Dating Games

So, I remember that time a guy brought a pack of cards on a date. It was from a board game, but the point was to ask people things you would never otherwise ask them. Like, personal questions. Sometimes nosy. The second one that came up for me was, “What’s the most embarrassing thing in your bathroom?”

“Uh…” I said. I could think of a lot of things in my bathroom that would be embarrassing to talk about on a first date.

Needless to say, that game didn’t do much for our date, which died in the water.

I’ve had a card game like that (The Ungame) be more successful later on in the dating, like, once you’ve actually got to a point where you feel comfortable discussing, at least, the contents of your kitchen, if not your bathroom.

Anyway, SYAS has entered the dating card game game.

Some of the essential questions it covers: “What do you think of a woman earning more than her partner?” & “What would you do if you had to entertain a 5-year-old for a day?”  & “Do you prefer meat, dairy, or pareve?” (What?) Well hey. If you don’t get any mileage out of the questions, you might get some out of making fun of the game.

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Amy Webb on TED

I posted about Amy’s book about how to date before. Here’s her TED talk below. (Thanks, Doc.) It’s fun.

Amy believes that you should make a list and stick to it. It worked for her: she found a guy who checked her list and married him.
I made a list like hers once. I used it once to eliminate a guy who really was a bad idea (in retrospect). I forget where I put that list, though. And obviously, it hasn’t done more than eliminate men yet.

Conversely, we have Goldy Krantz saying that you should chuck your list, because the guy she married didn’t check hers at all, and the only reason she went out with him was because he sort of drifted into her life slowly, via the “friend” route.  This one sounds easy: Just date everyone. Well, I do that too. Still single. This method doesn’t eliminate men, which is to say it sure does waste a lot of Sundays. Hasn’t panned out for me either.

I suspect the real truth is actually both of them, which is to say, whatever works for you. Or maybe a third way, which I don’t know about yet, because I’m still single.

Anyway, I’m a big fan of Amy’s, so watch her TED talk. It’s only 20 minutes.

Don’t You Love It When Cartoons Make You Feel Smart?

HT to Gossip Girl

 

PSA: The Nice Jewish Guys 2014 Calendar is Out

That’s right, ladies! It’s time to rush out and buy your pinups for next year: nice, single Jewish boys with jobs and hobbies.

 

Thursday Link: I’ve Been Outdone

I had a go at writing a geeky love poem way back when, but there’s a better version here, courtesy of Big Bang Theory:

Dating Similes

I recently came across a few old writing exercises from my schoolgirl days. It’s been a while since I tried my hand at creative writing, so I thought I’d try to oil some of the old gears. Feel free to chime in.

Dating is like jogging on a treadmill with no readout. You’re not sure how fast you’re going or how much longer you have to go, but you keep chugging along because you’re told it’s good for you.

Dating is like Apple’s sweatshops in China. Nobody likes the process, but they’re cultishly obsessed with the results.

Following dating etiquette feels like wearing white only between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Nobody is really sure why the rules exist, but you follow them because they must be of some benefit to mankind, or maybe because if you don’t someone will call you a philistine.

Dating is like dropping a brand new dark wash denim skirt into the washing machine for the first time. If you aren’t careful, it’s going to bleed all over the rest of your life.

…K, maybe that one needs a little more work. So does this next one:

Becoming a couple is like becoming a vampire. You have to be pretty sure that’s the route you want to take, because it’s not an easily reversible process.

Going on a first date is like kissing a frog: you might get a prince, you might get a frog, but you will definitely get curious stares from the neighbors.

You know it’s time to stop dating someone when it feels like reading Fox in Socks to a kid at bedtime: fun the first time or two, but increasingly exhausting with each repetition.

Talking about dating with friends is like the inverse of looking at their Facebook profiles: suddenly everyone seems to have a more miserable life than you do.

Proposals

“I love when there’s a story!” a friend said, upon hearing that another friend is engaged to her first, last, but not only date.

