I must have been pretty glum this day, to come up with such a cheery outlook on dating. I mean, when you compare dating to foot binding, really, dating comes out ahead.
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Friday Repost: Tests vs Dates
I have never regretted pushing off a date to study for a test. Want to know why? Cuz I’m still single.
What bugged me most was that these guys would take two weeks to approve me, but I was expected to date him within 48 hours to prevent him from getting “busy” with someone else instead. Can’t you make phone calls for two weeks while I go study for my finals?
Friday Repost: Am I Jaded Yet?
I was feeling a bit glum when I wrote this post about being jaded.
If I was jaded then, I’m post-jaded now. Dating is just this thing I do when I’d rather be scrapbooking. Sometimes it’s more interesting. Generally, it’s not as lasting. Sometimes, it produces memories that ought to be scrapbooked.
Friday Repost: Some Shorts
A quote from the post Clueless:
“I never dreamed that at this point in the game [with one son married and two more children ‘in the parsha’ for 2 and 3 years respectively] that I would still be so clueless about how the shidduch system works.”
And a quote from our Shabbos table:
Mother: Two new boys this week!
Father: (perks up) Really? Who?
Mother: Cousin Sarah had a boy and neighbor Rivky had a boy.
Father: Oh. Mazal tov. But too young for my daughter.
Me: Aaabbaaa… You have a one-track mind.
Father: It’s a millenia-old track. Haven’t you read your Megillas Rus recently? Ne’ami tells her daughters-in-law that even if she were to get married that night, they’d have to wait too long for her sons to grow up.
Me: But…
And a final observation from Me 101:
One thing about dating – it’s a great way to learn all sorts of things about oneself that one didn’t know before.
Friday Repost: You’re Great Let’s Get You Married
You’re great – therefore it’s a pity you are not married. Or, you’re great – therefore you deserve to get married. Or, y0u’re great – let’s prevent you from making us feel inadequate by getting your married to hobble your greatness…?
Friday Repost: Taboo on Talking?
When I was young, I thought that mentioning that you were dating was dreadful and embarrassing Then I realized that it could often be more embarrassing not to. And then I stopped caring. These days, the taboo is so far gone that I recently found out that the guy I was first-dating for lunch was first-dating my friend for supper. But that’s a different story.
Friday Repost: Cure for the Shidduch Crisis (of sorts)
Friday Repost: Bein Hazmanim Feeding Frenzy
Is it Pesach yet? Has the next crop of eligible bachelors been harvested yet?
Friday Repost: Whose Date is It Anyway?
Way back when I lived at home, dating was a whole-house affair. You’d never guess it was just me taking the guy out, from the tizzy it caused, from floor three down to floor one.
Part 1 – Sister in the Attic, Father in the Tie
Part 2 – The View from the Top of the Stairs
Friday Repost: Get Set Up with Me
Sometimes I feel like a lucky charm. You merely have to come in contact with me to get engaged. It makes up for my complete lack of dating success. At least I know that I’m bringing joy to all my dates and friends.
Here’s one about the guys I date getting engaged.
And I feel like posting this one just because it covers the weddings of NMF #6 and NMF #7, and I think they’d appreciate the retrospective from this point in their marriages.
Friday Repost: Learning from Dates
Sometimes the moral is obvious. Sometimes, not so obvious. But always, when it is not happening to you, highly entertaining.
Friday Repost: Lose-Lose Situation
Why you shouldn’t bother doing something just because of what people will think: because other people will think something else.
Friday Repost: Why is Conversation So Hard?
Why is it so hard to get a conversation going on a date? I’ve gotten farther with strangers in the supermarket than with some of my dates. Here is a three-part essay on the subject:
Conversation Just Doesn’t Flow
Friday Repost: Bad Date Stories
None of these are mine. Thank you readers for coming through when my life disappeared.
Friday Repost: Referencing Strangers
This post suggests that putting good friends down as your references is actually a bad idea. Familiarity breeds complexity, and complexity makes being a reference complicated.
Reposts: Hilchos Dating Series
Way back in my heyday I wrote a series on the halachos of yeshivish dating. I’ve long since abandoned most of them. The first one is about kavanah in dating. Or, actually, who knows about what when.
Rereading it, my favorite line is the following:
“…But for the rest of us, it’s a surprise, like a second birthday.
OK, maybe not quite like a second birthday. At this point, we’re trying to keep our age down, so extraneous birthdays are not all that wonderful.”
I mean, seriously. I was 21. Four years later, I begin to wish I’d skipped even my annual birthday.
