Group therapy in a blog.
Esther Kustanowitz
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Posts by Esther Kustanowitz
ITCHY INSTANT MESSAGE FINGER
320 years
It’s official. My JDate membership has ended. So of course, after months of silence from the JDate men, someone contacted me today. Now that I can’t see who it was. I’ll never know. I can’t IM anyone, and all I get are those frustratingly unoriginal, bereft-of-any-creativity “teases,” even though I’ve expressly requested that interested gentleman callers say something of their own instead of opting to “tease” me with inappropriate words. Damn this all to hell.
I’m itchy, and twitchy, and restless. Can’t get comfortable, like an addict in withdrawal. Except that being addicted to JDate never felt that euphoric to begin with. It’s been more of a habit than an in-your-blood-and-every-fiber-of-your-being addiction. But I’m definitely ready for a break. The first 24 hours is probably going to be the hardest. After that, it’s all downhill. Which was pretty much my experience on JDate to begin with. (Negative enough for ya?)
Whatever. I’ll keep up my therapy by coming here, and I urge you all to do the same. Send me your huddled stories, yearning to breathe free, and I shall release them into the ether–they will plague you no more, and we will embrace you in support.
As Dionne, Elton and um…other people sang, that’s what blogs are for. Or something like that.
MARRY BLAIRE
020 years
Almost-27-year-old Blaire is just like the rest of we single women in our 20s (and dare I say, 30s): tired of waiting around for Mr. Right. So, thanks to the Internet and the media, she’s taking her search global. You may have seen her profiled in this Sunday’s New York Times Style section.
Check out her website.
Originally via Spot On.
I LOSE MY SASS ON JDATE
220 years
I haven’t really lost my sass. It’s just that my JDate profile used to say I was “Funny, smart and sassy,” but now, the JDate censors have caught up to my plan to sneak the word ASS into my profile and deleted the words. So I did what any rational person would do. I quit.
That’s right. I’ve had it with them deleting things from my profile and not telling me about it. It would be one thing if they sent me an email or refused to post my profile based on some egregious misspelling or horrible misanthropic/psychotic sentiment. But I can’t take it anymore. My words are all I have in a profile, and when I use them, I want them to be, um, used. But I’m zany that way.
I’m not ending the blog, though. Even if we all quit JDate, I think we’d all have enough stories to sustain us through a good year or so more of posts. And I think it’s important to have a place to go to where our PTSD is shared, and understood unconditionally.
I’m hoping that I won’t have to go back, but I know I will. You can’t help it. Love it or hate it, JDate’s a part of the Jewish single experience. In sickness and in health. Until marriage do us part.
SAW YOU AT SINAI
420 years
“Matchmaker, matchmaker, match me a match…
Find me a find, catch me a catch…
Matchmaker, matchmaker, look through your book
and find me the perfect match.”
(Or something like that. It’s been a while since I saw Fiddler.)
Heard anything about Saw You At Sinai, the (relatively) new matchmaking service?
Here’s an article from the Blueprint on the service.
And I also found a few bloggers who have undergone “The SawYouAtSinai Experience”:
Rabbi Josh Yuter describes how matchmakers decided his bashert was his ex-girlfriend.
Meredith’s experience was totally different. She was set up with someone who was paralyzed from the neck down. Click here to read the letter of complaint she sent to the Saw You At Sinai administrators.
We need to hope that somewhere people are having good experiences with the fledgling service, but so far, I’ve not found any. If you have had a good experience with SawYouAtSinai.com, why not share your experience with the group? Post a comment here, or if you’re shy, drop me a line.
My Carrie Bradshaw moment on matchmaking:
We’re always asking matchmakers to look through their books and find us the perfect match. But what if our match isn’t even in their book? What if matchmakers are checking out their books from the wrong library?
BANTERIST: ONLINE DATING PICTURES
020 years
This Field Guide To Online Dating Profile Photography is truly masterfully done.
Take one normal-looking guy and, through different shots, show how different his photos make him look and why he might post such pics online with his dating profile. Spot on, Banterist.
And props to Superjux for clueing me in on this one…
KERNER GOES DOWN
020 years
I saw this column in New York magazine and had to share it with my readers. It’s a review/interview with author Ian Kerner, whose new book She Comes First is all the rage in Manhattan these days:
Naked City: Head Case
By Amy Sohn, who you might remember as the novelist who wrote Run Catch Kiss.
A LETTER TO JDATE: SUBMITTED BY A READER
620 years
One of my readers copied me on this letter she sent to JDate. Her issue with them is that she feels their claim to have a certain number of members is misleading, since any number of those “members” are actually “profiles” and not paying members who could view your emails, were you to contact them…
Dear JDate:
It now costs money to send email and/or to view email. This enables you to say that you have x number of people who belong, that there are x number of people online right now and that you are the world’s largest Jewish dating site when it is unclear how many of these people can’t be accessed. I believe this is tantamount to fraud. So I’d like to be taken off your site. I couldn’t find a way to do this on line.
Sincerely,
J.
Agree? Disagree? Discuss.
HAD TO SHARE…
120 years
Tonight, in cruising JDate profiles, I came across the following opening line:
“Physically, I am 6 feet tall.”
Hmm. My response? “Emotionally, I weigh 115 pounds.”
LIVE, FROM NEW YORK, IT’S PAMENSKY…
020 years
Huh? I feel the same way. Aryeh Pamensky, an Orthodox rabbi from Toronto, conducts a dating workshop in NYC next week. A friend told me that Pamensky is hilarious, but this article in the Jewish Week highlights his approach and not his humor (IMHO).
He says that people who “date for fun” are developing skills that will not result in a long-lasting relationship, or that will destroy a relationship that results from a dating-for-fun scenario.
I think “dating for marriage” is too much pressure. My feeling is that maybe one can “date for fun,” then like them sufficiently that they find it worthwhile to spend the time working through relationship issues (intimacy, long-term compatibility, commitment etc) and end up dating that person for marriage. I wouldn’t like to eliminate the fun, flat-out. That’s been my major issue all along, that none of my recent dating experiences have been any fun. If Pamensky were universally righ, I might as well marry someone boring right now.
But no one approach works for everyone. That much is clear. And Pamensky’s addressing a very religious audience, so their concerns and approaches are somewhat different from those of more modern/secular daters.
What do you think?
SOULMATCH
020 years
I just learned about a new online dating service. I have not tried it yet, but they take a more soulful approach to the whole Internet dating thing.
Beliefnet, the spiritual gurus of the Internet, is readying to launch an online dating component called Soulmatch:
Beliefnet’s mission is to help people meet their own spiritual needs, and perhaps none of these is greater than the need for companionship, connection, and love. That’s why we’ve created Soulmatch–a dating site focusing on values, spirituality, character and beliefs–all the qualities that matter most to you.
If you try it, let me know what you think.