One Word Shy of Mute

Her IM status was a bit desperate. She needed things to talk about on a date.

“What you’re doing, what he’s doing. Why. Where you went to school. If you’ve been to Israel, what you did there. If you’re going back and why. Summer plans,” I rattled off.

“We covered all that,” she complained.

“I thought you said he hardly said a word?”

“That too. He answers in monosyllables.”

“Dump him,” I suggested.

“Because he’s shy?” she was scandalized. “He seems nice and he matches up on paper but I can’t get to know him because he won’t talk!”

She was a tad distraught. I understood. Dating a non-talker is one of the more stressful tasks in life. I’d rate it slightly above being asked to entertain the Premier of Turkmenistan. At least the Premier doesn’t expect you to speak… whatever language they speak there. But with a selective mute you’re saddled with someone you should ostensibly be able to speak to, but can’t. Nothing on the planet seems to get them talking. They seem to have no interests that get them enthusiastic, no hobbies they can say more than a word or two about.  And nothing you say seems to intrigue them at all.

“…So, what do you do for fun?”

“Learn.”

“Really? What do you learn?”

“Gemara.”

“Which one are you learning now?”

“Sota.”

“Anything interesting?”

“It’s Gemara.”

“Really now… … … well, for fun I cook up kitchen explosives.”

“Mhm.”

“Yup. Last week I got some muriatic acid from a pool store. It reacts with aluminum foil. I built a time bomb in a plastic jug. The timer hands would drop the foil into the acid, setting off the reaction.”

“That’s nice.”

“I left it next to the garage, because I didn’t want to store it indoors, and the neighbor’s dog tunneled under the fence at night, picked it up, and went to play in traffic. Maybe you heard about it on the news?”

“No.”

“I guess you don’t listen to much news?”

“No.”

“Well. My neighbor is really upset about his dog. They couldn’t find enough of it to fill a Ziploc.”

“Interesting.”

“About four cars were damaged, too. I hope they don’t trace it back to me.”

“I hear.”

From the few times I find myself responseless I can guess about why a guy doesn’t have an answer. It’s like when a guy tells me “I play basketball.” I really don’t know what to answer to that. Should I ask about his preferred position? I don’t know the difference between them, or if yeshiva guys play positions on pickup games. I could make a comment about exercise, but that’s totally wrong. I could ask who he plays with and where, but that’s just prolonging the dead end by one exchange. And then, by the time I settle on some response that builds on “I play basketball” there’s been an awkward pause for a good few minutes and any follow-up sounds even more awkward.

So sometimes the other person just doesn’t know how to respond. Maybe they’re tongue-tied with the effort of making a good impression.  But if you find that you can’t respond to each other on a large variety of subjects, it’s likely a sign that you’re on different wavelengths. Give up. Go home.  There is no hope.

I’ve only dated one non-talker, thank goodness. I really don’t know how I’d handle multiple dates with a non-talker.

So, open forum: how do you draw out a quiet date? What do you talk about to stimulate conversation? How do you fill awkward silences? What’s the sign that it’s just not meant to be?

You Know You’re In Shidduchim When…

When you find someone to set you up with someone you met and liked.

OK, that was probably anticlimactic. But I’ve often wondered what exactly defines this state of being known as “in shidduchim.” It can’t be defined by the pro shadchanim, because I’ve only ever been to one, and since we disagreed on what kind of guy I wanted, I never heard back from her. So it isn’t professional shadchanim that define shidduchim. Because I’m in ‘em.

Nor is it about third party introductions. I mean, my MO cousins get introduced to guys via their friends, as do I. (At least, I do when they guys don’t go and get engaged before I can snag a date.) And it’s well known that some people practice “shadchanus” by pairing up guy-girl ride-home-from-wedding combos. So obviously it’s ok for a guy and girl to meet on their own in shidduchim as well.

I started wondering about this when my MO cousin started grilling me about the shidduch resume. Naively enough, someone from that end of the family had thought to set me up, and my grandmother said, “Oh, why don’t you ask her for her shidduch resume?”

