You’re Great – Let’s Get You Married

“Ohmigosh you’re crazy – this is great! We have to get you married!”

Does anyone else find that admiration for a job well done or something well executed is invariably coupled with a comment on their marriage status, and the necessity of making it a married one?

Pull off an impressive Purim costume, and after admiring it people finish off, “We have to find someone for you.” Try your hand at some innovative wedding shtick, and people clasp their hands, ooh and aah, and wonder that you haven’t been snapped up yet. Bake a scrumdidlyumptious cake, perform an ingenious home repair, or be particularly charming one Shobbos afternoon and people smile as you leave and add, “We need to marry you off.”*

Not sure what they’re thinking. Once married, who has time for elaborate Purim costumes or ever thinks about livening up their friends’ weddings? (We’d settle for their attendance.) And there’s no need to bake well or be personable any more once you have that ring on. Heh, he’s stuck.**  It sounds like they’re saying, “Clearly you have too much time and energy on your hands… we need to find a way to bring you down to speed.”

OK, OK, I know what they really mean: they mean the costume or shtick represents something so wonderful that it’s a pity to let it float around unhappily (for it must be), unpaired with something equally wonderful (or at least appreciative). Meaning, it’s a pity for me to remain single, because that’s a waste of me-ness. I think, anyway. The premise disintegrates under scrutiny, so don’t think into it too much.

Another possibility is that “you need to get married” is an expression of friendly concern. Meaning, “there are many singles out there, but I like you enough to think that you especially should be married. I’m singling you out (no pun intended) for special attention.”

A sick sort of side thought would be that if “you need to get married” is the latest way to say “I like you” or “I want you to be happy” then it says something very sad about our society.

Just a note for all the coo-ers out there: when I’m basking in a success, I really don’t need you dragging in shidduchim. I don’t see what my single status has to do with anything, and I’d prefer if you didn’t bring it up.

*Not all activities performed by Bad4 at any point in her life.

**Disclaimer – does not reflect the views of the blogger so hold the tomatoes.

Taken Out of Context

I hate dating.

I sometimes wonder: if I met these people in any other context, would we hit it off better? Maybe it’s the low-lighting across-the-table setting that leads to a poor date. This in turn creates a negative association with dates in such locations. And maybe I integrate this association, transferring it to whoever sits opposite me. Maybe it becomes a vicious cycle that feeds upon itself, growing with every new first date. Maybe I’m doomed to ambivalence toward anyone I meet in such a locale—

Yikes! I just remembered the friend I went on a “date” with at the Brooklyn Marriott. I haven’t spoken to her since. Can it be the Dating Effect? M – we must meet for ice cream immediately, to ascertain that I still like you. The Dating Effect must not come between us. Single people need to stick together in these hard times… Please contact me ASAP to set up a time and place.

What’s the Point of a First Date?

Apparently, talking about ships on a first date was one for the record books. I know for everyone who posted “what’s the big deal?” there were three people who emailed me “You spoke about ships?! Are you nuts?!” and six who marveled at it privately without sharing their horror. I’m still hearing about it.

Without a doubt, it will be used by readers to prime their children in what not to do on a date. “Don’t be like that Bad4,” they’ll say. “She spoke about ships on a first date!” And the children will go wide-eyed and promise to never, ever do something so stupid when they date. “Did she ever get married?” they’ll wonder aloud. “Yes,” their mothers will tell them, lowering their voices. “But only after she learned her lesson. Only after she was already twenty-two!!”

I tried learning my lesson yesterday, on a play-date with a girlfriend.

“So what do people talk about on South Street Seaport dates?” I wondered, looking out on the port from the cafeteria in the mall. I mean, aren’t the surroundings supposed to provide a subject of conversation? What else is there to talk about – cobblestones? Speaking of, those remind me of this new type of porous pavement they may start using in Europe – it absorbs precipitation, so there isn’t runoff or puddles or the cracks and potholes that follow. No – that’s not good first date conversation either. Um, how about the Fulton Fish Market? Too niche -scratch that. And we’ve already ascertained that the Brooklyn Bridge is off limits…

“You make him talk about him,” my companion advised. “The entire point of the first date is to be so charming that you have the option to say yes or no. You want the ball in your court.” She must know what she’s talking about, because she long ago baited, hooked, and reeled in a man. He doesn’t seem to mind, either.

I probably should have whipped out a pad and pencil and started taking notes. I have this really cool military pad I picked up at a career fair – it’s waterproof paper so you can write on it in the rain or in the swimming pool or while holding a baby, without fear of losing your data. It feels and looks just like regular, albeit high quality, paper, but there’s this neat chemical coating… am I boring you? Sorry. So, how was the weather when you were in Israel?

But I do have a few questions for the experts. Let me know if my answers are wrong:

Q: How can you be charming if you don’t know what he likes?

A: A pretty girl can always be charming, especially if she bats her eyelashes at 30 times a second, a feat that is physiologically impossible for males of the specie – oh, sorry. How many siblings do you have?

Q: What if he’s real quiet and you don’t want to sound like an interrogator? I have this apparent weakness – if there’s a lengthy awkward pause and he seems to be groping for something to fill it with, I help out. But firing off questions to fill successive gaps sounds awful.

