I’m thinking, “I don’t want that to happen to me!” My marriage is gonna be long term. There’s no copping out by dying. So, to be disgustingly blunt, why on earth would I go and marry a fat guy with fat-related terminal illness in the family?

I wavered. I mean, I wasn’t sure if that was a legitimate reason to dump him. And it’s not really something you can broach on a date that easily.

“Um, so… in light of your father’s passing, have you considered a heart-healthy lifestyle?”

Or maybe, “I love exercising and eating whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. Don’t you?”

Actually, we might have covered that. He was thoroughly carnivorous and all his hobbies involved sitting.

Luckily, there were other reasons we didn’t hit it off.  But yeah, you could say I was disinclined to him because his father died. It probably wouldn’t have been a good reason to refuse him sight unseen (after all, that was part of the problem). But there may be other health-related reasons that freak people out so much they don’t see a point in a first date.

And if there’s no legitimate issue, then the guy is shallow, FnF. So why let it bother you? That’s one less wrong guy to go out with.

Bad for Men’s Brains

It has long been known that dating has a deleterious effect on men’s learning. This was thought to be due to the sheer distraction of it all.

But a recent study suggests that men are actually cognitively impaired after interacting with women – particularly charming and pretty ones and particularly when they are trying to impress.

So the first few months of shana rishona must make for a completely addled man. Thankfully, that ends, and the guy can get back to being mentally coherent. So that’s why they get married.

Quick Poll for Women: Etiquette

Should the guy open the car door for you before you get in?

Should he stay and close it behind you?

Should he walk you to your front door after the date?

We Love Bad Date Stories…

Whenever I hear a truly bizarre date story like this one from ProfK, I get jealous. Why do my bad dates have to be so boring?

Responsibilities on a Date

Harry-er’s comment that guys get all dressed up, the least a girl can do is put on make up got me wondering. What do you think is the responsibility of each party on a date? Please ID yourself as male or female when you comment.

I mean, I think it’s the responsibility of both to look neat, clean, and presentable. I didn’t dump a guy because he had a hole in the back of his coat for three dates running (I guess he can’t really see it if it’s back there, can he?), but it didn’t exactly help his case. And as for stains… well, nothing says it quite like the Tide commercial. Though of course it’s different if you happen to see the stain happen because he’s trying to eat spaghetti on a date. I’d give points for that stain. It takes a brave man to eat spaghetti and tomato sauce in a white shirt.
But… open question: must a guy in a jacket iron his shirt? Does a girl really need to put on makeup?

Both should try to be charming. Sadly, there often different opinions of what this consists of, and even the best attempt can fall flat if you’re dating someone with a very different opinion. But here’s this question: if you see it’s going to be a lemon, should you try to keep it going for a decent amount of time, or beat a retreat as soon as conceivably possible? I know I’ve been on dates where the guy seems to try to keep it going for a minimum time limit. He keeps surreptitiously looking at his watch, and then with a sigh of relief notices that three have gone by so we can go home now. Really – we don’t need to prolong the misery. Just finish eating and take me home, even if it’s only 45 minutes. At least I won’t have to explain to my parents why a terrible date lasted so long.

And I guess from what commenters say: while it’s important to be solicitous of the other person, it helps to be decisive. So if the guy gives you a choice, ladies, choose. And gentlemen – you can give them a choice, but don’t make them plan the date.

…And, well, actually… I can’t think of much more. Except maybe that you should warm people up slowly to the more exciting aspects of your personality. I’m talking skip the practical jokes on the first date, and if you have a very unique sense of humor, refrain from cracking your best jokes. This is not because you’re not funny or cute, but because the person doesn’t know what to expect. I mean, when the guy told me he didn’t have his wallet, I took mine out and offered to pay. Then when he says he’s got it after all, I’m left wondering – was I supposed to laugh? Or was it a test? Or what…? If I knew him better, I’d know if he’s the type for practical joking or for testing, but on date #2 I was just confused.

Humanitarian Hamas

Support for and from Hamas in the shidduch arena.

That’s So… Practical

Practicality and shidduchim just don’t mix. I don’t know why. You’d think pragmatism would be a highly prized virtue in someone who hopes to run a household, but for shidduchim we’re expected to throw it all to the wind.

It’s difficult to fathom how many times I, or someone I know, has been suggested a match where the girl has two more years of schooling on the east coast, and the guy has just started medical school on the west coast, if not England or Australia, and someone is trying to set them up. Um, what? Hello? Anyone home?

