Hooray for Bad Date Stories

They remind us that someone always has it worse. I mean, I’ve never been told by a date that he doesn’t like dating religious girls because they’re ungrateful. Have you? It’s a brilliant way to put a girl at ease and help her understand why she’s going out with you.

What about the girl who offered to meet a guy in Manhattan, travelling by train? Being a gracious fellow, he refused, insisting on picking her up. He arrived two hours late without so much as calling to let her know he was delayed, and spent the first five minute cursing city traffic and complaining about how much he hates driving in Manhattan.

Or about the sad-eyed girl who went out for pizza with a guy. The bill totaled $15, so he offered the waiter a $5 bill.

“It’s $15, sir,” the waiter said patiently. The guy pulled out a $1 as well. (Um, 1+5=15?!?)

“It’s $15, sir,” the waiter repeated, patiently. So the guy peeled off a ten and asked for the change. The waiter delicately took the 5 and 10 and left the 1 as change.

“This is what people think of me!” bemoaned the young woman. “I am so not enjoying dating.”

Don’t forget the guy who took a girl on a super-expensive first date at a classy restaurant, wined and dined her, and gave her the royal treatment. Followup for a second date? “Well, I would consider going out with you again, but not a real date – something like a movie (I hardly consider that a date) – to get to know you better.”

There is way too much wrong with that, so instead of trying to top it I’ll stop here and let you absorb and be amazed.

meme time

I don’t really think memes belong in this blog, but it’s late at night and I’m too lazy to get up and get ready for bed. I’ve been tagged for two memes. The first is by F, the second by tembow.
F’s meme: write 20 sentences that begin with “I believe.”
Twenty?! I don’t know if there are twenty things that I believe in. I believe in God and the Torah. I believe certain things are absolute evil and that certain things are absolute good, and I have very strong beliefs on the matters of ice cream and spinach lasagna, but most everything else is a gray zone, where I’m willing to be persuaded, if you can. But the most difficult part of this meme is that it requires careful thought, and it’s late at night at the start of a new semester, and I know I’m probably not going to get to it ever, except maybe in physics lecture tomorrow. If I do, I’ll update this post.

From tembow, complete the following sentences:
1. I wish I could… stay lighthearted forever
2. My biggest fear is… of being helpless
3. I hate to… do things I have to do
4. I love… explaining things
5. Today I will… accomplish maybe half the stuff on my to-do list
6. Yesterday I… did not even manage that much
7. My hair is… very much like me
8. I will never… say that I will never do anything, because then it’s inevitable that I will do it

No Escape

Here I am, vacationing in Miami, resting up before the marathon, hanging on the beach, building a sandcastle. Two other runners are all the way out (it’s awfully shallow for a long way, ‘round here) looking like they’re having fun. I wave and go join them. I paddle up, tasting sea salt for the first time in… oh gosh, loads of years. We float on our backs, exchanging vital stats: who are you, where are you from, what do you do, how far are you running, have you done this before? When I finish, runner A turns to runner B and says, “I’m thinking David, what do you think?” Add “150 feet into the Atlantic” to the list of strange places I’ve been asked about shidduchim.
Can’t a girl ever get away from it all?

Blogging from Miami

Visit http://serandez.blogspot.com for details.

Rush of Love?

“But that’s in just two days!” exclaimed my mother in shock, when the shadchan told her that my date wanted to take me out again, shortly after our first meeting.

I shook my head vigorously. There was absolutely no chance that I was going out again so soon. I had a life, you know. And who wanted to go through the whole dressing up thing again in the same week?

So that was when my mother laid down the law. One date a week was quite sufficient, thank you. I quite agreed.

“Yes, I understand,” the shadchan laughed. “I’m always telling the guys to slow down. They’d go on another date every night otherwise.”

“Why?” I asked one fellow who was pushing my limit in that arena.

“I just want things to progress,” he explained.

Well… yes, of course. But we’re still young, and a few extra days isn’t going to make or break anything. What is it—the heady rush of the hunt? The desire for closure? Goal-orientedness taken to an extreme?

They also seem in a hurry to propose. I’ve heard too many stories of girls suddenly facing a ring and saying, “But… I hardly feel like I know you.” Or of guys turned down because the girl wasn’t ready yet, or had just decided against him.

My brother managed a serious rush. If I can judge from the way my parents took it, he got engaged in about 2 weeks. In reality, I think it was a drop longer – maybe three. Since he was in Israel, I mostly remember my father hunching over the phone howling “But you just took her out last night!” over the bad connection. Obviously, she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she eventually opted for a lifetime with him. But that’s not typical.

I know it’s not typical because mathematicians have come up with a mathematical model for love, using game theory. In their model, the woman strings the guy along as long as possible, the better to judge his caretaker potential. Guys, on the other hand, rush things, wanting to get down to the family thing A-sap.

But here’s the part I like. The game theorists showed that the longer a woman held out, the greater the chance that she’d land a keeper. Poor quality guys get discouraged, or just don’t have what it takes to sustain a courtship. So, there’s something to be said for playing hard-to-get. Gals, there’s no need to make a snap decision (where “snap” is defined as requiring less than a month). Let the guy hunt you a little. You’ll find out if he’s a keeper.