A: It’s his responsibility to make the conversation flow. But if there’s a pause, be interested in him. Yes, ask a question. Ask another. Or bring up a subject that he can talk about.

Q: But how do you know what he can talk about?

A: I don’t know, go ask your dad. (I know – arcane references to popular children’s books are bad, bad for first dates.)

Q: What if he sees you looking at a model ship and asks “Anything interesting?”

A: Say, “Not really,” or “The colors are very pretty” or “I was wondering why anyone in their right mind would spend so much time making a pointless representation of a ship.” Do not say, “I find sailing ships interesting” or “I always wanted to make a model ship but they’re so complex” or “Did you ever wonder how they get the ships into the bottles?”

Q: Is it really possible to be charming while sitting uncomfortably in a lounge trying to avoid a leaving a lipstick mark on your glass of water?

A: A true bas yisroel can be charming anywhere. Being charming is all about being sincerely interested in the other person… while surreptitiously pumping them for information about themselves, screening their responses through your mind, and judging if they are worthy of a second date. Also, a true bas yisroel doesn’t leave lipstick marks on her glass.

Playing the Game cont.

The game is pretty straightforward. You take a ring as a game piece. They can’t all be “diamond” rings, because we need to differentiate somehow. Sorry – I know diamonds are a girl’s best friend – but what guy wants to marry a girl who wraps her best friend around her finger?

Place your ring on the globe. That’s planet earth with the post-seminary girl floating above it. My version reads, “You return from seminary dewy-eyed and ready to build a bayis ne’eman biYisroel. Mickey mouse’s version reads “You return from seminary ready to build a bnb.” She seemed startled that I didn’t know what a “bnb” was. Sometimes I can be very out of things. I think the final version would read “You return from seminary inspired to build a bayis ne’eman biyisroel.” Surely there are many other schnooks out there who don’t know what “bnb” stands for.

Roll a die. Move that many spaces. Some spaces have instructions. The first, for example, reads, “Your mother begins introducing you to strangers at weddings as “My daughter in the parsha.” You practice not feeling embarrassed.” I was of the opinion that people should actually follow the instructions – namely, practice not feeling embarrassed – but folks seem to have trouble with that, so maybe I won’t make it mandatory. There’s a square further along that reads, “His name is Schlaugenbaugen. Name the four worst last names you can imagine acquiring.” Some people reel off a list easily; some people sit there biting their nails until you have mercy on them. Maybe they’re afraid of insulting people or revealing the identities of past dates. Makes me wonder if I should lower the count to “two worst names” or just leave out the naming part. I’d need to focus-group that one before finalizing.

There are three other types of squares you can land on: Mad World, That’s Life, or Hishtadlus. For each, you draw a card from the corresponding deck.

Mad World cards are about the strange things girls and their families do in the name of shidduchim. Dressing up to take out the garbage, changing the color of their hat, disinheriting inconvenient family members. That’s Life is about regular life and sometimes how it effects shidduchim. Getting an OT/PT/Speech/special ed degree, winning the lottery, getting involved in a chesed organization. Hishtadlus is all about the things people do to increase their chances of marrying. Davening at Amuka, collecting plate shards from weddings, not sitting at table corners.

Most cards give or deduct points in any of three areas: Desirability, Character, or Monetary Value. Dressing up to take out the garbage, for example, will increase your desirability, while attending graduate school decreases your cash count. (Graduating increases it.)

When you reach the chupah, you tally your points and hit the deck of Best Bochurim. Each of the 20 gentlemen has a minimum requirement of points. For example, Josh, the investment banker who is going to turn two lots in Flatbush into one palatial home, wants plenty of desirability, but doesn’t much care about your monetary value. Michoel, who runs a half-dozen chesed and kiruv organizations and volunteers at a dozen more, wants character, but not much desirability. Simcha, who doesn’t really want to be dating because it cuts time out of his night seder, prefers you to have a bit more by way of fluid assets. If you’re a really pathetic specimen without enough points for anyone else, Moishelah will marry you because his mother told him too. All he wants is a good potato kugel and chulent every Thursday night and Shobbos.

Choose your groom and walk down the aisle. Mazal tov! It’s a boy.

No Single Shadchanim Allowed

So I’m IMing with an NEF and she asks how the dating is going. Then she makes some comment like it gets better as you go along, and I said while it would be nice—probably not.

“I’m _trying_!” she e-shouts inexplicably.

“What?” is my initial befuddled query. Then I realize she means marrying me off. “You don’t _need_ to do the Newly Engaged let’s-set-my-friends-up thing,” I say as soothingly as you can via IM.

“I’m not,” she protests. I raise an eyebrow, :-/ because the day after her engagement she IMed me a potential match. “I’ve been doing this since high school,” she said. “But nobody ever listened to me until I got engaged.”

Sometimes I wonder, if they were making up the court rules for the orthodox community today, would single women be eligible witnesses? It would probably be married women only. (Not that it ends there; a married friend tells me that while she’s credible, she is still second class among married women until she has a baby.)

“It’s probably like why you don’t use single friends as references,” NEF continues.