And it’s true. Everyone loves when there’s a story. “So, how did he propose?” In a restaurant over a candlelit dinner? In a park under a blooming cherry tree? On the megatron at a Yankees game? Or at terminal velocity 12,000 feet above earth? With a dozen roses? With a diamond ring? With a robotic dinosaur? With a dance troupe as backup?

Whether it’s classic or modern, whether the first hormone inspired is oxytocin or adrenaline, something as life-changing as a proposal, we feel, ought to take more than a sentence to describe. Not that I have ever met an NEF capable of describing their proposal, however mundane it may be, in one sentence. “So we were in Pizza Time. And I sort of was expecting something, you know? But he was so casual about it…”

MF#8 once vociferously disagreed with the idea of a big proposal. She seemed to be saying that the guy just feels compelled to keep up with his friends and provide the girl with a Story, while the girl takes it as an overwhelming expression of love and adoration and might inadvisably accept when she shouldn’t.

I read somewhere that while almost all megatron proposals are accepted on the spot (the whole stadium is watching), many acceptances are recanted after in private. So I’m not really worried about women being influenced in their acceptance by the presence of a brass marching band (or a monkey grinding an organ). I do agree, though, that a proposal shouldn’t be big for sake of being big. It is capital-L Lame to start the most important consensual relationship of your life with something calculated mostly to impress your friends.

After all, a Story doesn’t have to include things physically large and acoustically bold. There is the classically understated option.  My sister-in-law was quite fond of relating how Best4 proposed to her. If I recall correctly, he looked at her and said, “Shall we?” to which she replied, “Sure, why not.” Now there, you see, is a proposal highlighting how very in-tune they already were with each other. When guys say “Shall we?” to me, they generally mean “May I take you home now?” not “May I marry you.” Yet somehow she understood his meaning. Isn’t that sweet? (Unless she didn’t, and was just too embarrassed to back out after…)

Dipping into the backlog, I find surprisingly few posts about proposals. I mean, this is a blog about aspiring to proposals. You’d think they’d get more coverage. But here you go: all I’ve ever written on proposals.

Cause for Celebration?

I recently marked my 42nd gentleman caller — although that’s a bit of a misnomer as I had to go to him. (Driving 2 hours to date someone in NYC is normal. Driving two hours to date someone outside is to much to ask.)
The rate of gentlemen over the years has not been constant; there’s been a bit of an increase. Indeed, if this trend continues I think I may soon see my 50th “caller.”

That calls for a party, methinks. A Confirmed Bachelorette party, celebrating Half a Century of Men and Boys. Gifts not required, but welcome if they purr.

Does this signify anything? I doubt it. After all, my math shows that there must be hundreds if not thousands of bachelors in my range around. So this is more of an excuse to throw a party, and maybe get a cat, than anything else. But the big Five-Oh… surely that’s a number worth marking?

The Drake Equation and Orthodox Jewish Dating

Considering the weather, I’d best not tip my hat to all the people who sent me emails informing me that the Drake Equation Boy is engaged.

The Drake Equation is an equation invented by a Professor Drake to estimate how many evolved civilizations might exist in nearby galaxies. Drake Equation Boy, otherwise known as Peter Backus, applied this equation to the UK to figure out how many potential girlfriends might exist for him in nearby London.  (For the record, there is nothing especially brainy about this. It’s a simple probability equation, in which you multiply an incident by the probabilities affecting its occurrence.) He concluded that there are 10,510 women in London (0.14% of the population) who he might like to date.

Naturally, we all wonder: how does this apply to shidduch dating?

Well, I am here to provide the answer for you.

This post has taken a great deal of time and effort to write. This is because there are not too many statistics readily available regarding the Orthodox Jewish community. Most of it is estimations and guesswork. The United States Census, sadly, does not take down any information about religion. So instead, I had to rely predominantly on two studies of the Jewish American population. One by the Berman Institute’s North American Jewish Data Bank, and the Jewish Population Study done by the UJA Federation of New York.  I also picked up a few commonly bandied about statistics from random websites, which I will cite as they come up.