Ask the shadchan what (s)he is thinking, and the answer will be something like, “It’s just a date! Go out and see. If you get that far, you’ll work something out.” The only ways I can think of working something like that out is either to postpone the wedding for a few years, or for one of them to give up their careers for the other. Overall, not a bright set of ideas. They might as well wait a few years and then go out.

“But he might be taken by then!” the shadchan will protest. Well then it isn’t meant to be, is it? I mean, if he marries someone geographically suited to him, he’ll be far happier than if he is perpetually engaged to someone who is not.

And finals—ah, finals. I know I’ve been through this before, but seriously. Why are finals not a good excuse to take a hiatus from dating? Both require total concentration and can be very distracting, and trying to pull off both at the same time is a good way of ensuring that you do well at neither. But try telling the average shadchan “Can it wait until after finals?” There will be a brief pause on the other end of the phone line, then a laugh as she gets your oh-so-funny joke. She’ll make sure to tell the guy that you have a wild sense of humor. The alternative is that she quietly marks you down as not so serious about marriage, and never gets back to you again.

To many people there is only one excuse for not dating, and that is dating. So you don’t say “Not this week, it’s finals.” Instead, you say, “Can you hold it temporarily? I’m busy.” And they will understand from your significant inflection that you are entirely occupied with a very interesting young man. They’re almost right. Bernoulli is quite old, but he’s male, and he’s very distracting.

I recently attempted to employ a strategy I dubbed “geographic dating.” Simply put, if the guy lives halfway across the world, and in two weeks I will be traveling across the world in his direction, then wouldn’t it make sense to hold the first date for a couple of weeks?

Pause on the line. Then, from the shadchan, “So… can he call tonight?”

Out of curiosity, I ran the idea past the guy during the phone call. He thought I was weird. Oh well. I was just trying to save him a good 5 hours of driving. But gas and time are of no consideration when it comes to dating. (I suppose he just wanted to cross me off already.) Or maybe I am nuts, and it’s one of those things—like socializing, relaxing, or having fun—that you just shouldn’t be so efficient about.

The Modern Yenta

Video introduction to Shidduchim. Give it a peek. Whattaya think?

Producer’s disclaimer: This piece was produced to explain the shidduch system to people who know absolutely nothing about it. It wasn’t meant to go too in-depth.

My disclaimer: That’s not me with the mirror and mascara, even though it seems like it because of the voiceover. I would never put on mascara on camera. Truth is, I don’t even put it on off camera.

21 Reasons Not to Get Married

This one from ProfK: why stay single?
[pulls on hard hat and ducks under table]
[muffled]Carry on, folks.[/muffled]

21 Reasons

Challenge from NMF#7. Can we come up with 21 reasons to get married? 11 and 21 are already taken, so really the necessity is just for 19.

Reason #21 for Getting Married

Beautiful moments lose something when they aren’t shared.

Reason to Marry #11

Cooking for one is just not worth it.

Where Do You Want To Go?

Some guys have asked questions under the last post.
Question 1: Where do girls like to go on dates?
Question 2: Where do girls want to go that guys don’t take them?

I don’t really think there’s an answer to this, but hey, it’s worth a shot.

It’s a lot easier to think of places not to go. For example, places with a high noise volume, or where talking is discouraged (arcades/movies) make it a drop difficult to date. Places where there’s nothing to fall back on if the conversation lags (most – but not all – lounges and lobbies). Places where one’s dress is totally inappropriate (unless warned, assume first date is formal). Places where one can’t perform the main activity (check cholov yisroel status before planning for Starbucks).

When asking a girl where she’d like to go, don’t offer her two options with wildly different price tags (walk in the park, or Prime Grill?). Don’t ask an open-ended question (where would you like to go?). You probably shouldn’t assume a particular interest (Barnes and Noble or the 5th Avenue Library? Baseball game or the Football Hall of Fame [to some of us, they're all the same]?) or taste (Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks?).

That’s about it I can think of. I like to see places around NYC that I’ve missed or haven’t seen in a while; thus a date at the aquarium struck me as a great idea (the guy seemed surprised I hadn’t been there multiple times already, though, so that’s not a certain winner, but then again, if he thought that, why’d he take me?), as did the Waldorf Astoria (a lot more interesting than the Hyatt or the Marriott, but again, not for everyone). In general, I prefer moving to sitting still, doing to watching.

But that’s just me. Let’s try it this way: guys and girls, what was the best dating venue you’ve ever been to? Please include your gender when posting.

Edit: I see I have this post way back when about where to take a date.

Wrong Reason to Date?