“Why _don’t_ we, again?” I mutter back. I think it was something about them being jealous and saying nasty things about you. The very thought is repugnant to me and if anyone tries to tell me that IRL I will hit them hard before they can finish. (Anyone who can believe that about their friends doesn’t deserve any. Anyone with friends who would do that doesn’t really have any.)

But if someone was jealous, they wouldn’t try to set you up, would they? Unless they’re so incredibly nasty that they set you up with unlikely candidates to jade you and keep you busy so when the right guy comes along you won’t have time to date him… and maybe they’ll get him instead? I’m not following the logic. And remind me again – these are my friends, right? Just checking. They don’t look like my friends, but with these bitter “older” singles you can never tell. The cruel, demented plots they concoct from senseless rage and a fear that they’ll be the last one left single of all their friends… (Does anyone else have an image of the wicked witch from Snow White right now?)

But what about singles who try to set up their friends as a zechus? By discriminating against single shadchanim, we may very well be perpetuating the “shidduch crisis”.  It isn’t a terribly altruistic reason to set your friends up, but seeing as I’m an angry jealous single who happens to want all her friends happily married, I’d love to give them the merit. All single shadchanim may apply.

New Website

End the Madness has a new website. It certainly makes a point. Might be a bit too strong. Not sure.

http://www.endthemadness.org

correction: it’s their Purim site.

Playing the Game

Is blogging addictive? Can you get withdrawal symptoms? Or do I just need to ease off? Because no sooner do I declare that I’m quitting and start IMing a friend, that something she says makes me think, “Oh, there’s post material.” Except now that I’m quitting, I can take my time getting around to posting it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if blogging makes it into the DSM-VI. The way they throw everything in there that is mildly unusual would make it a shame to leave out a nice modern pathology like blog-addiction. Our modern world is a source for so many disorders – I’ve heard there’s a new type of hallucination whereby the person thinks they hear their cell phone ringing. They don’t, but they have to rush off and find it anyway just to make sure.

It would be particularly ominous if I heard my cell phone ringing because I don’t have one, but recently I’ve been hearing that G-chat bleep when it isn’t bleeping. It’s disconcerting when I hear it while I’m online. It’s a bit freaky when I hear it when I’m in my room on my disconnected laptop. It’s downright scary when I hear it when I’m washing the dishes.

I think I need a vacation.

That was completely not the point of this post.

This post is about The Shidduch Game for Girls Women. I made the game for my 21st birthday, which was an Old Maid’s party. We were going to sit around feeling old and drinking away our sorrow. Everyone was carded and ringed and hair-pulled at the door. The game was a whopping success, and has since been borrowed and replayed by many singles across NYC.

OK, mild exaggeration. But it has been borrowed, and everyone seems to like it. Not that I expect people to say “I hate your game,” but they wouldn’t be so effusive if they did. And they wouldn’t keep asking me when they can buy it in Eichlers.

I tried – I really did. Actually, mickey mouse tried, to give credit where it’s due. She called around publishing houses and Judaica producers, and finally found someone who produces games. She did some pretty clever graphic designing and we went and made our sales pitch. It seemed to go well, but by the next week he got cold feet. Said he was worried we’d make some girls cry and they’d write into the Yated Reader’s Write and there would go his good name.

There seemed no point in arguing that probably 50% of the Yated circulation is people who skip straight to the Reader’s Write to laugh their faces off at the crazy things people say. It sounds like awesome publicity to me, and I’d write in myself when the game came out if someone wouldn’t obligingly do it for me.

Plus the fact that the game is pretty inoffensive, mostly nondenominational (Ortho denominations), and barely satirical. It’s meant to be fun and empathetic, and maybe even succeeds, which is why people like it.

But… people might talk.

So the game was retired back to the closet.

Now I’m thinking, why waste it? Some of the cards might make good, easy-to-write posts. But they’ll have to be in future posts, because the online attentions span is about 500 words, and I’m 82 words over that.

And also, if anyone knows cheap printers in China or Israel and distributors around the USA and wants to make a few bucks – contact me.

Small shot from the not-published version

(click thumbnail for full-sized image of original board)

One Level Better

I’ve heard this advice more than once: whatever you’re “looking for”, ask for “one level better.”

Excuse me?

F’rexample: if you want a “learner earner” you need to ask for a full-time learner, and if you want a full-timer, you need to ask for a long-term learner, and if you want a long-term learner, I suppose you claim to only be open to experienced roshei yeshivos and angels.

Two problems with this approach. First of all, what’s this “better” business? I don’t buy into this “better” stuff. We weren’t all made to be roshei yeshivos or Torah scholars or rebbetzins. Are we then inferior beings? Scholars are important to the nation’s spiritual health, but wealthy donors are important to the scholars’ health. Judaism isn’t a caste system. Anyone who follows Torah and mitzvos is a good Jew. Our other roles symbiotically support each other in a mesh of interdependence.

Besides – you think I would buy into a lifestyle I thought was second rate? Only the best for me. And I kinda like the middle road. So how can I ask for “better” if I don’t think it is? I want what I want. Don’t muddle things by imposing evaluations.

Then there’s the subterfuge. Come on. If I think I’d like a learner-earner, why do I have to say I want something else in order to get one? Since when did shidduchim become a game of cat and mouse and double talk? Why should the shadchan need to bring in CIA interrogators and polygraph tests to understand what I mean? It’s things like this that make me consider going the lobotomy route.