So! The Drake Equation!

G = R x Fm x Fg x Fa x Fp x Ft x L

I am not going to go into what all these stand for in the context of interstellar civilization. If you’re interested, just click through to Peter Backus’s original report. Instead, I will dive right in to how I chose to define the terms.

G = The number of potential basherts out there for me.  This is the solution we will solve for.

R = The rate of formation of Orthodox Jews (i.e. population growth). Some fun stats: The rate of formation of Jews worldwide is estimated at 0.4% annually; closer to 1% for Ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The Jewish population of the world is estimated at 13.3 million Jews, of which approximately 1.67-1.8 million are Orthodox. (That’s a generous estimate of 13%. Other estimates hover at 10%.)

But the number we really care about is how many Orthodox Jews exist in the world right now. I’ll go with 1.3 million OrthoJews alive in a given contemporary year, or 10% of world Jewry.

Fm = The fraction of Orthodox Jews who are male. Wolfram Alpha (and everyone else) assures me it’s 0.49, or 49%.

Fg = The fraction who are geographically compatible – that is, located in Northeastern United States. Why am I being geographically narrow? Because I’ve never had a successful long-term relationship. Besides, I think I’m being generous. One guy in Washington Heights refused to date me because it entailed driving to Brooklyn.

According to the Berman Institute, 43.7% of the American Jewish population lives in the Northeast. That’s 0.44, for our purposes. Since 46% of the world Jewish population lives in North America, the total fraction of Jews in the Northeast is approximately 0.46*0.44 = 0.20.

Fa = The fraction of men who are age appropriate.  I have no idea how Peter got his 0.2 number for this one, but here’s how I got mine:

The average male lifespan in the USA is 76 (Wikipedia). If you take the total male population between 0 and 75 and break it into chunks of 15 years, you get 5 chunks. I am willing to date within a generous 15-year range, from a couple of years younger to more than 10 years older, so I date one 15-year chunk. One out of five population chunks is 1/5 or 0.20.

Fp = Mr. Backus used a university degree for this criteria. I do not demand a level of education from my potential spouse. However, since I rarely get set up with non-baccalaureates, this number would essentially be 1. For the yeshivish end, it would be zero. Obviously this not a good criteria for our community.

I should note here that this is a probability equation. You are not forced to use any given term just because Backus did. You can leave something out. Or add something in. If you’re really picky, you can introduce an infinite number of criteria. 

So I’ll create my own criteria.  Assume there are four main branches of Orthodox Judaism: Modern Orthodox, Centrist (encompassing the MO-machmir and yeshivish-liberal groups), Yeshivish, and Chassidish. I date only one of those groups. Although it’s a stretch to assume equal populations, for lack of data, I could use 0.25 for religious compatibility. Considering how people can be over matters of religion, this seems reasonable.

I’m also considering using a Myers-Briggs criteria. I’m an INTJ. I’m told I’m compatible with NFs, I respect NTs, and I’m tentatively beginning to think I could handle an SP. Using population estimates for Myers-Briggs types, I could get along reasonably well with about 33% of the personality population.  (That’s a 0.33 for our equation.)

Ft = The fraction I find attractive. Backus assumed he’s attracted to about 5% of the female population. Doing the math on the number of men I’ve dated and the number I’ve found immediately attractive, that seems a sound estimate. So, 0.05 is the fraction of Jewish men I’d find attractive.

 L = Length of time I’ve been alive, making such an encounter possible.  I’m actually not a fan of how Backus defines this term. The number we need isn’t how long I’ve been alive, because obviously I haven’t found anyone in that time. Moreover, if I met my bashert when I was 10, well, I wasn’t paying attention. Rather, the number we need is how long I plan to be dating before I give up.