Hat tip to O, Keeper of the Quotes and forwarder of interesting things.

Define, Please?

“He’s looking for a girl that comes with a total package.”
Um, what?

Sweep Her Off Her Feet

I received the following intriguing email a few weeks ago:

A friend, getting desperate at ever finding a good girl (yes, that happens to guys too), hatched a plan to kidnap a nice BY girl. He would use a friendly shadchan’s services to preselect the very best girl. Whisk her off to a carefully prepared New Mexico cabin. Adobe stucco, very picturesque. Treat her in a most kosher and cavalier way. And allow the Stockholm Syndrome to do the rest. Within 6 weeks he would deliver her back to the parents: safe, secure, and happily married.

There would be a few complications regarding lo signov, but we could rely on the few poskim who say shidduchim trumps  mitzvos lo sa’asei (everybody agrees that it trumps mitzvos asei). That’s it. Desperate times require desperate hishtadlus.
…Are you calling the police?

In the words of the king from Cinderella, “Love, ha! Just a boy and a girl meeting under the right conditions. So, we’re arranging the right conditions.” (Thanks, O.) But are these really the right conditions?

Bride kidnapping is not a new idea. Fiction is rife with such tales, most of them perpetrated by creeps, and generally unsuccessful—think The Phantom of the Opera, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Among the attempts at kidnapping that are successful is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but that’s a post-WWII musical, which have a reputation for presenting women as far more tractable than they are in real life. (One egregious example of this rewriting of reality is Annie Get Your Gun—in real life, Frank Butler was not a self-absorbed jerk [he stepped down to become Annie’s manager], and Annie had enough backbone not to be his simpering puppy. One wonders why they use the word “tribute” in their descriptions of the film/show. Tribute to who, exactly?

There’s a simple measure of how closely a movie/musical mirrors reality—it’s called the Bechdel test. There are three criteria the production must meet to pass the test:

1. There must be two significant female characters (with names),
2. They must speak to each other,
3. About something besides a man.

Good luck finding a handful that fit. And yet, I know that many women speak to other women about things besides men. Are we still in parentheses?)

But this wasn’t an entry about film criticism. It’s about kidnapping women and hoping for Stockholm Syndrome to kick in. Truth is, even with Stockhold Syndrome, kidnapped women still try to escape. They just find excuses for their captor. Every few years such a case hits the news.

The best course may be the one outlined in the Restoration drama ‘The Conscious Lovers,’ by Richard Steele. There, the main character, a Mr. Bevel, takes under his wing a young lady shipwrecked and all alone in the world. He provides for her all the comforts a young lady needs: an apartment, a maid, and a piano. And he visits frequently to ensure that she’s comfortable. They both become secretly besotted with each other, but neither dares mention it for fear of offending the other with their presumption. But of course, in the end, with typical Restoration drama chaos, everything comes all right and they marry.

Kidnapping a woman immediately gives her reason to resent you. Rescuing her immediately gives her reason to like you. And as Maureen Dowd snidely states, “Women like firefighters because deep down, they all want to be rescued.” Sadly, shining armor is out of fashion these days. Think of the wide appeal of The Princess Bride; it almost certainly stems from its adherence to the knight-in-shining-armor-rescuing-damsel-in-distress model.

So for all desperate gentlemen considering this course of action: It would be far better to arrange for someone else to kidnap the woman, so you can go in and perform a daring rescue worthy of a Jewish thriller novel. On the long trek back to civilization (a kidnapping to the Congo or Amazon would be ideal), the two of you will doubtless bond. By the time you ring her doorbell, the only thing left to discuss will be “Should we send Bad4 a response card?”

The Making of a Shidduch

If you’re in a household where the married daughters are home for the weekend and the next one in line is there in spirit, you’re bound to hear about shidduchim. A lot.

“She’s only 19,” protested the MF, who I was visiting. “You don’t have to start making her crazy about shidduchim yet.”

“But in two months she’s going to be 20,” her mother pointed out.

“And she’ll age more rapidly then,” I agreed, to be annoying.

“Exactly,” said the mother. “You know, it’s just a matter of finding the right shadchan.”

“No it’s not,” grumbled MF. “It’s a matter of waiting for the right shadchan.”

MF is one of the two people I know who were successfully set up by a real, live, professional shadchan.

“It would have happened faster if you’d have visited the shadchan sooner,” her mother pointed out. Turning to me she continued, “But she kept saying that shadchanim never do anything – “

“They don’t,” I agreed.

“That they’re rude – “

“They often are,” I concurred.

“That they never get back to you – “

“No, they don’t.”

“That it’s a waste of time – “

“It is.”

“That they just file you away and forget about you. That’s what she kept saying.”

“Sounds like something I’d have said myself,” I remarked.

“Well she did!” protested MF. “It was eight months between when we visited and when she set us up.”

“She remembered you that long?” I was impressed.

“No, I called,” explained the mother. “I called and called again asking if she had anything.”

“Twice,” groused the MF. “And we were set up within two weeks of the second call. We never would have gone out otherwise.”