But now I understand. Next time I visit a shadchan I’ll say, “I want xyz and I really do – I’m not just saying it.” I hope she can stay conscious.

I’m Bored

Been trying to hang out until my first blogoversary, but it’s not happening. I don’t know if it’s the apparent obligation of posting daily, the fact that I’ve said everything I have to say, or just a lack of time, but my interest in BadforShidduchim has dwindled considerably. I think the posts were much more interesting and clever way back when; now they bore me. Probably because once I really meant them, turned them over in my head for days on end, and polished them when I should have been writing term papers. Now I churn them out in a businesslike way and never think about them again.

It’s been lots of fun, and I’ve met many great people through BadforShidduchim, but…

I guess it’s dying slowly, and I’m just hastening the process. I’m not going to put the blog out of its misery, so to speak. I’ll probably have stuff to say occasionally, so I’ll say it, but it’s not going to be daily any more.

Thanks to all my loyal readers, not-so-loyal readers, critics, lurkers, eye-rollers, emailers, commenters, etc. At over 1,000 hits a day, you really made me feel like I was doing something real. It’s been great. Maybe it’ll continue to be so.

PS: Before anyone asks, this has nothing to do with a threat to my status as a single.

And the Moral of the Story Is…

 

There’s something to be learned from every date.

One of my dates had a hole in his coat. Not a big deal – he probably just didn’t notice it – but it did make me wonder if I’d put too much effort into primping. A week later the hole was still there. While it’s nice to know that he’s beyond the obsessive mirror-checking stage, it doesn’t make a gal feel very important. Note to self: always be well turned out, no matter how jaded you are.

Sometimes it’s the opposite. Like thinking, “Wow, he’s a real gentleman. Why am I not nearly so much a lady?” Heck, it wouldn’t kill me to be a drop more courteous, would it? Excellent manners are never out of place.

With a little more dating, I might just become properly civilized.

Of course, there are some dates where the lesson is a bit ambiguous. Like the date where the guy borrowed his friend’s car. The friend was about to close a very serious dating chapter the happy way—with a proposal. Well, the car-borrowing guy opened the door and let his date clamber in, and then strolled around to his end to do the driving. Meanwhile, the nervous girl decided to double check her makeup or hair in the visor mirror. She flipped it down, and down tumbled an artistic sign that read, “Will you marry me?”

The only moral I can come up with is, “Always double check that he means you before you say ‘yes.’”

PS: she married him, but only after many more dates.

Then there’s the friend whose date took her to a hotel with a too-noisy lounge. They found a quiet table in the hall, where he proceeded to raconteur non-stop. She tried to get a few questions in edgewise (“where do you daven, when do you learn”) but he dismissed them all as nonessential and continued with his fun stories. (She did get a handful of answers: apparently he davened occasionally when his friend came over.) Then suddenly the lights went out. A minute later, they came back on, but her date was gone. At this point, I would have jumped up and shouted “Mr. Black&White in the lounge with the candlestick!” but she just flipped open her cell phone and said, “Ma, can you come get me?”

“Where are you?” asked her mother.

“I don’t know.”

And then it was too late; her date appeared around the corner and said he’d gone “to find out what happened.” She was not impressed.

The moral of the story is, “always know where your date is taking you—you might have to find your way back.” Or maybe it’s “Don’t disappear in a blackout without telling your date where you’re going—or that you’re going at all.”

PS: She didn’t marry him.

Course, in shidduchim, you can learn from more than just the dates. Take the guy who returned from a frustrating session with an “I know better than you” shadchan. Went to sleep in a foul mood and woke up the next morning to find that he’d ground off a tooth cap. Moral of the story: shadchanim are bad for your teeth.

 

 

Weekend Film Festival part 2

Notice: No men communicated with women in the non-making of this film.

The Road to the Wedding part 2.

We’ll be back to our regular programming on Monday.

 Written for Ingenious Productions.

The Shidduch Film Festival

Part 1 of The Road to the Wedding.

Back to our regular programming on Monday.

Written for ingeniousproductions.net.

Bad4Shidduchim Goes to Hollywood… and Comes Back

Many aspire to screenwriting; few make it. And there are even fewer people who make it by not making it.

If you write a script that interests a Hollywood movie-house, they “option” it for a period of time, which means they buy the rights to produce a movie based (often loosely) on your script within a given period of time. Movie-houses option a plethora of scripts and produce far fewer, so often the option expires and the writer is back holding a script.

And therein lies the fun. Because a script, once produced as a movie, is “used up;” it has generated all the income it can. But a script with an expired option can be re-optioned, even multiple times, and bring in a steady income. Indeed, there is a lucky elite who spend most of their time prone on Caribbean beaches soaking in radiation-laced vitamin D while their handful of screenplays get optioned and re-optioned.

It takes blockbuster writing skills and many good connections to achieve that sort of lifestyle, so the royal We never dreamed of realizing it. So when Ingenious Productions optioned a non-existing screenplay of the royal Ours, we didn’t immediately call our real estate agent and ask about available waterfront property on St. Martin.

