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.