Group therapy in a blog.
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108351836436843133
021 years
AGE BEFORE BEAUTY
After having several men in their fifties viewing my page, and yes, even trying to contact me, I find myself wondering about age. It’s such an arbitrary thing–we decide that we want a man between the ages of 29 and 40, and no one above or below that range need apply. But in viewing the thousands of profiles on JDate, you realize that youth is really relative. You find guys who look like they’re in their late 40s, even though they’re only in the beginning of their thirties, and you get other guys in their 40s who look like they’re fresh out of college. So, does age matter?
When you meet someone, the first thing you see is never their age. You can date someone for months without knowing whether he is 37 or 40 or 34. The truth is, unless someone’s biological clock is ticking, age doesn’t come up. At least not naturally. It may come up contextually, as in playing Jewish Geography–if your date attended Brandeis, you are automatically compelled to ask: “Ohmigawd! What year’d you graduate?” and you might find out your date’s age that way.
But the things we know about JDaters before we meet them, or before we even exchange IM’s, set up an artificial image in our minds. When people meet, no one says: “Esther, this is Sven. He’s 38, 5’10 and likes to laugh.” Similarly, I rarely say things like “Hi, my name is Esther, and I am equally comfortable in a black cocktail dress or jeans.”
This struck me as odd. I wonder what would happen if we started introducing ourselves that way in real life…
108336530982050395
021 years
TIRED
Tired of typos in profiles. Tired of lame-ass descriptions of what people like and don’t like. Tired of superficial guys who “need a woman whose in shape.” Tired of people who confuse “whose” and “who’s.”
Tired of getting instant messages from guys with no pictures and who say nothing more than “hi.” Tired of teases, which are pre-written and take no imagination.
Tired of the guys who seem promising, who make me laugh over endless emails and who take no initiative in expressing a wish to take the laughter offline. Tired of having more fun IM’ing my JDate gal pals and discussing the problems we have with JDate guys than with said JDate guys themselves.
Tired of men who can’t muster up the effort to craft 100 words into a sentence about themselves. Tired of finding out the cool guy in California used to live in NY, but is now ensconced in the L.A. lifestyle and couldn’t move back to NY even if he wanted to. Tired of emails from Rami in Hod Hasharon, who writes in Hebrew which is then rendered by my non-Jewish computer as gobbledygook.
Tired of staying up late, hoping for stimulating discourse in the chatroom only to be treated to chatters finding ways to insert the word Hung (as in American Idol wannabe William) into movie, television and book titles (“Indiana Jones and the Temple of Hung!” one writes triumphantly), as if somehow this is acceptable pre-relationship banter.
Tired of making the first move, tired of initiating contact only to be ignored, tired of sighing when I see the photos of the guys who have viewed my profile since my last login. Tired of being seen as a potential trophy wife by men in their 50s, while men in their 30s won’t give me the time of day.
Tired of hoping, tired of waiting. Just plain tired.
108317151879885893
121 years
RAISON JD’ATE-RE
There are thousands of us out here, in the online netherworld, shopping for love and companionship over the Internet.
And if we are dating online and we are Jewish, we are probably on JDate.
We have experienced the joy of an email from someone we thought we found interesting, only to be disappointed in real life. We have encountered people who lied about their height and interests. We have chatted with people online who seem witty with the 10-20 second IM delay, and moved the relationship to the phone, only to find that their conversational skills are clearly lacking. We have wondered how to handle the delicate situations we encounter, and have sought advice from friends. Now, there’s one more friend to consult.
And then there’s the technical joy of dealing with internet dating…We’ve been frustrated by the random disconnections by the JDate server, by new payment policies, by Big Brother JDate censors removing segments of our profiles.
We all have our stories to tell. Of men and women who never called back. Of men and women who had no chemistry. Of men whose interest waned because of a date’s few extra pounds, and women turned off by a date’s legacy of student loans. We all have our areas of superficiality, but in order to overcome them, we must acknowledge them–with humor and in the embrace of a community of others.
Though it sometimes seems impossible, there are those who have found love online–their stories are an inspiration, and will also be welcome here as a buoy of hope in the dating ocean.
The goal of this blog is to record our experiences, good and bad, of men and women, serial JDaters and novices, from NYC to L.A. and everywhere in between. When the muse inspires, there will be features, rants and raves on related subjects. But this is your blog, your forum. Speak.