For all you amateur time-wasters who have been poking about reading blogs, Ingenious will open new vistas for you. Most of the videos, ranging in length from a few minutes to nearly half an hour and in topic from promotional fundraisers to action flicks (deep breath; have to work on this sentence), can be found in the website gallery, but others require a search through Google videos.

The steady hand behind the camera recently decided to enter into a long-term partnership of mutual benefit with NEF#6. Since some people can never do things in the ordinary way (*yawn* how boring), they thought it might be nice to have video CDs instead of place cards at their wedding. Which is where the royal I entered the picture. Being somewhat more grounded/realistic/cynical (call it what you will), I didn’t invest too much time on the project, but enough that it seems a pity to relegate it to the archives of once-optioned scripts. Oh, and the fact that I’ve run out of “galley” copy to post, and don’t have time to write weekend posts. So hang in there.

And a brief message from our not-quite-sponsor: contact Moshe Bree for all your videography needs (preferably interesting ones) – he has a bride to finance, poor fellow.

Without Direction

“Sooo, where should we go?” asked Date #2 while we cruised down Ocean Parkway.

“Um…” I answered.

“Don’t you have a favorite hotel lobby or lounge?” he pressed.

“Uh…” I continued my train of thought. Aside from one really bad date at the Boro Park Plaza’s nonexistent lounge, my lounge-hopping experience was approximately nil. Besides the non-lounge date, my only other date had been a restaurant date. And come to think of it, that guy hadn’t known where to go either, and in the end I had to choose the restaurant. So on three out of my first four dates the guy hadn’t put much thought into destination.

“I don’t know,” my father shakes his head. “Dating sure has changed since my day.”

“You always had your destinations planned out?” I query.

“Well I sure put more thought into where to take the girl than about why her grandparents came to the United States!,” he says, thinking about a recent shidduch question. “Yes – where to go on dates was a pretty constant subject of conversation. You know, ‘I’m going on a date this weekend, where can I take her?’ I would never have dared ask a girl ‘Where should we go?’ in the car. I have enough trouble when I pull that on your mother on a night out.”

But, wondered I, can’t the modern and liberated woman participate in her date a bit? Or do we want a free ride with the luxury of being able to complain about it afterward? Or is it still considered manly to take charge? Maybe a bit of all, maybe a lot of none.

The problem with asking a girl where to go is that she’s not paying. Go on – ask me for the name of a nice restaurant. How does Prime Grill sound? Who wouldn’t want to dine five star on someone else’s tab? On the other end of the spectrum, I could suggest Famous Pita. Trying to eat a felafel politely is the sort of experience that will either make or break a date. Different sort of bang for your buck.

And even lounges have ranges. There’s the regular hotel lounge, with a ridiculous price for a bottle of water, and then there’s a cocktail lounge, with an extravagant price for a bottle of water, and then there’s a ritzy club lounge with a mind-boggling price for a bottle of water, which isn’t just any water, but pure water from the Swiss alps filtered through the pristine pipes of the Geneva municipal water system and bottled in the sparkling air of a mountain kitchen.

Personally, for all I care, we could stand on a street corner and drink water from one of those pushcarts, but a guy’s got to make a good show, and that manifests in choice of locale.

I remember Dreamer saying that her brothers prepare like crazy for their dates, unlike my first few guys. Which is more common?

Hall of Fame: Even Unto the Fourth Generation

I’m a third generation American with roots in New York back to the 1900s, shomer Torah umitzvos straight down the line. I’m rather proud of that – I would like to think I’ve inherited some of the character and strength of conviction that kept my forbears religious 35 years before the shtetl transplanted itself to Brooklyn. But I wouldn’t bank on it. I wouldn’t bet on my inheriting much of anything non-genetic from my great grandparents, and even that’s been pretty well diluted.

Which is why I was tickled to hear that someone looking into my brother asked, among many other equally pertinent questions, “Why did his great grandparents come to the United States?”

I’m grateful they asked, because otherwise I would never have learned the answers. As you shall see, they are quite relevant, and you will be able to predict my own behavior based on their reasons:

Great grandfather #1: He was living in the spiritual oasis of the Russian army, when one day, while parading through St. Petersburg, he had enough. The parade of soldiers wheeled left at the corner, and he kept marching straight, and didn’t stop until he put a continent and an ocean between himself and a court martial.

Great grandfather #2: He was collecting money in the United States for Telz Yeshiva when Telz Yeshiva ceased to exist. Since the circumstances surrounding the abrupt non-existence of Telz weren’t exactly pleasant, he brought over his family and settled down.

Great grandfather #3: His father took a look around at what was happening to Jewish settlements in Eastern Europe under Cossack reign, and noted that the life expectancy was astoundingly short. Decided to follow the divine commandment of “vichai bahem” and took off for more salubrious parts.  

Great grandfather #4: Ran to the United States from Jerusalem to escape the Turkish draft during WWI. He settled down, opened shop, and started sending money back to the yishuv in Yerushalayim. After the war, they told him not to come back because his checks were more valuable than his physical presence. Additionally, the haskala was thoroughly ravaging the Yerushalmi “shtetl,” and in terms of spirituality, the United States was probably better than the Old City.

I find these snapshots of history very interesting, but I’m not sure how much they say about me or my brother. (Especially since I didn’t even know them until yesterday.)