So I will use 15 years, the number of years from when I started dating (20) until I plan to throw in the towel, adopt a child, and start a spinster colony (35).

 

Let’s do the math now. Here’s a snip from my Excel spreadsheet:

And so, there are 1,524 OrthoJewish men between the ages of about 25 and 39 living in Northeastern USA who I could potentially partner up with. These possible basherts comprise about 1% of the total Orthodox Jewish male NE USA population.

So far, I’ve met 38 of them. That leaves me 1,486 men to meet in the next 9 years.

Wow. The world has never been so full of possibilities!

Of course, this doesn’t take into account how many of them are already married. And we all know that all the good ones are already taken…

Dilbert on Dating

Well, not quite. But the dynamics are the same. 

Six Reasons I Like Engaged People

Lots of people hate on NEFs. They’re flighty, they’re distant, and they don’t shut up about being engaged. But really folks. Look on the bright side. Engaged people are great! For starters, they make you feel wonderful about yourself.

I mean, just for starters, you are a supremely good person for refraining from hitting them over the head. You know, like when they go into teenage angsty detail of their troubles — like that their future mother-in-law suggested that the menfolk wear matching bowties at the wedding — with the same level of apparent trauma that they formerly reserved for being reprimanded by their boss, getting dumped by a great guy, or crashing their car.

And they’re so easy to save! The sanity of an NEF hangs in the balance at all times. If you prevent that balance from tipping, you are her hero. Like when she calls you up at a quarter to five desperate because she has absolutely got to get somewhere and try on a dress tonight  or something bad is going to happen (I spaced out for that part). Honestly: the library books aren’t due yet. The bike can wait another day for its tune up. And alternatives to working late are always appreciated. It’s not a big deal! But her fulsome (and slightly embarrassing) thanks make you feel like you just stepped out of a telephone booth in a cape and tights. In a cape and garishly colored opaque tights that probably wouldn’t pass muster at a bais yaakov.

And then they’re entertaining! Sometimes it’s just observationally, as in, “This woman used to be so level-headed, but a double-shot of oxytocin has completely unbalanced her.” Or when she insists that she’s really totally normal and her NEFness is all in your head, “Yes dear, you’re totally normal. This is us sublimating our jealousy into the more socially acceptable gentle mockery.”

Also, the whole bridal industry is set up to cater to nutty NEFs. They love them and encourage them. It’s amusing to be escorted through David’s Bridal by a woman purposefully stroking your NEF’s Eness:

“You don’t have to worry about a thing, I’ll take care of everything today.”

“So have you known Him long? How did you meet?”

“This dress is like a visual love letter.”

Did she just SAY that?

It’s generally not nice — or even desirable — to mock your friends. But once your friend is infected by e. Bridus, she’s not really the person you befriended anyway. So it’s open season.

And finally, contemplation and meditation is always a worthy pastime, and NEFs offer you fodder for that as well. After all, if an NEF can get so completely dramatic about something they won’t remember in five years, you have to wonder: are you overreacting about anything in your life? What looms overly large now, but really isn’t significant in the grander scheme of things?

Consider, also, the NEF as a warning on the instability of the human psyche. You think someone is rational and self-aware. Then, next thing, they’re gushing about how sparkly their ring is (sounding rather like your 9-year-old niece), and having meltdowns over bowtie ideas (2-year-old nephew).

Makes me think I’d like to elope.

Friday Repost: Gaffe Contest

The good stuff usually gets said as the evening wanes and the conversation gets stilted and the daters desperate. When they’ve stirred the ice in their glass too many times, when they’ve already casually glanced at all the paintings, when they’ve covered everyone’s siblings and summer camp history, then the brain turns to slush and the tongue slips.

