Group therapy in a blog.
Esther Kustanowitz
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Posts by Esther Kustanowitz
DECONSTRUCTING HOLLYWOOD “ROMANCE†FOR REAL-LIFE LOVE
220 years
At Santa Clara University, students are immersed in love and romance, but not for the regular college reasons. While their pursuit isn’t entirely academic, in a class called “Theology of Marriage,†the approach is scholarly, if not particularly romantic:
“We break down the ‘knight in shining armor’ idea that there is one person just for you,” said Frederick J. Parrella, a religious studies professor at the Jesuit-run university who has been teaching the popular marriage course, which constantly has a waiting list, for more than 15 years. “We’re all made in God’s image,” the theologian stressed, adding that based on that idea, there is not necessarily one soul mate out there for everyone.
Finding the right person for a committed relationship involves meeting people, making the right decisions and not just going by feelings, which are bound to go away, he told Catholic News Service in a Feb. 4 telephone interview from Santa Clara, Calif.
In the span of the 10-week course, Parrella steers his students through the sometimes tricky love terrain by juxtaposing current books and movies that deal with love with deeper theological writings that delve into marriage as a sacrament and a reflection of God’s love. The students watch clips from popular movies that present romantic love, such as Disney films, or Oscar-winners such as “American Beauty” and “As Good as it Gets,” and read “I and Thou,” by the late Jewish scholar Martin Buber, and “The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lasts,” by Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee.
(JDaters Anonymous is thrilled to note that “He’s Just Not That Into You†and “The Rules†are nowhere on this list.)
For students in this class, assignments include writing down deepest fears about relationships, doing interviews with couples who have been married more than 10 years, and “engaging in plenty of discussion about love on the big screen compared to a day-in-day-out commitment over the long haul.â€Â
If you were teaching a class on love, romance, or marriage, what reading materials would you assign? What kinds of projects would you ask your students to create? Is there any movie, book or other cultural influence that you think has had a positive or negative impact on you in terms of shaping your expectations of love and romance?
DATES-ON-DEMAND
020 years
From one of my devoted readers comes the following piece of dating-related information.
Beginning Valentine’s Day, the No. 1 operator will help subscribers find partners through a video-on-demand (VOD) service that it calls Dating On Demand.
On Monday, Comcast will introduce Dating On Demand nationally, based on videos from several cities. It also will have a local service for Chicago. By year’s end, it expects to have local service in a dozen cities including Baltimore, Washington and Portland, Ore.
People age 18 or older who want to broadcast their availability to either the opposite or the same sex can do so by preparing a three-to-five minute video.
What’s interesting to me is that (and I don’t get to say things like this often) the Israelis made this dating-related stride first. Must be the country’s increased density of Jewish mothers pressuring their children to get married.
WHO NEEDS VALENTINE’S DAY, ANYWAY?
020 years
You’ve got plenty of uncoupled compadres to keep you company.
Ken just wants to believe: “But the sorry truth of the matter is I still want to believe, if not for me, then for the rest of you. Hell, even when I get all melodramatic about being alone on Valentine’s Day, it’s still tinged with some sort of weird hope. I’m like the Fox Mulder of pathetic holidays.”
If you’d like to laugh at the whole prospect of marriage, try Veiled Conceit, the snarky spoof of the NY Times Sunday Styles wedding announcements.
Whatever you do this Valentine’s Day, don’t drink and dial.
Jmerica gives a nod to both JDaters Anonymous and JDatesGoneWrong.
Over at Single Status, Gail Simons tells you about being a bridesmaid. Again.
Chronicles of a JDater shares a very special IM conversation.
My approach? Reclaim the whole damn thing as a day to concentrate on what you really need. (Although I always have the “it’s not a Jewish holiday” crutch to lean on…which I do…heavily.)
Check out my latest article on the subject: The Single’s Guide to a Heart-Smart Valentine’s Day (GenerationJ.com — February 2005).