Like any normal person who hears such a disgusting combination of words – “shidduch resume” – honestly, how much worse an approach to marriage can you get? – she was rather horrified. It was a solid two hours before I’d gotten her to understand that the shidduch profile is a matter of convenience, and not the auction catalog summary. It was an odd position, to be defending that scrap of headache, and I guess it means I’ve come around a bit in the past two years. (Ye gods, it’s two years!)

Anyway, I was mulling over the difference. I mean, letsay I meet a guy at a wedding, and my cousin meets a guy at a wedding (please invent in your mind some tznius way we managed this at a properly segregated event). What would make me the shidduch dater and her the non-shidduch dater?

The only answer I could come up with is that I wouldn’t get the guy’s number and ask him out (or the reverse). If we were interested, we’d send out “small world” feelers to discover that my aunt is his cousin’s former babysitter or something, and have one of the connections set us up, even though the connection doesn’t know either of us well and would rather spend the time filing her nails (or buffing his, as the case might be).

It’s not that finding a third party is better. It’s actually inconvenient for everyone involved. It does buffer us a bit from the harshness of rejection and rejecting, but that’s about it.  So why seek the shachan out?

Well, it’s obvious. Because you’re in shidduchim. And that’s how shidduchim go. If you didn’t get a shadchan, what would show that you belong to the ultra orthodox community? Exactly. It’s an affiliation thing. In this community you shidduch date – you don’t meet people. So you know you’re in shidduchim when you have to dig up a shachan.

What’s New York Good For? (Gimme an ’s’…)

Found on Facebook (Thanks Erachet):

Frum Guy On Train: Living in out-of-town is the best; I hate New York, I’m never moving back here, Out-of-town is soooo amazing and wonderful, and there isn’t one thing in New York that you can’t find there even better!

Me: So what brings you to New York?

Frum Guy On Train: Shidduchim.

Oh PLEASE

Don’t talk about your spouses at work, particularly if you haven’t got anything nice to say.

Just sayin’. It bothers me when I listen to my coworkers dissing their wives (it doesn’t seem as common to disparage one’s husband). Show some respect and complain to your spouse if you’ve got problems with him/her. Don’t kvetch to the lunch table. Cripes.

What does this have to do with anything? Well respect in marriage… shidduchim… people… look, you know you’re not marrying someone perfect, because such a person doesn’t exist, so accept from the start that you won’t always get along perfectly, but don’t accept it enough that you consider it to be on equal footing as the baseball scores in conversation. Respect your mate, flaws and all. [/rant] *clambers down off soap box*

Oy Vey

Here at frum n’ flipping. about her date with a woman.

I’m not distant from that concept myself, having done it, almost done it, and wished I could do it.

Marry Your Match

Date Your Match

Recently a reader asked, “Wouldn’t you be insulted if a guy said he was looking for an Elizabeth Bennet?” The answer, for a number of us, I think, would be, “What a relief!”

Elizabeth is not your standard classical heroine. She isn’t sweet or coy. She isn’t soft or kind. She is strong-minded, opinionated, and confident. Though she is generally tactful and well-bred, you can’t miss these traits in her. She is a woman who knows what she wants and intends to get it.

Recently, a friend commented, “Some sweet girls get married right away and some later on, but do any strong-minded women get married right away?” It seemed to her from her dating experience that men like their women more subdued and less cerebral than she is. It reminded me of something I once saw on the JP dating page – that women these days approach dating like it’s another college essay. “A date is not your professor,” the writers explained. “He doesn’t want to be impressed by your expertise or acumen.” Men get intimidated by women who are smarter than they are and run the other way. And they aren’t interested in your doctoral thesis, they’re interested in you, so don’t get into it, they conclude.

It reminds me of a point made in this video I linked to a while ago. Someone suggests that women are raised with different expectations for women than men are. Which is to say, women are groomed for academic and workplace success, becoming highly educated and professional careerpersons, while men still think of the ideal wife as someone with adoring, limpid eyes who dedicates her entire day to their children while greatly admiring her brave husband who ventures forth into the dangerous world of work to bring home the bacon. Finding out that one’s date is a rocket scientist while oneself is merely a civil engineer jars this pretty picture.

This ties in a drop with the common complaint, “There are more good girls than good boys.” Who’s deciding what’s a good girl? The guys, the girls, the shadchanim, or everyone’s parents?