However, as scandalous as my great grandparents were, I know of at least one great, great grandparent who was far worse, so it’s a mercy that these shidduch researchers, like God, stopped at four generations. My Yerushalmi great, great grandfather got tired of watching his wife starve and his children go barefoot, so he took some spare change and lit out for the territories. He traded with the Northern Plains Indians for a year and returned to Yerushalayim with enough gold napoleons to last him six years, and that included some serious real estate investments; he bought back most of Har Hazeisim from the Arabs. After six years, he returned to the wild Midwest for a second go ‘round. He rode all day, and slept at night with his tallis and tefillin under his head. While I would like to think he never missed a minyan, I am forced to contemplate the possibility that he might have missed just a few. Which is why I think it’s best if we keep this relative under wraps. Who knows what people might think? It would be badforshidduchim.

Of course, if he’d left those gold napoleons for my dowry, they might, like Hashem, have counted the good for a thousand generations.

Or at least until the gold ran out.

Building Hysteria

Once there was a late-night talk show host who claimed that daytime people were stupider than nighttime people. One night, together with his listeners, he fabricated a book, a plot, an author, and the author’s biography. Then he commanded his listeners to go forth and request the book from daytimers at their local bookstore.

They did.

And they did.

And they did some more.

Soon, everyone was talking about this wildly popular book. It was sold out around the country. Nobody could get a copy. Yet everyone wanted it. Book stores were making frantic calls to distributors who made frantic calls to publishers. The fabricated book climbed onto the New York Times bestseller list and kept rising.

The talk show host rested his case. If daytime people could list a non-book as a bestseller, they were astoundingly stupid.

If that’s what it takes to be stupid, then our community is astoundingly so. We’re like the little kids who come home from school whining, “But everyone has one,” when in fact, only three show-offs did. Repeated exposure to propaganda distorts our perception of reality. We don’t even need a malicious third party to brainwash us. We do it ourselves. We whip ourselves up into a lather of panic which feeds itself until it grows into a mass hysteria.

I dare you to find a Jewish periodical that isn’t tainted on a regular basis with some mention of shidduch issues. It can make a person sick. The only way to go a weekend without hearing about a new facet of shidduch problems is to avoid all Jewish publications.

Not to say there isn’t something to airing dirty laundry in public. If people hear about something often enough, they get to agree that it’s an issue. That leads to activism and potentially change. Which could be good. But with shidduchim, I think we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. Everyone knows there’s something up with shidduchim, but the very problem with it prevents people from doing anything about it (people might talk, and that would be bad for shidduchim…) so now everyone just worries and murmurs and talks more and more, blowing the issue out of proportion and getting hysterical.

Calm down everyone, will you? You’re not accomplishing anything except making people more nervous and irritated.

Tri-Joy

When she got engaged, everyone was triply excited. “Oh that’s so exciting!” “Oh I’m so happy!” “Oh that’s so wonderful!” they all exclaimed, enthused, and exulted in excitement. There were three reasons, explanations, and rationalizations for their happiness (ebullience, and exhilaration):

1. A girl got engaged! So never mind that for every girl that gets engaged, a guy has to also. It’s a much bigger deal for the girl, who might otherwise have to look forward to a lifetime of spinsterhood, or at least another few years of it.

2. She was 22! Already, she was experiencing the other side of the hill (I forgot to ask her what it looks like, but I bet it’s bleak). Four whole years out of high school, four whole years of dating (if she started while in seminary in the USA; many girls do, because heaven knows you need a head start; some even start in high school; that’s for another post), four whole years of being gawped at, asked what she’s “looking for,” being frowned at when she didn’t say “long-term learner,” dressing up to appear in public, getting elevator-eyes from strangers, hanging around at shmorgs for the exposure, watching her friends get engaged and married and even become mothers… Oh wait, we all know about it over here.

3. She has a string of sisters right below her. Talk about pressure! Stepping out of high school knowing that your sister is stepping on your heels, knowing that she’s waiting for you to get married so she can, knowing that right behind her is another sister also worried about growing gray hairs at age 21, and behind her yet another, and that if there’s a pileup it’s her fault and they’ll all become old maids together forever and in their old age (think: at 30 years old) they’ll be knitting sweaters for their friend’s children or baby brothers’ kids while rocking on their parents’ front porch watching the neighborhood grow up around them…

Actually, they’re quite reasonable in that family and I believe all the daughters were dating simultaneously, but everyone thinks it’s so awkward, especially when the younger sister gets engaged first and everyone is so sure the older sister is holding back tears while she’s pretending to smile at her sister’s wedding. So everyone who hears the news is triply relieved and triply excited and triply overjoyed about it.

Three cheers for the NEF!

Overdoing the Date

Dating is like baking – don’t leave the ingredients together in the oven for too little or too much time.

OK, don’t think about the analogy too much, I just had to throw it in, in the spirit of comparisons.

I once observed something very bizarre, and a bit sad. A maidel of 21 years was about to embark upon her first date ever. A typical Touro student from out of town, she spends her sleeping hours in the attic of a Flatbush couple who are milking the fact that single ultra-orthodox women need to live in NYC and attend Touro if  they want to have a prayer of getting married. In fact, there was more than one in that attic, which is why I was able to observe this, while lounging about with a good friend.