It’s not that I don’t find myself good company. I spent a long yesterday afternoon on my back in the grass contemplating trees, grass, life (purpose thereof), past, future, and clouds. I still think it’s pretty incredible that clouds are made of the same stuff that fills the bathroom after I shower, and even smells the same (Rain Fresh tm), and when it swirls it’s probably God blowing into the fog like I sometimes do. Having a whole world to play with is much more fun than having a 60-foot property line, I think. Sim World doesn’t let you blow at your clouds, does it? Ants fascinate me too. I love watching them bustle about in their tiny world, unaware of the big things going on around them. We’re kind of the same way. I could maunder along, but I’d bore you. My point is, I don’t bore myself.
So I’m saying I find myself pleasant company, but still, there are some things that are just better done with someone else – anyone else. Sightseeing is one of them. You can look at flowers, estates, antiquities, and such things on your own, but… it’s a drop lame. Admiring fauna, ostentatious mansions, and edifying antiquities are really only about a third of the experience. The rest is about hearing someone else’s impressions and witty remarks, and bouncing your own off an audience to see if they’re any good. In short,  it’s about sharing the experience with someone you (preferably) like.
So, when completely stranded over the summer surrounded by interesting places to go and things to see and nobody to see them with… maybe it pays to dig up a date?

Where to Find a Date: Case Studies

The guy was on the F riding home from yeshiva when he noticed a young lady. Perhaps “noticed” is an understatement. She exploded in his consciousness like a revelation: he knew she was the one for him.

So when she got off the train, he did the natural and expected thing – he immediately followed her. He also followed her out of the station, down the block, and all the way home. He did not, I am glad to report, follow her into her house. Instead, he hung around outside uncertainly for about an hour before screwing his courage to the sticking point and ringing her doorbell. He introduced himself and explained why he was there. If she did not react in the manner he expected, it was only because he had exceedingly unrealistic expectations. In truth, her reaction displayed intelligence and perspicacity. She closed the door in his face.

His reaction finally caught up with hers, and instead of ringing the bell or camping on her doorstep, he went home, tracked her down, and got himself redt to her.

They’ve been married 30 years.

Then there’s the one about the seminary Girl taking her first bus ride to Geula. She didn’t really understand what the driver was saying about kartis and kartisiya and all that stuff. Luckily, a Bochur recognized her distress, stepped in, and saved her. He got her the right ticket, explained the difference, and she gratefully—and somewhat embarrassedly—retired to the back of the bus.

Our Girl got off in Geula and headed to a sefarim store to buy some books. One of the sefarim she needed was on a top shelf and she couldn’t reach it. Suddenly, who should loom up behind her but her Bochur in shining armor, also buying sefarim, but happy to help her out by reaching up and… pulling the entire shelf down on their mutual heads.

Utterly embarrassed, the Girl fled the scene.

They’ve also been married 30 years and live in Monsey.

Then there were the unfortunate yeshiva Guy and seminary Girl stuck next to each other on a flight from Israel. They sat carefully gazing forward the entire flight, never making eye contact, and always behaving in the most decorous of manners. Both were no doubt relieved when the flight ended and their row dispersed to the luggage pickup, never to see each other again.

Except everyone’s luggage came out, went round and round, and soon only two people were left staring in dismay at the empty carousel. Guy and Girl. Carefully avoiding each other’s gazes, they made their individual ways to the claims counter, a careful few feet apart. Girl waited patiently behind Guy as he explained that his luggage was no-show. Then she stepped forward and explained that her luggage was also AWOL. The guy behind the counter looked at her in confusion. “Aren’t you two together?” he asked. Guy looked at Girl; Girl looked at Guy. They burst out laughing.

They’re also married.

While I was warming a Friend’s couch this past Shobbos afternoon, Friend’s parents arrived home from a social gathering in which someone had told the following story about a general acquaintance: A Young Man took the train to work every day, and on this trip he frequently found himself in the same subway car as two eligible young ladies, also on their way to work. After overhearing their conversations and noting their bearings and behavior, he concluded that they were charming and wonderful and just the right sort of girls for him and his Best Buddy.

Young Man dialed Best Buddy and said, “There are these two great girls I see on the train every morning. I think they’re perfect for us. I’ll take the Pretty One, and you can have the Other.” Well, he fenangled the dates somehow. Young Man and the Pretty One didn’t quite hit it off, but Best Buddy and the Other went smashing well.

They’re married.

Moral of the story, according to Friend’s parents? “You need to ride subways more,” they reproved her.

Question of the Week

A Mother, asking someone about her friend:

“Will she be a bad influence on my daughters?”

The son in question was a bit more centrist than his right-leaning family, and Mother is clearly concerned about the sort of women he might date.

Friend’s Answer: About as much as your son is, so it’s in your best interest to get him married off ASAP so you can ban the couple from the house.

What NEF am I Up To?