~ The Bulwer-Lytton Dating Contest

Epic Dating Fails

Just jumping on the “epic fail” video trend. Thanks to BB for this compilation:

Thursday Link: In Shidduchim

This site is clearly for girls, which makes it fascinating reading for both guys and girls. I’m afraid the “Is this normal?” and “bad date story” forum might steal some of my business, but I still feel obliged to send you all there for some light entertainment.

My only criticism is the tag line. I think they should have just stopped typing after “The place to be.”

On Boys for Girls

The Daring Book for Girls by Miriam Peskowitz, page 212.

Boys
As concerns boys themselves, you have several options. The first is to ignore them until you (and they) are 19. Or 21. Or 25.

Alternatively, you could make a boy your best friend. Boys can be excellent friends. In general, they like to do things, and that makes them rather fun.

Of course a third option is romance. Some girls might be interested in this kind of thing; other girls might think that would be too icky to even imagine. If you are in the latter group, don’t worry, you have plenty of company.  

If you are in the former group, there are two main things to keep in mind. One, if a boy doesn’t like you the way you are, the problem is him, not you. And two, don’t try to make a boy change for you-it’s important to appreciate people for who they are.

Wherever you fall in the spectrum of how you feel about boys, do treat all your friends, boys and girls, with kindness. This has gone out of fashion, and that’s a sad mistake. 

Overall, the truth is that there’s no big mystery about boys. Boys are people, and like all people, they are complicated. And that’s what makes being friends with other people interesting; you get to learn about how other people think and act, and in the process, learn a little bit more about yourself.

HT to O

Great Idea: Limited Edition

Thanks Relarela for sending me this amazing dating opportunity on Amazon.com for the DIY-type girl. Only a few left – get ’em while they last!

Best Date Ever

Bad dates get all the fame. They’re the most fun to retell, and hamming them up is the best way to compensate for having experienced them. But good dates happen too. Even amazing dates. So today I’m going to focus on really good dates.

Obviously, the best dates are the ones where the company is joy. However, since “He was just an amazing guy” is not much to talk about (especially when he’s the one who got away), I’m going to focus on the more shallow features of a date.

In Search of

Urban scavenger hunt – fun! Also something I’d always wanted to try.  The experience was somewhat marred by the fact that I had to call it quits early for fear of losing my toes (it was cold out) and the fact that I kept finding the landmarks before him. (In one case: “Do you think it refers to the mosaic map that you’re standing on?” “Oh. Cool! How’d you see that?”) To his credit, he wasn’t the faintest bit perturbed by my scavenging skills (I shall forever respect him for that), and nor did he hesitate to head indoors when I conveyed the distress signal from my furthest digits.

Mistaken Identity

This might have qualified as a bad date if it had happened a few years earlier. But I got such a kick out of it that it makes the bottom of this list.

A very nice OOT gentleman, unfamiliar with local mating rituals, took me out to a Boro Park ice-cream store that shall remain nameless. The very friendly man behind the counter saw two single people of opposite gender visible, together, in public, and jumped to the logical conclusion.

“Mazal tov! When did you become engaged?”

“Um… We’re not…”

“Soon?”

“Well, actually…”

“Well, maybe soon anyway. Do you want to sample something?”

Meanwhile, in the front of the store, Good4’s friends watched, snickered, and texted her.

“I hear you had a good time on your date,” she greeted me when I got home.

Glorious Food

I’ve only been on two dates to high-end restaurants. The company was fine in one and offensive in another, but the presentation was always fantastic. When your food looks like a piece of elegant sculpture, and eating it becomes an exercise in artistic deconstruction, you can forget that the guy opposite you just corrected your grammar or checked his watch. You’re too busy trying to figure out if the green stick thingy is garnish or food or both, and if it’s not edible, how  can you move it out of your way without using your fingers?

When I came home from one of these dates, my father met me in the kitchen. “So, how was it?” he asked. “So beautifully turned out,” I gushed. “Elegant but thoughtful, well arranged, and delicious too!”

“Delicious?” his eyebrows quizzled. “Are we talking about the same thing here?”