Maidel left on her date at about 7 pm and was back at around a quarter to 10, very disappointed.

“Two and a half hours,” I noted. “That’s very decent for a first date.”

“It is?” Maidel replied skeptically, still looking very glum.

“Why, it didn’t go well?”

“No,” she said.

I later found out that she told her landlady (or whatever you call these people) that she was expecting to be back at around 12.

Twelve o’ clock? What is she, nuts? Counting on my fingers – and correct me if I missed a digit – that would make her first date five (repeat that: five [5]) hours long. Allow me to repeat: is she nuts? Knowing what I know about Maidel, I suspect she was also expecting to be smitten at first sight when dating her true love, and when faced with the usual awkwardness that is a first date, figured it was a DOA.

First dates are awkward. Not as a rule, but in general, because you’re trying to interview a person without seeming to. Until you find a point of common interest, it feels as ridiculous as it is, but is somehow too solemn to laugh at.   Therefore, there’s no reason to spend more time on them than you need to. When things begin to feel as stretched as a rubber band holding a medical student’s flashcards, end it. You can make up anything you missed on the second date, if necessary.

I once had a guy apologize for doing that. We finished our dinner, walked around the block, and were barely treading conversation as it was, so he drove me home. As he pulled up in front of my house his eyes fell on the clock, and he realized that it had only been 1 hour and 45 minutes. “Is that OK?” he asked anxiously.

“What?” I was bewildered.

“It’s only an hour and a three quarters. First dates are supposed to be two hours long.”

“I really didn’t notice,” I said. It might have been the wrong thing to say; he probably took it to mean that the date felt a lot longer than that (which was the case anyway). But c’mon – dating by the clock? Do what feels natural. If the date feels over, don’t hang on just because your mommy told you there’s a minimum time-frame. There’s no “leave in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes” recipe. If you end a great date early because the rule is 2 hours, you’re no better off than if you drag out a bad date because the rule is 2 hours. When the toothpick comes out clean, take it out of the oven. Which is to say, when it feels natural to say goodbye, say it.

Bye.

Happily Ever After

“There’s more to life than that…

Don’t ask me what.”

~ “Matchmaker” from Fiddler on the Roof

 

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there lived a miller’s daughter named Cinderella…

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And she married Prince Charming and they lived happily ever after.

 

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there lived a hated stepdaughter named Sleeping Beauty…

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And she married Prince Charming and they lived happily ever after.

 

Once upon a time, long, long ago, there lived a poor orphan girl named Shprintza…

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And with the miraculous dowry money, she married the young tailor and lived happily ever after.

 

Once upon a time, not long ago, there lived a Bais Yaakov maidel named Sarah…

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And she married Mr. Bochur and they lived happily ever after.

 

I think there might be just a tad too much emphasis on marriage in our community. Not that marriage isn’t great and all that – I believe it probably is. But we build toward it like it’s the culmination of everything and the beginning of happily ever after. From around elementary school, teachers begin talking about marriage, and the urgency just increases as you get older. Life doesn’t start until you get married, you’re not quite a person until you get married, all the problems of your youth plague you until you’re married. Marriage is the panacea for life until the chupah. We focus so tightly on reaching that canopy, that sometimes we forget that there’s no copasetic happily ever after beyond it. Marriage doesn’t change you; there’s another person to contend with; and all the baggage you’ve been shlepping along come with you into your teeny new apartment.

 

I always wonder about those people who go about getting married with the same energy they’d apply to extracting themselves from a mortal situation. Do they ever stand amid the roses in their voluminous white gowns on the empty dance floor after the wedding and wonder, “Now what?” How will they fill their free time, without shadchanim to nudge? What will they talk about, without shidduchim to discuss? How will they decide what to wear, without hordes of invisible eyes to please?

I think these people become two types: The annoyingly married type, who never talk about anything except their husbands, hang up on you when their husband appears on the horizon; and the complacently married type, who gently relegate their husbands to the back of their minds (hey, they’re married, no need to think about it further) and get on with life. 

But I’m glad to say I don’t have enough of a study pool to draw my data from. Anyone have observations to contribute?

What is this Thing Called Hashkafa?

What is this thing, Hashkafa?

If there were no religious criteria for marriage short of “Torah observant Jew,” or “not,” we’d have a much easier time matching people up. But people quibble about the details, and these details are conveniently packaged into something called “hashkafa.” Amongst the things that fall under the realm of hashkafa are: television/movies/videos, various gradations of non-Jewish music (and Jewish music), media acknowledged, internet, time spent learning, shirt color, location and color of yarmulke, etc. None of these things are inherently religious matters, but to many, they make all the difference in the world.

I’ve been mulling over why. Maybe it’s obvious, but I can be a bit slow about some things, so bear with me.

It seems to me, that when it comes to religion, people have a comfort zone. “This is what I’m used to and this is where I’m used to drawing the line,” type of comfort zone. Someone who has never even used email draws the line at no internet. For them, crossing the digital divide is a journey fraught with religious uncertainty. Internet has not been part of their heretofore kosher life, and therefore, they don’t know how to deal with it. When in doubt, “al ta’amin biatzmecha,” so they keep away. Others believe that life is meant to be lived normally, while treading carefully on the safe side of the line. These people use internet with safeguards and filters. Then there are some who point out that you can’t hide forever, that you need to learn to keep a handle on yourself, and that there’s no greatness in having bechira if you don’t use it. These people prefer to surf unrestrained, and learn from any mistakes.