Cuz there’s another. I think she might be 12…

Mazal tov!

Shidduch Resume Outdated?

Frum N’ Flipping on the shidduch DVD, a way to learn more than you really wanted to about someone from the comfort of your living room.

The one distinct advantage I see is to the references. By taping an interview during which they discuss the potential in question, you save them an awful lot of phone calls.

The disadvantage at this point is the cost of a DVD. But why DVD? Just upload the videos to a protected webpage or non-public YouTube account, and provide the access password to interested people.

Off Topic

If you haven’t done so yet, trot along to the Jewish Economics Survey and add your data to the growing list. If you have done so yet, why not trot along to the presentation of the results?

Have I Seen You Before?

I was describing a potential match to a Friend who, after my description, frowned and asked, “What’s his name? He sounds so familiar, maybe I went out with him already.”
I had to laugh. I mean, despite her tender years, Friend has managed to date upward of 35 gentlemen. They were bound to start running together at some point, no?
I’ve dated half that amount, and already I’ve gone out with guys who sound like total clones of each other.
There were the four guys who were so clever they had already finished their actuarial/CPA (nobody seemed to know the difference or which was which) exams but were sitting and learning in the mean time. And of course they were all described as brilliant, nice, fun, learned, a tad on the quiet side, and (with one exception) black hat. They were not, in fact, one guy, but even so, nearly all of them had only gotten their degrees/taken the tests to get their parents off their backs, and had no intention of crunching numbers for a living. They were more inclined toward becoming rabbeim.
Then there were the three guys finishing medical school and learning part time. All, naturally, described as brilliant, nice, fun, learned, a tad on the quiet side, solid learner-earner material, and with a sense of humor to boot. One of them turned out not to be in medical school (his relatives didn’t know the difference between an MD and an MS), and the other two were only redt, we never went out; apparently I don’t appeal to real doctors.
Then there were three engineers who, oddly enough, were all working or intending to work at the same company. They were all described as brilliant, nice, fun, learned, a tad on the quiet side, a tiny bit nerdy but oh-so-brilliant. These three were also not the same guy, so when the last one gets hired, I’ll be able to say I’ve dated three employees of a prestigious organization.
There were also a couple of psychological types and a few perpetual learners and smattering of career goals that fall into “other.” Thank goodness for variety. But one day I’d like to date someone completely different – maybe a park ranger who is of average intelligence, occasionally rude, not overly educated, and sometimes pleasantly boring. Just one, though. Don’t redt me to all his clones.

Quote of the Week: Achievement

From here:

Stern Professor: Why does the Ramchal call olam haba a chupa?

Stern Girl: Because isn’t chupa the ultimate achievement?

Interlude

“Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;

…But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.”

~ Andrew Marvell

Time passes on, but men and women just don’t change, do they?

Poll Results

“Results” might be a bit of a misnomer, but here’s the numbers:

Age of Girls:	# Married First	Age of Guys:	# Married First
18	9	18	0
19	5	19	0
20	8	20	5
21	4	21	6
22	0	22	9
23	1	23	11
24	0	24	4
Total Girls:	28	Total Guys:	36
Breakups	2	Breakups

And then, because there’s nothing like pretty charts:

For the statisticians who like to see the scatter (thought I think I scattered it wrong):

Then, because that doesn’t look very informative: And then, for those who don’t like data, there’s nothing like a pie chart:

No…

Saying “no” is a lot tougher than I thought. I mean, til now my parents did it for me, but recently I had to do it myself.

The shadchan is a personal acquaintance, and the date was a relative of hers, though not one she knows too well, and not one she sets up on a regular basis. So I felt a bit crummy saying no to a second date (I usually do a second, but this was that bad). I didn’t want to compound it by explaining why. I didn’t think she’d tell him, anyway, so it wouldn’t be constructive criticism, and it would just make her feel bad for being the cause of a truly horrible experience.

You know, it’s odd. The guy was one big faux pas from start to finish, but the first thing that pops into my mind is that his shirt wasn’t tucked in. Possibly wasn’t ironed, but hey, that takes time and effort and skill. But not bothering to tuck the thing in over a four-hour date… Is there anyone but me who feels that it’s really rude to show up to a first date without tucking in your shirt? A neighbor who passed us in the street later asked my sister if I’d been on a date. “She looked like she was on a date, but he sure didn’t.”
I was tempted to agree to a second date just so I could mirror him in slovenliness. But not tempted enough. And before anyone starts flaming, that’s not why I said no. It’s just symptomatic of an entire personality.

POLL

Only you can help resolve a dispute from our Pesach table.