The second post was about hachanah, or preparing for a date. Boy did this one drive me up the wall the first few times. There are two types of people in society: the type who make the rules about what is normal. They never think or worry about it – they just do, and this creates standards. Then there are the types who accept the standards created by the first type, and anxiously strive to fit them. I’m in the second type for sure. So not having a handbook on what to wear for a first date left me wringing my hands.
“The Flatbush friend said any nice Shobbos outfit would do, as long as it was a suit. The Monsey friend claimed it had to be a black suit. Miss Dater from Queens said a suit was overkill—this was a date, not yet the wedding. The Far Rockaway contact said a nice sweater set would be optimal. The Lakewood advisor told me the outfit doesn’t matter, it’s the heels that make a difference. I I finally threw down the phone and thought, Help me God— Oh wait, don’t. The last time God took care of the clothing for a date, both parties were naked.”
The secretiveness surrounding dating was the subject of two posts: Shtikah 1 and Shtikah 2.
The first is about keeping things from the neighbors – those pesky people with binoculars who sigh and reach for their Tehillims whenever you walk past with a bare head. The second is about not being seen on a date.
“Yep, within two hours, while he was on a bathroom break, I was smiling at an elementary school teacher of mine—and not one I’d gotten along with either. …I sincerely believe that dating is a natural process and therefore not something to be embarrassed about. The embarrassing part was her sweet, sympathetic, hopeful, and well-wishing smile. It’s difficult to pack so much unwelcome friendliness into a smile, but she did it.”
That was the most exposed I got on a date (including eating in the same restaurant as my boss once) until that ice cream date mentioned in the Extreme Dating post.
Friday Repost: Photo of Me!
Right through this way, ladies and gents.
Friday Repost: Tilting at Windmills
Just another day in Touro College. Oh, those were the days…
Friday Repost: Not Begging for Shidduchim
The title doesn’t mean what you think it means. Go read the post about not begging… because of shidduchim.
Friday Repost: One Big Happy Family
I’m always bemused when people try to redt shidduchim for people they don’t know on the basis of knowing their family. Then again, maybe this is tied to the often astonished statement people make to me: “Everyone in your family is so different!” Well yes. And trust me on this: the world doesn’t need multiples of any of us. One unique version is more than enough.
But maybe some families are like that. A bunch of very similar bunnies all popped out of the same chocolate mold. Or maybe there’s some generalization you can make about the family that also applies to every member of it. Like “they’re all so different! I’m sure you’ll love the daughter that I never met.”
Anyway, this one is a fun post about family. Enjoy.
Friday Repost: If Only
Sometimes, I wish I could bring myself to be as obnoxious as I recommend that other people be. (A prize if you can rewrite that sentence without the dangling preposition.)
Am I simply too well bred? Too cowardly? Or simply lacking the strength of emotion required to propel such behavior? Who knows. But it’s still fun behavior to contemplate.
Friday Repost: My Age is Relatives
Not too long ago I posted about a “young/old” seesaw experience, wherein I was called old maid and young whippersnapper within a few days by people with wildly different perspectives. So I was amused to dig up this old post about a very similar experience from when I was a mere 21.
Wanted: Photograph of a Woman in Black in Action
I reread this post with a half-smile. How naive it seems, to look around imaging the Women in Black carry notebooks and telescopes.
I once met a Woman in Black at a wedding. I don’t know what number MF it was. Her post has no official number on it. But she was a good friend, and I knocked up some of the best shtick to ever see the women’s side of the mechitza. Pardon my modesty.
Anyway, I was rescuing my stuff from a couple of little kids when a Woman in Black approached me. “Excuse me,” she said, “But do you know the blond girl in pink?”
I sure did. This clueless OOTer had showed up from Texas in pink, believe it or not. We’d driven to the wedding together.
“She dances so nicely. I think I know a boy for her.”
I caught my mouth gaping and closed it. She dances so nicely? The Texan Lass must be some kind of honeybee, able to dance a message about her ideal mate. No wonder I had never caught the eye of any Woman in Black. I just… danced.
I told the WiB as much as I knew about Texan Lass, which wasn’t much. It was only after she glided off that I realized something: the WiB hadn’t asked me anything about myself. Surely, as grand shtickmistress of the wedding, I had cornered just a small piece of spotlight, garnered a tiny piece of notice? Been, as they say, seen?
It seemed not. I hadn’t been seen at all. Well, as anything besides a fount of information about bright Texan Lassies.
Humph.
Big Sister is watching. Just not watching me.
Random Repost: Just Because I Like It
Dedicated to MF#1. Remember this one?
Friday Repost: Field Guide to Amicus Betrothus
This post stands alone and doesn’t need a preamble.
Bad for Shidduchim 