There aren’t many, if any, halachos of internet to broach or obey, yet people trying to maintain their religious integrity have difficulty moving from group to group. They haven’t been trained to live that way. It feels alarmingly free or unnecessarily constrained. They’re used to drawing the line in one location, and aren’t comfortable moving it too far.

And I’m betting that’s how it is in most “hashkafa” cases. It’s just a matter of where you draw your lines, and how far you’re willing to move them for the sake of a partner. Someone with no internet may be willing to have filtered internet as might someone with free-ranging internet habits, but rarely will someone with none feel comfortable moving to free-range, and the reverse.

…And that, folks, was Bad4 coming to terms with the necessity of hashkafic comparisons.

Rebel Earners

So there I was at a shadchan in Lawrence giving her my spiel about how what he’s doing isn’t quite so important as why he’s doing it and how he’s doing it and she peers over her glasses at me. “Are you saying you are interested in a working boy?”

“I would consider one.”

“No, you don’t want a working boy,” she said firmly.

“I don’t?”

“No. Boys who aren’t in yeshiva at this age are the rebels. They have something against the system. You don’t want one of those.”

“Oh excuse me, I thought we were in Lawrence,” I didn’t say, while she continued, “Girls like you come back to me when they’re 25 and say, ‘Only a learner. Nobody on a vocational track.’”

“Well until I’m 25—“

“You want a learner.”

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaarghghphnglmp!

Maybe she’s right, maybe she’s right, maybe she’s right. She can’t be. Can she be?

Name the Comparison

What hasn’t shidduchim been compared to?

There was one commenter somewhere who soberly compared it to dog breeding: you check out the pedigree, you tally the blue ribbons won, and then you do genetic testing, before finally letting the dogs meet each other.

Then there was ProfK who compared matchmaking to matching socks (though she didn’t go into the fact that one sock nearly always disappears in the dryer, and therefore only the more versatile socks actually have matches afterward). (No idea where the post is, but if anyone wants to provide a link, feel free.)

The Gemara compares it to splitting the sea, and says splitting the sea is somewhat easier. (So why haven’t any successful shadchanim topped David Copperfield’s statue-disappearing act yet?)

Cattle markets, FBI background checks on alien residents, fitting legos together, racing the clock, congressional politics, marketing… there are many analogies drawn. I thought it would be fun to compile a collection – of old one’s you’ve heard, and of new ones you concoct.

For example, being single in the shidduch system is like being an unreacted substrate in the human body. You want to be reacted with another molecule to form something entirely new and more wonderful. However, you need to find the right enzyme to do it. And of course the enzyme has its own life going on, and if the pH gets too high or the temperature drops too low, the enzyme unravels and you’re left searching. It is possible to find the right molecule and undergo the reaction on your own, but it’s far more difficult and less likely to occur in the standard environment.

And then again, being single is like running for president. It’s all about achieving positive name recognition – you want your name spread around, and you want people to be able to say two or three good things about you when it comes up. And you want them to eventually pair you with your heart’s desire – be it a nice guy or the White House.

Don’t forget, being single is like being an oreo… oh wait, that’s just the yeshiva guys.

Well, it’s very much like being a container of orange juice. You’re separated from your significant other, and you need someone to shake you back together. …Er, well, maybe this one falls apart with too much scrutiny.

What else can shidduchim be compared to?

Not For Singles

This one is for the married lurkers, the shadchanim, the divorcees, the widows and widowers, the formerly-singles, the NEFs, and all the people who are not currently dating because they no longer have a reason to:

Folks keep mentioning that when you meet the right one, you just “know.” Is that true? Were there flashing lights on the third date so you knew? Were there little hearts in your pupils when you got home? Did something go zing pop in the back of your mind? Did your heartstrings twang? Was there some heavenly afflatus or moment of epiphany?

Plus: link to the Perfect Mate post.

Bring ‘em on…

Apologies for the lack of post on Friday. I mixed up my dates on the timestamps.

In a way, I appreciate dating a number of people before finding the right one. I know many people marry the first person they meet and remain happily married forever, but I’m not like that. When it comes to important things, I’m a comparison shopper. Just because the glove fits, doesn’t mean I want to buy it. Maybe there’s a Gore-tex model or a fleece-lined version. I want to see what’s out there before plunking down my bucks.

With that kind of attitude, I know I’d never be happy marrying my first guy. If the first man you meet is so awesome, how do you know they’re not all like that? Or that the next one won’t be even awesomer? I need to see what I’m not getting in several permutations before I’ll appreciate Prince Charming when he finally rides up to my front door on his white charger. Some will say it’s not the best attitude, but it works.

In other words, on a broader level, I don’t mind dating unsuccessfully. And grateful that most dating streaks have been very short. (Thanks, Hashem. I’m incredibly grateful.) I know I’ll find someone eventually, and I’ll be all the happier to meet him because I’ll know how great he really is.