Are Responsible People Missing Something?

This morning I opened my inbox to several shidduch suggestions. There was the 29-year-old guy from Australia who worked in Argentina then Germany then moved to Israel where he plans to live and learn for many years to come. Not so bad, just not for me.

Then there was the 30-year-old guy in California who has four college degrees plus various technical certificates who wants to go to medical school–but not ’til next year. Until then he’s learning. Oookay. He won’t finish paying back his student loans until he’s dead.

Then there’s the 31-year-old guy with the Harvard Business School degree who is learning while dabbling in stocks on the side. There’s a waste of a degree.

How did guys cop out of life before learning became a Thing?

When I complained to my flatmate, she pointed out that 30 is a really lousy time to have a job. “Who in their right mind gets a job when they’re young? It’s the best years of your life! Why would you waste it working all day? Get a job when you’re 80 and can’t do anything else anyway!” she ranted. She might have been upset about doing lesson plans on Sunday.

I hear her point.

Do these underemployed guys know something we don’t know? Who the heck needs a 401k anyway? By the time we retire we’ll either be in a welfare state or the world will have collapsed. Right? Wrong? Why the heck don’t so many 30-year-old men have jobs?!

Postscript: [added 2/19/2013]

Since it is apparently unclear who this post is targeting, I will add the following anecdote.

Yesterday, someone told me, “I went to college, I got a degree, I did the Real World job thing, and I didn’t like it. So I went back to school for a masters in dance therapy. It’s a lot of fun and I’m looking for a position in a hospital working with sick kids.”

This was a non-Jewish woman. She did Real Life, she didn’t like it, but she didn’t have the option of retiring to live on her independent income. So she considered carefully and switched careers.

Jewish men, however, do have an alternative. And that is to retire from Real Life to Learn. When I see a guy with a degree in something boring who is learning, my radar goes on. If he’s got a year of work experience, it starts blipping.  If I’m on a date and he makes a face while saying, “I guess I have to get a job now,” well, that pretty much says it.  And if he’s got a year of experience, then got another degree, then worked briefly again, then decided to learn… Seriously, am I the only one who sees this as a sign?

Don’t get me wrong, Jewish women do this too. I often hear singles claiming they just want to be housewives. Run a finger over their windowsill — does it come away clean? Is there nary a dish in their sink? Do they spend their recreational time over the stove? Do they adore children and want to spend all day with them? Rarely. They just don’t want to work. Since learning is not an option, they just have to hope for a rich husband instead.*

Hm… maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I’m just jealous.

*Before someone jumps down my throat about disparaging housewives: I think it’s a wonderful thing to have a homemaker. And there are women who genuinely want to be there for their husband and kids. But when a woman says, wistfully, “I would make a great housewife” shortly after hating on her job, I suspect her motives.

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No Flare Up

It was at the bottom of my bottom drawer – the one with my Chai Lifeline running t-shirt, lifeguard whistle, and assorted activewear. I  tossed it down there long ago when the drawer was designated for things I use infrequently.

It’s a silver matchbox holder and tray. It was given to me in Israel, as an entirely unnecessary thank you gift from the family I helped out on Thursday afternoons. The mother said she knew I didn’t need it yet. But she figured that one day I would be married and lighting candles and I should use it then. She also offered herself as a shidduch reference, by way of expediting the process.

I brought it out for the first time Friday evening. It felt odd. That is, it felt odd because it didn’t feel odd.

If my life was a novel, striking that match would have brought on a wave of self-pity and maybe the bursting into of tears. Instead, I observed that it was really quite pretty, but a little tarnished from sitting in that bottom drawer so long. Then I lit up.

Life is pretty full at the moment. There are intense ups and downs, tons to do at home and at work, and new struggles to overcome. Being single is really the easiest thing to deal with. I mean, I’ve been doing it my whole life. I can do it almost without thinking.

And secretly, in the back of my mind, I pack away remembrance of every high and low, for withdrawal on that day when I have to support a partner going through the same things.

The theory in most workplaces is that the best way to learn is to be thrown in the deep end. This way you know what questions to ask. Instead of “What is buoyancy?” you’re asking “Is there a significant introduction of drag from underwater arm recovery?”

But an important secret to success is to engage in directed study as soon as you hear that you’re going to be working in a pool. You read about water, maybe stick your head in a full sink, read swimmer biographies, and check out some books on hydrodynamics. On that first day you spend less time flailing around and more time trying out all the things you’ve heard about.

So, maybe I’m not getting experience on the ground, but that just gives me more time to do advanced reading and practices.

To paraphrase the unemployed:

I’m not single. I’m in transition.