But it’s not just about careers. It’s about personalities. Along with the career comes a confidence, a square-shouldered stance, and the willingness to take charge. These women aren’t shyly gazing up through their eyelashes as you speak of Great Matters – they are raising their eyebrows skeptically as you outline your foolproof plan for peace in the Middle East. They are used to critical thinking, problem solving, and leading. This is the mold of their personality, and they can’t shut it off, no matter what the dating experts in the JP say.

So, do guys really prefer them sweet and charming, or is the apparent bias against strong-minded women a figment of their imagination?

Shidduch Maidel Ripstick League Debut

This Shabbos afternoon I was given a quick tutorial on the ripstick. My first ride was very brief – I put my left foot down, pushed off, and a blurry split second later had a much humbler view, while my right side was sending helpful hints about what might have occured.

“You put your foot down too far back,” came a more explicit description from somewhere above me.

But after that it wasn’t as hard to catch on to as a I thought it would be, though I honestly wonder what the inventors were thinking when they concocted the idea. I can just see the corporate board meeting where it’s presented as the toy of the future.

Inventor: (proudly holding ripstick aloft) This is to skateboards what rollerblades were to roller skates.

Publicity guy: (impressed) It looks cool.  And we can jazz it up with bright colors and zippy designs. It’ll look great on the shelves.

Marketing guy: So… can I give it a try?

Inventor: Sure. Just put your front foot there, push off, bring your back foot on, wiggle the back for speed and slant the front to steer.

Marketing guy: Uh… huh. I think I got thaaaaaaa—- (THUNK followed by general laughter.)

Middle Management: Nice job. Let me give it a try. (THUD followed by restrained giggling.)

Publicity: C’mon guys. Don’t you get any exercise after five? (CRASH. Display stand has tipped over and Publicity is somewhere underneath.)

Inventor: (sighs and brings out the Wild Turkey) This will help get you in the right frame of mind.

But seriously, once you get good at it, it moves pretty quickly and looks very cool. So I propose a Ripstick League for young single women. It’ll be a good excuse to get together and meet other young single women while working toward a common goal, getting exercise, and having fun. Our first few meets will take place in large playgrounds or empty lots, where we’ll coach each other to get up to speed. After that we’ll have group trips once a week through parks, on trails, or just through the local neighborhoods.

I envision a group of shidduch maidels ripping up Avenue J, their ironed hair flowing behind, perhaps frizzing a drop from their persperation, their pleated skirts rippling in the breeze. Such trips would be worth around 60 points in the Bad for Shidduchim club, so just two trips would mean automatic ice cream.

Who’s with me?

Should Women Read… Well, Watch Mission Impossible?

A few posts ago I suggested that men who want to snag women should learn what women like in men, perhaps by reading the sorts of books that give women warm and fuzzy feelings.  Seeing as there are more women who want to snag men, perhaps the opposite applies too?

Except I didn’t know of any testosterone books or series. (Tom Clancy, maybe? I couldn’t get past page 3 so I’m not sure.) I assumed this is because He-Men don’t (can’t?) read. I was afraid I’d be forced to recommend watching James Bond films.

(Pause for group gag.)

But while skimming James Bond plot summaries on Wikipedia I discovered that the agent originally appeared in a book series, so perhaps there’s hope after all.

Anyway, truth is, I suspect there are about as many women who are interested in Bond as there are men interested in Austen, so let’s try to summarize the perfect heroine from the male POV (and men, please feel free to correct anything I’ve misunderstood):

First off, and most obvious – she’s got to be gorgeous. (Since someone is going to point out that heroes and heroines are always good looking, I feel compelled to mention Jane Eyre, where neither of them are.) Then, the Perfect Woman is smart and talented and has a great roundhouse kick. (This may have something to do with the setting and plot of the films and possibly women should not rush off to enroll in karate classes. If the hero were an accountant, for example, it might be desirable in the heroine to be able to find square roots in her head. Oh wait, the hero of a guy story would never be an accountant. Take karate.) However, it’s important that all her ability either vaporize in the course of the story, or she be somehow rendered completely helpless, rescuable only by the hero. Naturally, she’s very grateful to him for the favor, though it was usually him who got her into the mess to begin with (she never mentions this).