“But you did!” pointed out the mother. “And look at you now.” Paused to think. “We have to get NextInLine to meet her.”

Are You Looking for Me?

“What are you looking for?”

It’s a question I expect to get from old ladies, young ladies, and ladies in between. It’s a question I expect to hear over pizza, kugel, or a Kiddush kichel. It’s something I’m primed to answer in a public bathroom, on the subway, or in an elevator. I thought I’d heard it asked just about anywhere and in every situation. I was mistaken. Who’d have thought it might be asked on a date?

What is a guy asking, exactly, when he asks, “So, what are you looking for?” This is a question that has puzzled many a dating girl. I mean, haven’t we covered this already, before the date?

“You have my profile thingy,” one girl said, “Read it.”

“Oh, I only skimmed it,” her date demurred.

“Well go home and read it,” she insisted.

On the second date he asked again and received the same answer. On the third date, he demonstrated knowledge of the contents of her “profile thingy.”

Another dater, faced with the same question, took a logical leap. Since the most obvious meaning of the statement has already been tackled before the date, he must want something deeper. It was only a first date, so she felt a bit embarrassed to launch into a description of the cocktail of middos she was hoping to find in her future significant other. Luckily, he cut her off after the first sentence. “No, I mean learning or working,” he clarified.

“Oh phew,” she wiped beads of sweat off her forehead and answered him.

My eyebrows are now officially raised. “Learning or working?” Why wait until the date to find out something as basic as that? Isn’t that the world’s simplest criteria in terms of crossing potentials out? Now granted, some people are fuzzy on that score, but still, you ask, right? It’s practically the equivalent of asking “Is your guy a guy?” in the beginning of a game of Guess Who.

Thanks… I Think

“Bad4 – there’s a med student in town from LA this weekend only. He went out with my friend’s daughter and she said he was ‘too frum and not cool enough’ for her, so they thought of you. Are you interested in going out with him?”

Well, with an introduction like that…

Edit – I jotted this one down about two weeks ago, and then, a week later, I got a call from my own dear uncle. “Bad4, there’s a med student in town from Australia for a month just to date. He went out with my daughter but he was too frum and not cool enough. Are you interested?”

What can I say except:

“Send me your too frum, your nerdy

Your huddled earner-learners, yearning to be married…”

Really Professional

My neighbor, who is “in the parsha” went to Baltimore for a weekend. While there, she dropped in on a few shadchanim whose names she received. One of them gave her a super-rushed interview, just jotting down the vital stats, because it was Friday afternoon. (Why do they do things like that?!)

As my neighbor stood up to leave, the shadchan said, “Oh, you do know that I charge a $100 for these interviews, right?”

Um… no…

Oops?

What sort of shadchan charges for a consultation?

“Someone who specializes in those who can afford it,” said one friend. A lucrative niche market, I guess. It certainly gives the shadchan a more exclusive and successful air. After all, you can’t charge that much unless you’re successful, right?

Right?

Has anyone used a fee-based shadchan? Do they work?

The Response Card Phenomenon

I’m feeling popular.

For the past year and a half I have not received a single wedding invitation that didn’t include a response card.

It’s not like these are all my intimate friends getting married. Most of those are long gone. These are acquaintances, people with whom I have a nodding relationship. I’m talking high school classmates with whom I’ve exchanged four unique words through the entire four years: “Good morning” and “excuse me.”

They can’t all be throwing humongous weddings. Honestly, I wouldn’t know because I don’t generally go, but I’m sure they can’t all be throwing 800-guest weddings and inviting everyone whose name they ever knew.

When the first few showed up, I just assumed they were being friendly and politely declined. But when I got Hadassa’s invitation, I had to pause. It’s not that I have anything against Hadassa. It’s just that I have nothing going with her. Aside from “excuse me” and “good morning,” the most exciting of our interactions – possibly our only interaction – was when I punched her in the stomach in fourth grade. She stole my Lev L’achim collection prize. Always a good little girl, I followed all the right steps: tried asking for it back nicely, tried ignoring her, tried finding a teacher to intervene, etc. When none of it worked I decided to take it back myself. However, since she was holding it over my head, I needed to make her bend over, which I did by applying force to her middle. Stan and Jan Berenstein would have been proud. The principal was completely unreasonable about it. I was scarred for life. Maybe Hadassa was too.

We both grew up to be normal human beings and I’m sure we’ve forgiven each other, but without any other interactions layered over those fourth grade memories, that’s my automatic association with her name. Even when I opened her invitation. “Oh, Hadassa’s getting married. She’s the one I punched in fourth grade.”  So naturally I found the response card puzzling. And that’s when I realized that I’d been receiving response cards from people with whom I’d never even gotten close enough to punch.

edit – Curious, I asked married friends if they received response cards to these same weddings. They hadn’t.

Naturally, I brought it up with some friends, individually. And their answers were unanimously. They gave me a “are you serious? I thought you were smart” raised eyebrow look and patiently explained, “With fewer single people in the class, they need to fill up the wedding somehow.”

Wha-at?

So these are charity wedding invitations? Meaning, it’s charitable of me to attend? These are begging letters arriving in heavy cream envelopes? Whodathunk.