Women, are your dates very short? Do you not get third or even second dates? The Jewish Press dating column has advice: act dumb.*
The column explained that women get degrees and learn analytic thinking and begin to approach life that way. They treat everything like a dissertation or a subject for a critical essay. And they assume that the easiest way to impress a date, like a professor, is to display their intellectual prowess. So on first dates they discuss concepts and ideas, much to the dismay of the gentlemen across the table.
My first question is: aren’t the guys also in college getting degrees and practicing analytic thinking?
My second is: so the first date is limited to “what I did during my year in Israel” conversation?
The article went on to recommend that women turn off the brains and turn on the charm for the first few dates, since a guy is marrying the person not the cranium.
Question number three: so we should pretend to be “dumb blonds” for the first three dates? If a guy wants that type of wife, then shouldn’t a brainy woman attempt to scare him off ASAP? The point isn’t to get more dates, it’s to get appropriate dates. And there are enough intelligent women out there disguised as ditzes because they think it’ll make them more desirable. Please don’t encourage the phenomenon!
Besides, how bad can this conceptual stuff get? Nobody plunks down their diet coke and says, “So, how do you think the United States trade deficit will have a deleterious effect on its geopolitical hegemony?” Or do they? Has anyone here done that? Add it to the list of fun things to do on dates.
I can see something similar happening during the “what do you do” stage of the date. You know:
She: So what do you do for a living?
He: I’m an accountant.
She: How… interesting. You add up numbers?
He: I also give some financial advice.
She: Mmhm. That’s nice.
He: What do you do?
She: I’m on the CUNY string theory team.
He: How… interesting. That’s the stuff with the parallel universes and grand unified theory of everything?
She: Well actually…
…And that’s where it begins going downhill.
If a woman is talking analytically solely to impress a guy, then I agree—that’s wrong. She should stop. But if she tends to analyze things to death – and I know people who do – then that’s part of her personality, and if he doesn’t like it, he shouldn’t bother with a second date. What it boils back down to (once again) is that one shouldn’t pretend on a date.
But if you’re wondering, I’ll encourage my children to study Mandarin.
*based on two columns run almost a year ago.
um, where can I get a copy of that volume so I can burn it?
for crying out loud I want to marry a beruria! lets discuss an interesting gemorah or midrash on the first date (along with lots of other things.) that will really tell you where her hashkafot lie.
(and yes, there are plenty of yiras shemayim girls who enjoy studying gemorah, and its perfectly permissable, at least with most tractates. Midos or Tamid maybe not, but all three bavas, shabbos, pesachim, sukkos, chullin, no question!)
Comment by yoni — December 5, 2007 @ 11:15 am
May every girl I go out with read this post. Amen.
(Memo to self. No reading this blog anymore while drinking at my desk. I almost had coffee coming out of my nose when I got up to “CUNY string theory team”)
Comment by Lawyer-Wearing-Yarmulka — December 5, 2007 @ 11:35 am
i think many guys are scared off by brainy women so much so that they don’t even agree to a date.
i mean, a relative of mine told me that maybe i should just lay low in the talent and brains department for a while, because when he tells anyone about any of the projects i’ve recently done, they think i’m way too accomplished and won’t be able to settle down and be a mother and wife.
LOL.
(little do they know that cooking is one of my favorite pasttimes…)
Comment by the dreamer — December 5, 2007 @ 11:42 am
“aren’t the guys also in college getting degrees and practicing analytic thinking?” The first part maybe, the second part, not always so you would notice.
“so we should pretend to be “dumb blonds” for the first three dates?” As a blond and the mother of bright female blonds, I take exception to the stereotype. But if you are going to go with it, then you also need to learn how to always be chewing a double wad of bubblegum, blowing loud smackers every 11.4 seconds. You also need to practice in the mirror saying “Gee duh” with the intonation of the Gettysburg Address. In a pinch you can also answer every one of his statements with “That’s fab!” or “So cool!”
“since a guy is marrying the person not the cranium.”
Last I looked my head and my body were firmly attached to each other. You get one, you get the other. Imagine, two for the price of one!
“He: I’m an accountant.She: How… interesting. You add up numbers? He: I also give some financial advice. She: Mmhm. That’s nice.” Youch! Accountants also tend to make excellent parnoseh, allowing their wives to stay home and indulge in string theory exercises. They also know that 1+1=2, a key idea in getting married. Lots of guys haven’t mastered that one yet.
Just have to love the advice columns that have reduced dating down to an exact formula. Why bother even going out? You can send a recording of pat answers in your stead.
Comment by profk — December 5, 2007 @ 12:20 pm
“She: I’m on the CUNY string theory team.
He: How… interesting. That’s the stuff with the parallel universes and grand unified theory of everything?”
More realistic:
She: I’m on the CUNY string theory team.
He: Is that where you play Cat’s Cradle?
She: No. And that would be algebraic topology anyway.
He: I like spaghetti.