“Oh, you want to know about the guy? I’m thrilled that I’ll never have to see him again. But the food! Wow!”

At Sea

On a small boat plowing its way through the waves. Wind in my hair. Dolphins leaping alongside us. Everything is wonderful when you have wind in your hair and dolphins nearby. Well, everything except your hair. I was truly horrified when I caught a glance in a mirror afterwards.

Sea Meets Sand

My favorite habitat is in bed under a down blanket surrounded by books and a laptop. But after that, I’d be happy in anything sufficiently wet. (Yes, sometimes I go splashing in rainstorms.)  So a date that includes wading in the surf searching for fossils was just up my creek. (Pun intended.)

Play a Little

It was late and dark. The weather was that invigorating Autumn crispiness that makes you want to run through fallen leaves and yellowing grassy hills for sheer joy of existence. Except there weren’t any, because we were in the urban jungle surrounded by monochromatic metal flora.

So instead we went to a playground and ran over the play structures, sliding down poles, slinging ourselves onto slides, and finally, panting, flinging ourselves into the swings, where we chatted for another hour until I couldn’t conceal my shivering any more.

 

Thursday Link: Dating and Love Advice from the Ages

Consider that in the 1930s the marriage rate was higher and the divorce rate lower.

On that fact, I present to you (courtesy of DualMoniker), Love Advice from the 30s.

I LOL’d.

Thursday Link: Same Old Familiar Pleasantness

Ha’aretz makes you register to read their articles free, but it’s worth it for this beautiful piece.

My favorite parts:

I can already predict the end of the evening, or perhaps next week or three weeks after that, when he will make that inevitable, anxious joke: “So, will your next story be about me?” And I smile and think, “Do something interesting first.”

The beauty of this line is that she actually is writing about them. It has a subtext not unlike that associated with the great music blogger’s line:  “You’re so vain you probably think this post is about you.”  I do get that question too often. It makes dating while blogging about dating rather awkward at times. How do you tell someone that they’re not being written about without implying that they’re not worth writing about?

She also writes:

The neighboring tables watch too, curious about the young couple who might be engaged to marry within months; she knows that the younger girls are wide-eyed as they play guessing games nearby, because only a few years ago it had been she herself watching from afar: “What do you think, Leah? Is it their fifth date? No, no, they look too uncomfortable, must be a third.”

Hey wait, younger girls? I still do that. It’s always fun to nudge your neighbor and point out a date, the couple standing a careful distance apart, the awkwardly restrained conversation of two people who are still trying to make a good impression on each other, who still don’t trust each other quite enough to just be their regular selves…

Just last week I was out with some girlfriends and a date took the next table over. I guessed they were on 5 or 6 based on their greater comfort level and the way the guys eyes shined when he gazed at the girl. They made a very cute couple too. If that was you in Shalom Bombay, I wish you all the best.

There are times when I consider putting aside these shidduch dates, but I realize that I have no interest in stepping outside of the warmth of my small, familiar world. There’s no other place I’d rather be in, no dizzying cocktail party that can rival the quiet intensity of our traditions.

Amen.

Web Dating

At my ancient age, and with all the new dating websites cropping up and changing their names and all that, I decided to give one of them a try. So I logged on, wrote myself up an elaborate profile, and went to trawl the potentials.

It got depressing almost immediately.

Most of the guys didn’t bother uploading a photograph. Most did not put much effort into writing themselves a decent introduction.  “Hi, I’m a nice sweet guy with lots of friends. I like to hang out, grow, and have a good time.” If that’s not an exact quote of anyone, it’s certainly an acceptable paraphrase of almost anyone.

And those were the better ones. Some of the writing made me wonder if marriage is just a form of long-term charity. “i have an amazing carer,” read one. “Do you think me means career?” I wondered. But with that spelling, I decided it was more likely he had a case manager, or someone paid to care about him.