Here’s the thing: I’m collecting data on people who married the first person they went out with. Please think about everyone you know and try to recall all the ones who married their first ever match. Then, provide the following:

Age of person

Age of their spouse

Were they also their spouse’s first date?

And any random information that might be pertinent, like “she’s drop-dead gorgeous” or “he’s the next godol hador.”

I’ll start:

I have a friend who done gone and married the first gentleman she ever met formally, against her intentions, too. She was 20, he was a few years older, and had dated a zillion and a half girls.

Benefiting Who?

Aaah, Pesach. The whole family, packed into a single abode for three days straight, with two meals of enforced interaction per day…

The old characters:

Lil Sister, Mother, Father

A new character:

Brother – this elder brother spends most of his time in yeshiva in Israel where he’s ostensibly eligible, but just try getting a date with him.

The scene:

So, we manage to get through two whole days of yom tov without much dwelling on shidduchim. We charmed each other with broad discussions ranging from the generator explosion in front of our house to nuances in the hagada. We were the picture of family harmony.

Sadly, Shobbos lunch that subject came up. Sadly because, you see, my parents have one philosophy about dating, which, as you’d expect, includes going on dates. My brother has another philosophy about dating which, strangely enough, does not. Trying to change my brother’s opinion once he’s decided he’s right is similar to trying to reroute a stampeding herd of wildebeest. Not only will you fail, but when you peel yourself off the Savannah you probably won’t remember how you got there, or even who you are.

But here’s one  point my brother made was about why everyone is so anxious to marry young people off that strikes me as legit.

Is it for their benefit? One wonders. I mean, does the average newly minted adult benefit from being immediately thrown into a marriage? How many might, secretly, prefer to finish their degree undistracted by anything except enjoying a few stag or doe years to be themselves? When I think of all the marrieds who warn me “finish your degree first” or “don’t rush, enjoy yourself,” I can begin to suspect they almost regret being shoved into matrimony.

When you speak to people who date as soon as they’re old enough, there’s a certain frantic quality to it. Sometimes it’s self-imposed, but often it’s due to pressure from those around them. If I had to count how many times I’ve been wished to find my choson “soon in the right time” in the past 72 hours, I’d probably have to take off my socks to finish the tally. (OK, so having my grandmother over helped, but still.) Some people’s parents have them dating non-stop from the moment they turn 19. Why this pressure? Do we really believe that everyone is better off married before they can drink?

Not really. It’s more like from this idea that dating is an unpleasant task that ought to be completed ASAP. Everyone hates shidduchim, so it’s better to get it over with. The relatives want the relief from the burden of having a single child to marry off and the friends feel that something is incomplete until their chevra is all blissfully paired up. So they go about the task of removing this unpleasantness with far more diligence than they ever showed for their schoolwork.

Granted, I’m projecting. I don’t really think my brother is dying to get married. I don’t know what he’d do with a wife. Mostly I’m worried that he’s well on his way to become the aged alte bochur in the corner who is part furniture and part yeshiva mascot. But truth is, if he enjoys it, why not?

Besides, I’m pretty sure it’s an accurate projection. Sure, there are probably many people who just want to share the joy with singles. But too many people are too frantic for this to be a simple matter of upgrading to Life Deluxe Edition. Nobody loses sleep if they’ve got an LCD instead of a plasma. People do lose sleep when they’re at risk of missing their project deadline.

Happy Holyday!

Happy Cracker Week to you all. May it be delicious, meaningful, and not terribly fattening.

Obsessive

The Stern Obsesser is aptly named. I believe about 2/3 of the articles are about dating. (Most of what’s left is about food.)

Sense and Sensibility

My younger sister has long wanted me engaged.

At first, she just wanted an excuse to wear a gown. Later, she developed a taste for party planning as well. Then she learned that I’m not whole without a husband, and dearly wished me this ultimate joy.

All this means is that, for the past 4 years, give or take, I’ve rolled my eyes at her suggestions – not all subtle – that I ought to seriously set my mind to this marriage thingummy. But they’ve recently taken on a certain urgency as she heads towards seminary at a breakneck speed.

You see, like all aidel maidels, she has her life planned out. She’s going to seminary, then she’s coming back. She starts dating right away so as to get about the  business of that BnB, and naturally, marries the first ben Torah she goes out with. Her wedding is a joy of satin and lace and flowers, and her friends dance ecstatically, long in to the morning.

There’s only one problem with this image of bliss, and that’s her older sister who, annoying thing, persists in being single. So, with the vague idea that she can nag me into matrimony, she’s taken to dropping hints that I really should get around to tying the knot.