Just to be fair, on a Venn diagram of guy/girl lit/flicks, the overlapping region would probably be the rescue. There seems to be a general consensus that guys ought to rescue, and girls like being rescued. This explains the perennial, cross-gender popularity of stories like The Princess Bride. I can’t say I understand it myself. I have a hard enough time when guys hold open doors for me. It was my luck, this summer, to be paired with a coworker who insisted on the courtesy. Needless to say, we could hardly get through a doorway for two weeks. (Eventually, he swore he would never give in, so I had to. See – I was playing the submissive female role. One thing leads to another and next thing you know you’re darning your man’s socks.) I really can’t imagine enjoying a full-blown rescue.

However, the moral of the story would be that if a guy thinks he’s rescuing you, there’s no need to inform him that you had backup in your purse, and if things set up so that he can rescue you, maybe you should just let him. And of course, be very grateful and do the whole clasped-hands-’my hero’ thing. And never remind him of the stupidities that caused the problem in the first place.

Also, if you have a chance to demonstrated your knock-em-out roundhouse, do that too.

Two Worlds, One Family

Non-Jewish colleagues often have the charmingly erroneous view that being a religious Jew is a lot like being Christian, except you either wear a skirt or a skullcap, eating is always a massive issue, you go to church on Saturday instead of Sunday, and you don’t call it “church.” They don’t understand that being Jewish makes one part of an entirely different universe. As Disney puts it (re Tarzan): we are from two worlds, one family.

There was one time I tried explaining to a colleague that when I say I will get a ride with an acquaintance to Baltimore and then spend the weekend with a friend, I do not, in fact, mean people who are already an acquaintance and friend, but rather who will be by the time the weekend is over, and I don’t yet know who they are. The poor girl was completely weirded out. I decided to avoid describing the more gruesome side-effects of being Jewish in the future.

So I let her and others continue to believe that the ordinary things that make up a life—having a parcel delivered from home, going to a family event in a different city, using the words ‘enzyme’ and ‘quark’ in Bananagrams, and spending a Sunday stranded far from home—have no more unusual ramifications for me than for anyone else.

But of course they do. Because not one of the above was executed without eliciting from a third party a shidduch suggestion.

When you are young and single, no place is safe. Anywhere you go, and anything you do is run through the pattern-matching center in the brains of your observers. If any of your behavior matches that of anyone else the observers know, a little bell goes ding and the subject is brought to the front of the cortex for further consideration. If the similar person is of the same gender as you, it will be passed off with a laugh, “You remind me of a friend – you would so get along with her.” If the person is of the opposite gender, it will be hesitantly fielded with a nervous laugh, “You remind me of this guy I know; I think you two would really get along.”

Which is exactly what happened when I was playing Bananagrams with some perfect strangers whose names I really don’t know (a side effect of being Jewish known as ‘Post-Tehillim Group Socializing’). Honestly – if you drew a z, y, and m the first turn, wouldn’t you also be dying to use it in the word enzyme? I don’t know what the big deal is. But it dinged the little bell. Combined with my use of ‘quark’ (“Don’t you mean ‘quirk’?” “No I don’t. I mean ‘quark’”), this dinging was incapable of being ignored. So I was treated to a description of this really sweet guy who is so the type to use big, arcane words in a Bananagrams game.

I’m not mocking – well, not really. I don’t care how the guy comes to meet me if we happen to be a good match. However, I am wary of “he’s a genius she’s a genius” matches made by people who think “enzyme” is an arcane word. But I was interested. It was the ‘sweet guy’ line. I fall for sweet guys. Just tell me a guy is sweet and I will give him a date without asking anything further, except maybe his name. Of course, despite urging the girl to contact me after Shabbos, I never heard from her again.

One Sunday I misplaced my ride home. This meant I spent the day stranded out of town with nothing to do. “You have nothing to do,” my hostess pointed out, “Maybe you can go out with this guy I’ve been thinking about setting you up with.”

“Um, I have nothing to wear?” I said, glancing down at my t-shirt and wrinkled skirt.

“It can be a casual date,” she assured me. ”And I love the color of your shirt.” I asked if I could at least borrow her iron. Then I asked who the guy was and why she wanted to set me up.