BEST PLACE TO BE SINGLE…
220 years
Thanks to Gothamist, I now understand that much like a team of Nazis looking for the Ark of the Covenant, I’ve been digging in the wrong place.
According to this new study, New York didn’t even crack the top ten of best dating cities. Columbus, OH? Yes. Honolulu? Yup. Jersey City, NJ? Yessir. They all outrank NY according to the study.
Of course, I doubt that Austin-San Marcos, TX is where all Jewish gals should migrate to in order to find their basherts (y’all).
And then, when you read the details, you see that the survey was cosponsored by Axe Body Spray and fixates on ages 18-24, a bracket I’ve not seen since the Clone Wars. And then, it suddenly makes sense.
JDATE CO-FOUNDER STEPS DOWN
420 years
News bulletin: JDate co-founder resigns…
[“Nothing to to with the growing power of fledgling weblog JDaters Anonymous,” says an unnamed source…]
Alon Carmel, one of the company’s co-founders and co-chairmen, has resigned his positions with the company to pursue other entrepreneurial and philanthropic interests. Mr. Carmel has agreed to continue to serve the company, as a consultant, and Joe Shapira, the company’s co-chairman, will become chairman of the company’s board of directors.
Since launching JDate(R).com, eight years ago, Mr. Carmel helped build the company from a fledgling startup into one of the true leaders in the online personals space. In addition to JDate.com, Spark Networks owns AmericanSingles(R).com and a host of other growing vertical market players in the online personals industry.
One industry insider indicated that, inspired by the “truth in advertising” theme of his new favorite movie, “Crazy People,” the 1990 comedy starring Dudley Moore and Darryl Hannah, Carmel has taken on a quest of a personal nature that he could not legally undertake as co-founder: to count by hand the number of JDate users who are actually active and contactable, and offer up this new number as the number of actual profiles available on JDate.
This move would be a momentous step towards honesty, as it would thin out the pool of perceived availables, which currently includes men and women who are now married and forgot to take their profiles down, or people who have been so dissatisfied with the online dating service that they cancelled their paid plans and now receive email notifications in their inboxes that they cannot read.
A HOUSE DIVIDED
120 years
I’m of two minds. (Not unusual for me. Do I love Jdate? Do I hate it? OK, you all know the answer to that one now…)
One side of me loves an underdog and wants you to vote for JDaters Anonymous for Best Culture Blog in the JIB Awards. But the realist in me would realize that I just can’t beat me; the leader in that category is currently My Urban Kvetch. And I’m not gonna lie…I do want that virtual statuette.
This house cannot be divided against itself. And it looks like only one of my babies has a chance of being victorious…
I leave this matter in your capable hands, my precious readers (all four of you), and hope that “Team Esther” will emerge from competition, in some way, triumphant.
DATING OUTSIDE YOUR FAITH
220 years
Thanks to H for really getting the ball rolling on this discussion.
Have you ever dated anyone of a different faith? Is dating intrafaith important to you and/or your family? Why have you chosen to date people from other faiths, or why do you choose not to?
Comment here or Chez Superjux. Up to you.
THE DRAMA OF DATING
020 years
My new article, “The Drama of Dating,” is now online at the Jewish Week website.(NY Jewish Week, 02/04/05)
And oh, how I wish they had called me before they cut a phrase from my original opening (reproduced here for your convenience):
“Curtain up! Light the lights!” “It’s time to put on makeup, it’s time to dress up right!” It is here, somewhere between a Broadway show’s clarion anthem and the whimsical pre-curtain preparation and onstage goofiness of “The Muppet Show,” that we encounter the drama of our dating lives.
Click here to read the whole article.
THINK BEFORE YOU DRINK…
820 years
According to a very important survey of single Americans, conducted by The Australian Wine Bureau and Match.com (if you must know), your choice of drink may be making statements about your personality or lifestyle:
Match.com polled more than 2,300 single men and women nationwide and found that 62 percent believe that their date’s choice of beverage provides insight into their lifestyle, and 52 percent felt that it is indicative of their personality.