Now, really I haven’t exactly been barring the door to prevent prospective hubbies from taking me out for dinner. In fact, I almost always let them do it twice, if they’re so inclined. And if they’re pleasant, even more than that. I even use a knife, fork, and napkin, chew with my mouth closed, and take other precautions to make myself agreeable. What am I to do if at some point either I or he decides that we just can’t see ourselves together forever?

Of course, with a younger sister being annoying about it, I did briefly consider taking a hiatus from dating for a year and a half, so as to ensure my spinsterhood at Kid Sister’s supposedly-impending wedding. But either I wasn’t cruel enough, or I was less reluctant to marry than she supposes, because I subsequently continued dating.

Truth is, I don’t get what her problem is. I would be perfectly happy to dance at her wedding without extra hair on my head or a bored husband on the other side of mechitza. But whenever I say that she gets all “Oh Bad4 don’t say that no you can’t no you have to be married at my wedding please Bad4 just get married already ok stop being annoying.” As if I go on bad dates specifically to tease her.

Now, I don’t mean to sound like a poet of old – you know, the ones who tried to always be miserable because heightened emotion made them feel profoundly alive – but I think it would be interesting to be single at my younger sister’s wedding. There must a lovely bittersweet feeling, to be happy for your sister at her wedding, and fielding sympathetic glances and annoying good wishes from her guests. It’s one of those things you don’t often have the opportunity to experience, and will doubtless make for unique memories after, not to mention, of course, heightened poetic sensibilities.

List Stress

I think I figured out why having more than one or two guys to consider gets my stress hormones pumping. It’s the depressing concept that you might just have a solid block of dating ahead, with no success, one unsuccessful date after another… Just the idea of “after this one comes that one and then that one” presents the possibility of a dreary neverending wasting of time and money, which is a far worse prospect, imho, than no dating at all.

Want a Date?

There’s a new guy in the league. Girls, swamp him.

It’s Raining, It’s Pouring

Quick: what does Bad4’s dating life and an equatorial climate have in common?
They both have rainy and dry seasons.
Seriously: when it rains, it pours. I can go a good three months without ever seeing a bachelor sail out of the sky and land head-first in my front lawn, and then suddenly there’s a storm of them and the grass needs patching and the neighbors are calling the cops.
It’s a predictable pattern. There are times when I have nothing much to do except date and get married. Like this summer. With a steady 9-4 and no homework, what’s a girl to do with her evenings, if not meet young men and discuss deep topics with them over expensive sodas in local lobbies? At least, that’s what I thought. Apparently, the gentlemen thought differently, because not a single one sought my company. Even my friends and family couldn’t come up with a single suspect to liven the dog days.
Now, come some time like midterms or finals, when I rise at 6:15 to begin filling my mind with the accumulated wisdom of our modern age, and bed after 11 to allow my brain to store the data during essential REM sessions, and also occasionally eat, drink, shower, and take care of the necessities of life when I remember them… It’s during such a time that I’ll get a plethora of calls, “Bad4! He said it’s ok with him.”
Or emails, “The guy I said I would ask about for you is free now…”
Or IMs: “r u avlbl?”
And in addition to all these young gentlemen who are dying to take me out A-sap (so they can move down their list, doubtless), there are the sudden “hey I’ve been thinking of you” suggestions too. The “can you send me your latest profile because I know someone who…” or “would you be interested in a guy who…” or “What do you think of going out with…” Swamping my inbox, ringing my telephone, and accosting me in the street.
It’s at times like these that I grab my head and squeeze gently to relieve the pressure.
Not that I don’t appreciate it, and all that. But can’t there be some sort of modulation thingy happening so I don’t get them all in a rush?
I don’t know how guys handle lists. I just want to crawl under my bed and wait for them all to finish their cokes and wander off with a shrug. I don’t know why – is it keeping their stats straight that worries me? Remembering who suggested who? Having to date back-to-back if the first one doesn’t work out? All I know is that I just don’t like it.
Down with the rainy season. Up with year-round precipitation.

Predictable Intermission

I generally try to avoid topics that lower the tone, but this one has kept me guessing for a long time. Why is it, that on every date, the guy picks up halfway through and excuses himself for a trip to the men’s room? It doesn’t seem to matter whether the date is a good date or a bad date—they just  go. (Indeed, the only guy who sat through the entire date without a break was among my worst dates ever, and I would have welcomed the intermission.)

A friend told me that guys have smaller bladders—at least until a baby sits on a woman’s and squashes it flat. But a good 45 minutes of googling this most fascinating topic (not recommended…  did you know there’s a field called urodynamics? Did you know that Iberians used urine as mouthwash, way back when? Do I now have a greater understanding of why information at your fingertips is not always a blessing?) turned up the data that men and women are pretty similarly built in this area.

