Archive for October, 2005
“Appalling Male Behavior, Aisle 2…”
8Oy vey. Not to overwhelmingly harp on appalling male dating behavior, but I felt the need to share this from Chayyei Sarah, writing from Jerusalem.
The nutshell? They connected. She felt great. And then he went loony tunes. (That’s my synopsis, not hers. Visit and see for yourself.)
And if you feel the urge to leave her a message of hope and encouragement, I’m quite certain that would be a mitzvah.
Random Dating Thought of the Day
16Boy, Kissing Jessica Stein is a great movie.
Great comic script, deft performances by the newcomers and by Tovah Feldshuh alike, even with an actually positive and authentic portrayal of Jewish life.
Makes temporary lesbianism (and/or Scott Cohen/Josh Meyers/Max Medina; and/or writing a great new independent comedy film) look like a really good idea.
I’m just saying. Let’s “let it marinate.”
In The Air
6In the air, I wonder if love is who you think about during agitated turbulence, as the skies remind you that there but for the grace of tons of steel somehow defying gravity go you. I wonder if love is in the quiet moments afterwards, the serenity of a near-perfect quiet punctuated only by a persistent, engine-hum that vibrates into your seat, which, you remember hearing, may also function as a floatation device. I wonder because I have no idea. I wonder, because up here, there’s only wonder and wondering, because none of this–soaring on wings of hope and metal–should be possible. And in that, it seems just like love. Or so I’ve heard.
These clouds up here look like every cliché ever assigned, but most of all like marshmallow fluff, sickeningly sweet and endlessly, irresistibly inviting. I look to them to re-effervesce my flattened optimism and enable me to believe that someday, there will be an end to this scenario, that it will not endlessly repeat forever the way it always has repeated until now and until now.
Until then, I’m stuck within my circular circumstance, immobile in the unreciprocated and in awe of my infallible ability to misinterpret the words and cues of others is what is dooming me to loneliness. I’m trapped with no egress, like in a plane, a serf in a pilot’s kingdom, doomed to suffer the rest of the journey as a captive witness to the proceedings, bobbing on the wind and whim of weather, or deity, or captain, my captain.
The Week in (Jewish) Dating
12OK, I’m trying again:
Part 2: The Week in Jewish Dating….
In Losing My Religion: The Dating Game, Groin’s Grab (bear with the name….he’s an Aussie, and I’m sure it means something different Down Under…) ponders the high cost of JDate:
The cost of subscribing to JDate is nearly double that of subscribing to a general, non-Jewish singles website. Even though both sites are owned by the same company, with the same look, feel, technology and presumably, set up cost.
Why? I think it’s because, as I’ve said before, kosher meat is more expensive [FX: snare drum].
But GG has another theory: “I believe that this represents the desperation amongst singles in the Jewish community to find their significant other,” he says. After much discussion of the whys and hows that Jewish dating in Sydney is lacking, he comes to a conclusion: I reiterate that the greatest threat to the survival and continuity of the Jewish community is the anti-social behaviour of young, single Jews. In fact, it defies logic that Jewish youth are so pre-occupied with fighting this anti-social behaviour with the intention of propogating it for generations to come. So, to fix the problems facing my people, I’ve decided to throw a party. A massive party. An appeal. I’m going to call it the Jewish Sex Appeal. Keynote speaker Ron Jeremy. The largest game of Spin the Bottle in Jewish community history. A room full of closets that potential couples can be locked in, until magic happens. It will break down the walls of inhibition for good. Sex to save the religion. Now, there’s a concept we can all get into.
Speaking of sex, or the lack thereof, it’s time we checked in with Nice Jewish Girl, who is still very much living up to her name, despite the fact that she’s actually been kissed now…Many of her readers are thrilled for her. Others call her a sinner. Read about the controversy her decision to part (at least partially/temporarily) with shomer negiah ways here.
Nice Jewish Girl and I have something in common: we were both the targets of much ire by a blogger named “Not Godol Hador,” who wrote some opinionated thoughts about our postings. Ever our hero, P-Life was so upset on our behalf that he decided to embrace anger in the new year. (We’re touched, really.) Chayyei Sarah also reacted to Godol’s post:
Of course, Godol may simply argue that I’m not, in fact, too picky, I’m just one of those people who “have emotional problems and need some serious therapy.” Because that would explain why I’m still single, given that everyone who does manage to fall in love and develop a stable relationship and get married is, by definition, perfectly emotionally healthy and doesn’t need therapy at all. They give you a marriage license only if you are completely free of hang-ups. It
couldn’t possibly be that I’m simply unlucky, or the victim of other people’s pickiness, or that I have an unusual set of qualities that makes me hard to match up, or that there is some wider social problem going on that I would happily escape if I could. If I didn’t have “emotional problems” before, I probably do now. You would too, after hundreds (if not thousands), of dates.