Of course, nothing came of that either. The guy had other things to do so I spent the rest of Sunday staring into space. But it’s the thought that counts. It’s the thought that haunts me from city to city. That thought of “Oh! Let’s set you up!” that dogs my footsteps, repeating itself on a predicable basis wherever I happen to be. It sets a different tone to my life – an additional urgency, perhaps, or maybe just a susceptibility to dating at very random times in very random locations at the slightest provocation. And it makes my life that much different from what is considered normal by my secular counterparts.

Don’t tell. They’d probably find it very weird.

Altercating while Dating

I was reading Emily Post’s Blue Book on etiquette a few weeks ago. Half of it struck me as common sense, summarized as “Don’t be a jerk,” while the other half seemed downright quaint, like the man pulling out the chair for the woman at a restaurant. Yeah right.

But she did have something to say about arguing. At social events and parties one should definitely steer clear of controversial topics, and it is boorish indeed to hold forth on, say, politics, when everyone is just trying to enjoy themselves. If someone does hold forth, the proper response is to nod and smile, not respond, and mentally take them off the list for your next cocktail party.

At first glance, dating would seem to have different rules. The point isn’t to have a pleasant time, the point is to gauge whether you can spend the rest of your life with this person. Exploring their views would seem like a good place to start. Who hasn’t, after hearing their date give a decisive opinion on something that just seemed sooo wrong, realized that the relationship wasn’t going to lead to wedding bells?

The other position is that certainly in the first few dates, the purpose is just to see if you can possibly enjoy yourself in the other person’s company. Heated debate may be a friendly pastime among criminal lawyers, but it’s not the best introduction to people of less contentious character. Arguing is unpleasant and rarely do the two parties walk away feeling closer than before.

That’s the theory, but reality is different. I mean, how many people actually go on dates thinking that arguing is going to pass the time well? Usually they stumble across a subject, differ on a key matter, and try to understand what on earth the other person is thinking. Or perhaps the other person surprises them with a statement that seems… so… stupid. Naturally they want a clarification. And if the clarification seems stupid too, well, maybe they’re just misunderstanding each other. Surely the other person can’t miss the blatantly obvious proof to the contrary?

This isn’t happening on subjects of politics. It’s on more basic matters related to life. I once stumbled across such a topic on a date with the closest thing to a best bochur I’ve ever been redt. He stopped me. “Do we really want to talk about that on a first date?”

Being young, naïve, idealistic, and therefore not believing that there are some things that should wait, I said, “Why not?” Before the evening was over we’d covered quite a lot of ground and I realized that either he had some pretty shady ideas for a yeshiva guy, or he was stringing me along to see what I would say. The latter seemed more likely and also bothered me more.  He “no’d” me for my hashkafos, and I seethed for a week at having taken his bait.

“You should have stuck with safe subjects,” my father lamented. Maybe, but the nice thing about falling out on a first date is that you detest the person so thoroughly that you’re quite certain you never could have progressed with them.

I don’t think it makes much of a difference whether you respond and argue or just nod and smile and move on.

Men and women who prefer the non-confrontational approach will proceed beyond the controversial statement to have a pleasant date and then go home and tell the shadchan that there are irreconcilable “hashkafic differences,” usually startling the other party who thought things had gone so well. Those who prefer to argue at least have the possibility of bringing about a reconciliation of ideas, and worst case they both go home well aware that those irreconcilable hashkafic differences exist.  Obviously there are some trivial subjects you don’t want to argue about, like politics, sociology, and so on, and of course avoid pounding the table, getting red faced, or pulling ‘my God you’re a moron’ faces at your date. But two grown ups should be able to hash out a difference of opinion on a date without completely alienating each other, no?

Some Links

I just wanted to drop these here since I have a feeling I’ll be referring to them in a future post (when I write it).

This one is a gem. If it took itself a drop less seriously, I would almost wish I’d written it. But it is in dead ernest, so I won’t.

And this preview on SerandEz is an interesting, if not quite thorough documentary on shidduchim. Gosh, it seems like the whole world is filming shidduch-related video. I guess it’s all those bored singles…

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.