I guess explains why the guy I drank apple martinis with never called again. He thought he was going to have to spend his life with me watching reruns of Sex and the City and couldn’t stand the idea.
Personality perceptions associated with the top U.S. imported wine countries:
– Ordering a wine from Australia conveys the message that a person is adventurous (62 percent) and fun (32 percent).
[Just a reminder: This survey was conducted with the help of the Australian Wine Bureau, so consider the source.]
– A person that drinks French wine is viewed as pretentious (76 percent) and high-maintenance (65 percent).
— Sexy (40 percent) and stylish (37 percent) were personality traits used to describe a person who orders a wine from Italy.
The Kedem winery apparently could not be reached for comment.
What do you drink, and do you change your drink order depending on the company? Do you have a favorite wine, or do most of them taste the same to you?
YOUR BRAIN IS AN IDIOT
620 years
According to this article on iVillage’s Sex and Relationships channels there are 5 ways to make ANYONE fall in love with you, and it all has to do with manipulating our idiot brains.
Here are the five ways they suggest:
1. Hang Around Lots…but Then Be Unavailable
This is excruciating. If you like someone, you want to be around them all the time. This is advocating an “absence makes the heart grow fonder” stance, but you run the risk of crossing over into “out of sight=out of mind.”
2. Let Them Do Nice Things for You
That’s really nice. I do so enjoy the word “nice.” It’s so “nice.” And so meaningless.
When we’re infatuated with someone, we’re desperate to do nice things for him. You’re much better off letting him spoil you.
That’s great. But if I’m unavailable, how’s he gonna get to do nice things for me?
If you look at someone you like 75 percent of the time when they’re talking to you, you trick their brain. The brain knows the last time that someone looked at them that long and often, it meant they were in love. So it thinks OK, I’m obviously in love with this person as well, and starts to release phenylethylamine (PEA). PEA is a chemical cousin to amphetamines and is secreted by the nervous system when we first fall in love. PEA is what makes our palms sweat, our tummies flip over, and our hearts race. The more PEA the person you want has pumping through the bloodstream, the more likely he is to fall in love with you.
Shakespeare summed this one up the best: Tell me where is fancy bred…or in the heart or in the head?
See? I told you your brain was an idiot. (And besides, I’ve tried this and it doesn’t work.)
4. Don’t Look Away
Simply lock eyes with the person you like and keep them there, even when he has finished talking or someone else joins the conversation. When you eventually do drag your eyes away (three or four seconds later), do it slowly and reluctantly — as though they’re attached by warm toffee…If you’re too shy to gaze openly, skip the toffee and think bouncing ball. Look away and at the other person who’s joined the conversation, but every time they finish a sentence, let your eyes bounce back to the person you’re interested in. This is a checking gesture — you’re checking his reaction to what the speaker is saying — and lets him know you’re more interested in him than the other person.
What an image. Warm toffee. My eyelids are getting heavy just thinking about it. More ways that your brain is an idiot. (Plus, I’ve also tried this and it doesn’t work.)
There’s just one thing you need for bedroom eyes: big pupils. According to pupillometrics, the science of pupil study, this is the crucial element we respond to. You can’t consciously control your pupils (one reason why people say the eyes don’t lie). But you can create the right conditions to inspire large pupils and get the effect. First, reduce light. Our pupils expand when they’re robbed of it, one reason why candlelight and dimmer switches are de rigueur in romantic restaurants. It’s not just the softening of light that makes our faces appear more attractive, larger pupils also help.
I can see myself now, with my eyes squeezed shut for an hour in preparation for a party where I’ll see a guy I like. Later, when we get engaged, I’ll ask him what first attracted him to me, and he’ll say, “I’m a pupil man.”
In case you’re interested in more wisdom from the author of these tips, you can check out 18 Body Language Cues That Say He’s Interested.