I developed an inkling of an idea when people started sending me dating jokes. Invariably, the bathroom is the safe haven—the place you escape to when it becomes unbearable any more. Like the one about the guy who goes to the bathroom to ask his friend to call and say that his grandmother is in the ICU. The friend complies, and the guy apologizes, saying he has to end the date because his grandmother has taken critically ill. “Phew,” the girl says with relief. “Another 10 minutes and my uncle was going to die.”

However, none of my dates have ever taken any calls on our dates. Though, I guess, it is possible that they’re running off to check who’s been vibrating their phones. But otherwise, if they’re ducking away for less mundane reasons than they claim, it’s purely for relief from my company. How flattering.

Then someone pointed out that guys and girls don’t head out on a date on equal footing in that way. Girls pop out of the powder room and step into the car. Whereas, the guy has already been in the car for up to an hour or two. This is a particular problem for my dates, since I don’t think I’ve ever gone out with anyone from Brooklyn. Considerate parents-of-the-girl will point him down the hall, but the guy doesn’t always feel comfortable with that option.

Which leaves the date itself. More comfortable for the guy, perhaps, but not all that fun for the girl—at least, not a girl without a cell phone to text on. If you’re in a lounge, there’s a limit to the number of paintings you can look at before you start encroaching on the next dating couple’s territory. (Though eavesdropping is oh-so-tempting!) If you’re in a restaurant, you have to twiddle your fork and try to avoid the sympathetic glances coming from all around. And if you’re almost anywhere else, you kind of hang out in the hall and try not to be in the way.

Of course, a resourceful girl is hardly ever at loose ends, so guy also takes a risk, abandoning his date like that. On my first ever date, when the guy left me for the bathroom, an Israeli gentleman struck up an animated conversation with me. When my date returned, the Israeli was kind enough to include him in the conversation. He was not, however, willing to let us get on with our tete a tete. So the rest of the date went pretty much three-way.

Thank Goodness. The Israeli was far more interesting. Too bad he was already taken.

I Just Want To…

So Boro Park has its kashrus scare. In typical “let’s observe some mitzvos at the expense of others” it becomes a whole brouhaha – at least according to Hamodia, which was the first I heard about it. Anyway, naturally the store owner is a drop upset. For his reputation? His livelihood? Nah… that’s piddling stuff.

“I just want to make good shidduchim for my children,” he says sadly.

Doing It for the Grade

Sometimes I think I spent too many formative years in school. If nobody’s going to grade me, and there’s no deadline, why do it? Let’s face it: there’s no motivation like a letter grade to make a person put in some extra effort. Society has noticed this in general, and there are now letter grade systems for public schools, airports, and even the MTA. Imagine how much more we’d try if we knew we were being graded on our dates.
This girl realized that if she wanted to get herself married, she was going to need some serious motivation. So she took it on as part of her senior project. She gave herself 3 months. Wow. I hope she doesn’t get an F.

The Long and the Short of It

I recently sifted through a game I brought home from a high school shabbaton. In the game you are dealt a hand of positive aspects of life, and you have to choose to discard a card—providing explanation—every round. The cards ranged from “bitachon” to “wealth,” but the one that caught my eye was the one that read “A feeling of belonging.”

There have been many times in my life when I felt like I didn’t belong. They ranged from 1-hour Shobbos-meal ordeals to over a month long. They all stem from one essential difficulty: that of cherishing values and goals very different from those of the people around you. This prevents you from forming a rapport with them, building relationships, and developing that comfortable confidence of belonging.
The discomfort of not belonging can be so acute that many people will adjust their value systems to match those around them. We commonly call this “being brainwashed,” which is a bit unfair, seeing as our dreams are an amalgam of goals condoned by our family, community, and society. We’re all brainwashed, just some more obviously than others.
For one who holds on to beliefs anomalous to the happy, well-adjusted people all around them, there develops, in addition to loneliness, a gnawing doubt. Why is one so… weird?
Of course, that all sounds very melodramatic. Reality is often more subtle. For example:
When in Touro, I often precipitated eye-rolling by wondering things like “How do the two elevators coordinate which picks up which calls?”
“Only you would think about something weird like that,” snorted a friend.