“looking for a slim nice pretty girl to fulfill my spiritual needs”

– [sic] – enough said.

“I am a reasonably intelligent half-decent guy… That’s it, that’s all I got.”

I choked up when I finished that one.

“Doesn’t this make you want to cry?” I asked, passing my laptop to a friend.

“Ohmigosh, that’s sooo sad,” she agreed.

“I kind of want to message him that I’m sure he’s worth more than that, and try to help him make a better presentation,” I said. “But I wouldn’t want to give him the wrong idea.”

Apparently this motherly sentiment is fairly common among women skimming profiles. Another friend, and long-time user of online Jewish dating websites, says that she is often tempted to embark on a career as a Profile Mommy—wiping off the smudges and dabbing at runny noses, so to speak. But she also hesitates to get involved with anyone lame enough to require her solicitude.

Then there are the pickup emails. I opted for the “direct mail, no shadchan” option because I thought I could handle it, but… I understand that messaging someone you’ve never met is awkward. But honestly!

The first email I got went like this:

Hi there.

That’s it. That’s all he got. Not a whole lot for a girl to work with. The next few were not an improvement. Not one bothered to capitalize a single letter. Some thought punctuation was optional too.

Then came the kicker. I got an email from a guy who had not only filled out his profile, but he’d also included a picture! Whoa! Overwhelmed here. Except for one problem: his picture. No offense, Jewish guys, but he didn’t look Jewish.

So I dragged his photo into a Google Image Search and lo! Turns out Matt Damon has converted and moved to Lakewood, where he’s learning under the name of Tzviki.

I replied:

Dear Matt,

While I’m flattered by your attention, I’m really more of a Ryan Gosling girl. If you meet him in morning seder, can you tell him that I’m waiting for his email? Thank you.

Sincerely,

Bad4

Then, feeling a bit self-conscious, I added:

PS: My other profile picture is Heidi Klum.

Not sure this online dating thing is working for me.

Thursday Link: Intoxicating Love

This post by Thinking Jewish Girl made me laugh.

Imagine You Were on a Desert Island with…

How’s this for a writing prompt? Imagine being stuck on a desert island with your grandmother.

My full write-up of the event is much longer, but there was a recurring conversation that bears some relevance to our topic here:

Granny: So, nu. Now that you don’t have anything to distract you, can you maybe get married? As a favor for me?

Me: Savta, we’re on a desert island. There’s nobody here to marry!

Granny: And you know that because you’ve checked under every rock and tree? You never know from where comes the yeshua.

Me: It’s a Far Side-style desert island. There’s only one tree, and we’re under it.

Granny: So, nu, Hashem should send a nice shipwrecked boy to help us out–

Me: –I’d prefer one with a working ship, if it’s okay with you–

Granny: –you can never tell when the yeshua will come. My friend’s cousin’s brother-in-law in Lakewood had a sister, she was single until she was 29 lo aleinu, and she met a nice nurse in the ER that she married. Boruch Hashem for that car crash!

Me: [sigh] Yes, I’m sure this massive shipwreck and loss of life was all so that I can meet up with a well-tanned bashert.

Granny: You never know why things happen. I’m telling you, you never know. Boruch Hashem.

Old Questions

Her: So, what are you looking for in a guy?

Me: All the usual – heart, lungs, kidney, spleen… preferably in the right places with no extra things growing. I don’t usually look myself, though. I leave that for his radiologist. Why?

 

Sometimes I get bored of answering the same questions over and over. Especially when they have no real bearings on outcome.

What Did We Do Before Phones?

I was trying to look like I wasn’t bored while waiting, so I took out my phone. There are no games on my phone, no emails, no internet access. But if I sit there pushing buttons, I look occupied. So I flip through the photos, text a few friends… see, I’m not looking loserish by standing around looking lost. Phew!

Of course, eventually you run out of friends to text and photos to delete. What next? Pass the salt…

HT to O