Comment by Individual — December 5, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
I don’t consider myself exceptionally intellectual, but I do enjoy intelligent conversation. But maybe even that’s too much for the guys to handle…
Comment by Scraps — December 5, 2007 @ 2:48 pm
As stupid as it sounds, I think that most guys are definitely intimidated by super-smart girls. That doesn’t mean be stupid, it means save the intellectual discussions for another date. At least the first date should be fun, witty and light.
Although if you go on a date and the guy is so obviously stupid it boggles your mind, feel free to play some games. I went out with a guy once whom (?), about 1/2 hour in, I realized was not the brightest bulb in the box, but pretending to be (as well as a huge macher, which I loathe). So I tossed out some words like “degenerate” and “ostentatious” and “college”. It was fun. And so deliciously evil.
Comment by marriagenewbie — December 5, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
OK dreamer, online and anyonymous – what have you been up to?
When did “college” become a big word?
Comment by bad4shidduchim — December 5, 2007 @ 3:30 pm
I married the smartest girl I dated (and probably knew). A dumb girl would have been the equivalent of being consigned to hell until death. Then again, I’m an apikorus.
Comment by Married Guy — December 5, 2007 @ 4:11 pm
I think a lot of guys are intimidated by smart girls, male ego and all. But the problem is much more acute in Yeshivish circles because the girls are somewhat educated in secular studies and the guys have little exposure to anything not Torah. I’m not even talking about Lakewood. If a girl is well-read, her vocabulary will dwarf that of the average Yeshiva guy, and he’ll have trouble following the conversation. People tend to equate a big vocabulary with intelligence, so a lot of guys get scared off. Maybe girls shouldn’t act dumb, but they should tone it down a bit, especially in the beginning if they intend to date Yeshivish guys.
Comment by Nephtuli — December 5, 2007 @ 6:06 pm
The Jewish Press dating column scares me.
Comment by p_almonius — December 5, 2007 @ 6:41 pm
Me and Da Wife were just talking about this subject.
How retarded of our dumbass average yeshiva joe to seek out an even dumber spouse.
Comment by jacob — December 5, 2007 @ 8:56 pm
Now I’m beginning to wonder if they should take out intelligent and witty from my yearbook blurb… I hear yearbooks are analyzed to death.
Comment by flatbushgal — December 5, 2007 @ 10:08 pm
LOL.
.
My grandma always tells me not to act so smart on dates… I always tell her that I NEVER act smart. I just AM smart.
LOL
She yells at me
Comment by Anita — December 5, 2007 @ 10:22 pm
you know men like blondes better…
Comment by Anonymous — December 5, 2007 @ 10:41 pm
well, b4s, if i want to stay even partly anonymous i won’t say what i’ve done to the online community… that is, for those who haven’t figured me out by now…
email me and we’ll talk.
Comment by the dreamer — December 6, 2007 @ 1:18 am
A girl I dated once many years ago said to me after the first date, “Be yourself, because the people who care don’t matter and the people who matter don’t care.”
I married her.
Comment by Ezzie — December 6, 2007 @ 2:23 am
Send the smart women my way. Wait a minute, I live in the Caribbean; send any woman my way!
I hate going out on a date with a dumb woman as sharing a one way conversation is not conducive for evaluating compatibility. To be honest, I don’t know if she is dumb or just shy. Nonetheless, how am I supposed to know which of the two she is and whether I should give her another shot?
I do, however, hate it when my date starts taking politics. I usually find the topic dreadfully boring and not to mention, gauche to expect me to opine on a whole plethora of unrelated and, quite frankly, meaningless political issues while on the first couple of dates. If I wanted to know and have a somewhat informed opinion on current world politics I would purchase a copy of Foreign Affairs, not go out on a date.
Comment by Adam in the Caribbean — December 6, 2007 @ 11:01 am
By the way, there have been studies done that seem to indicate that intelligence in male children is more closely linked to the intelligence of their mother. So if guys want to have sons who can learn well, they should marry the smart girls.
Comment by Scraps — December 6, 2007 @ 11:45 am
scraps: amen!
Comment by Yoni — December 6, 2007 @ 3:05 pm
Scaring off the boys? Forget about that, I scare off anyone I open my mouth to!!! Which is why most of the time I reserve the heavy stuff like the purpose of the world for those who can handle it.
Comment by mindlepindle — December 6, 2007 @ 5:19 pm
Hah. My grandmother actually told me to turn on the charm and pretty smiles, and turn off or down the intellectual brain.
That definitely is food for thought. Ouch. Well, I do not want to marry a guy who wants a stupid or non-intellectual girl. That is just not me. But then again, if ALL the boys supposedly are turned off by these smart girls, what are we going to do?
After all: We go to college, graduate school, etc. for the guys. We have to work; Therefore, we seem smarter. It really is their fault.
Comment by aidelknaidel — December 6, 2007 @ 11:56 pm
if ALL the boys supposedly are turned off by these smart girls, what are we going to do?
may I object to that?
Comment by Yoni — December 7, 2007 @ 10:30 am