So when I graduated and moved on to a college with an even more complicated elevator system, I did not voice my observation that the express elevators would make local pickup stops on their way down, nor my curiosity about the complexity of the programming behind this. But when I overheard a few really normal, well-adjusted students discussing exactly that one fine afternoon, it was like an extra birthday. They probably found my sudden friendliness and enthusiasm a bit odd, but in fact they’d confirmed something I’d been suspecting for quite a while now: I am normal.
No really, don’t laugh. I know it’s not just me. A friend and fellow graduate of the same alma mater mentioned how shocked she was by how much she was enjoying graduate school. “I know why,” I informed her clairvoyantly. “It’s because for the first time you’re surrounded by people who are just as curious, sedulous, and enthusiastic about what they’re doing as you are.”
Startled, she asked, “How’d you know?”
It’s pretty crazy to be crazy for having joi de vivre, but that’s exactly what she’d been pre-graduation. It is possible to be thoroughly sane and yet completely incongruous. And that was, ‘til recently, the most troubling part of my dating experience. Why should a mostly sane and well-adjusted young lady have such trouble getting beyond two dates with any given guy? Is that normal? Or is it just me? That prompted a post (which I can’t relocate), wondering if it is common to date with such brevity, and if that is a preferably practice to prolonged dating streaks.
In a way, it’s good, I guess. If you date so many people who are so wrong, you can’t help recognizing the right chap when he rings your doorbell. But there’s something to be said for knowing that the right chap has a chance of existing. The longer you date instant duds, the more dubious that chap’s existence seems. And if there is no man with whom you share enough values to develop a rapport, doesn’t that make you a bit of a freak?
Of course it would take more than being doomed to eternal spinsterhood to convince me to give up my otherwise effective freakishness. But that is a rather depressing prognosis for life. Which is why I have finally answered the question I posed in the above-mentioned post. Short dating streaks are easier, but if you’re going to be dating for years on end without success, throwing in a long-dating streak every now and then is good for the sanity.
It’s like Tarzan meeting fellow humans for the first time and discovering that he’s not a pathetic ape, he’s actually a normal specimen of another species. This discovery is so relieving that it’s really no surprise that Tarzan married the first human he met. For the rest of us, it provides a renewed belief that they do indeed produce the right brand, and all that remains is to find the right edition.

Round Two

There are milestones in singlehood. The first is when all your friends are getting married. Then you’re sort of left behind in the rush—except that you’re rushing more than anyone else. You have to get from vort to vort, shower to shower, wedding to wedding, and by the end of it all you’re as broke and exhausted as they are, but still single.

The next round I am in right now. That is the First Baby Round. Within the past two months I have congratulated no less than six friends on the birth of their eldest. And there are still a few more on their way. In this round, the single rushes from the balloon-and-teddy-bear store to the Kiddush to the bris to Children’s Place and then back to deliver the gift. At the end of this round you’re pretty tired and out of pocket, but at least you haven’t changed any diapers.

So what’s round three? Is it the upsherin rush? Or do you wait for bar mitzvahs?

“I Knew Right Away…”

Have you ever met someone with whom being just seemed natural?

That’s not a very pretty sentence, but the alternative isn’t great either: Have you ever met someone and you just knew immediately that you’d make great friends? Not a friendship based on anything like working in the same office, or a shared interest in Alfred Lord Tennyson, but just an instinctive, intuitive feeling that you’d get along, always, even with years and miles between you – you’d just be able to pick up again with the same warmth as before when back together?

I was thinking of this because of NMF#11. Whenever people ask how we’re friends, we just answer “It’s complicated.” There’s no particularly good reason for us to be friends. We first met during an intramural machanayim game in high school. I fed her cake and she showed me the janitor’s chickens. We hung out for about 2 hours and then didn’t see each other for 3 or so years, when she popped in to spend an hour on my bed in seminary, telling people their personalities based on the shape of their noses. And that was it until she showed up for my open-invitation 21st birthday party instead of flying to Scandinavia that night.

After that we decided to keep it up because it seemed a waste not to.
She’s not the only one. There was a girl in the parallel elementary school class who I knew would make a great friend even though I hardly saw her or had anything to do with her. But there was a taboo on cross-class socializing, so it took until summer camp after 8th grade before we got together. Stargazing and swatting mosquitoes on the baseball field with her one night, I confessed, “I’ve wanted to be your friend for the longest time.” She tickled my ear with a blade of grass to make me think something was crawling up it and answered, “Really? So have I. Be your friend, I mean.” We’ve been at it ever since.

Often people say “I knew from the first date” that they were going to marry their spouse. I wonder if that’s what it’s like. You know, you just see your “bashert” and you know that you will always get along because you just will, and that differences of opinion and styles of living won’t matter because you’ll always just like each other no matter what, and you’ll have that to fall back on. Or when people say that are they referring to some stronger feeling? That giddy rush of love at first sight we all hear about and sometimes witness? Some people have commented to that tune on  the Not for Singles post. Would you care to elucidate on what you mean when you say you “knew” right away?