But maybe her karma is changing, since she subsequently had a good experience at a singles event. (Here’s hoping…)
Let it not be said that JDaters Anonymous is all about fluff or dating-related complaints. We’re also about learning stuff. Here’s part one of rabbinical student Drew Kaplan’s treatise on Jewish dating and his more text-oriented approach to Pornography for women in the Jewish Tradition.
Over in La-La Land, Hilary gets a Jdate email from someone who is either a Nigerian prince or the manolo (or the rahulio). And Annabel Lee’s trying to figure out if her new guy is worth the different kinds of crazy he’s making her…
In Esther news…since hoped-for potentials have, er, vanished, I’m trying JMatch. Let’s see if it makes any kind of difference… so far, I’ve been contacted by one guy (with a nearly empty profile) whose contact I nicely declined, but who keeps after me, sending his phone number (which, btw, I never asked for) and begging me to call. Meantime, I have twenty new emails over at JDate…I’m thinking about rejoining for a month to test the newly redesigned site. What do y’all think? Should I pay my $30 to “the man” for a month of access to chat rooms and emails?
In my columns, I’m committing to the concept of change, and to guilt-tripping.
Coming soon, First Person Singular takes its readers inside a Jewish singles event…stay tuned for more excitement in next week’s installment of the Weeeeeek….innnnnn….Daaaaaatinnnnnng…
The Vanishing
20Recent events have led me to compile this list of reasons why a man, after an overwhelmingly positive interaction (be it platonic or romantic), might suddenly disappear, vanishing into the ether…
I’m sure that there’s a list for women, too, but frankly, I’m a little more concerned with why the men vanish so. Feel free to add your own….
Reasons Why Men Disappear
- Has become Unabomber and now lives in unwired cabin in Montana
- Afraid social intercourse with women will harm his macho stud rep
- Hit by “the busâ€Â
- Lying dead in a ditch somewhere
- Has had partial stroke affecting only ability to communicate via phone or email
- Computer crash has rendered him unable to electronically communicate
- School/work schedule so overwhelming that calling and writing are not options
- Witness protection program has given him a new identity and firm instructions not to contact anyone from his “previous lifeâ€Â
- Wrongly imprisoned in bizarre beer pong-related incidents in Thailand
- Have entered monastery in which any contact with evil females is prohibited
- Have signed nondisclosure agreements with self; if found in violation, will have to sue himself
- Have shacked up with iPod Nano and declared intent to marry
- Went on road trip with buddy a month ago, refused to ask for directions, and the two remain lost somewhere between here and Tijuana
- Undercover at Neverland ranch
- Kidnapped by Hef’s three girlfriends and taken to the Playboy mansion for month of post Yom Kippur debauchery
- In a 12 step program and stuck at step 1
- Reading a really good book he can’t put down
- Lost somewhere in Target, Ikea or Home Depot
- Have been bricked up behind a wall in someone’s basement
- Was bit by lycanthrope and can not resurface until the full moon is gone
- Was on Oceanic Flight 815
- Just found out he was an agent for SD-6 and is now being debriefed by a special ops unit of the CIA
- He’s just not that into you
IMPORTANT: RE- JDATE SITE REDESIGN
16Ladies and gentlemen, if any of you have profiles on JDate, you may want to review them. In addition to the inevitable deletion of several paragraphs of my essays, which I suppose I was expecting with the site redesign, it appears that all profiles have been reset to default to “I do not plan on having any children.” As if Jewish continuity didn’t have enough problems…
So if you do plan on having children, and you have a JDate profile, take another look at it to make sure it still reflects “the you” that you want reflected.
And as always, if you’d like a profile rewrite, go to E-Cyrano.com and tell them that Esther sent you…
Help Me, Dear Readers: Column Topics Wanted
23So, dear readers? What topics would you like to see covered by my First Person Singular column in the coming months?
Plus, feel free to contact me if you’ve got opinions or experience on any of the following topics. Your opinions can be kept anonymous, if you wish:
*When we’re on vacation, who are we? are we a purer version of ourselves, or are we an artificial construct of ourselves? Do we go on vacation hoping for romance or relaxation, and which way works better toward forming relationships? Are Jewish singles trips more or less conducive to finding a compatible soulmate, or are they just about vacation relaxation and expanding the social circles of overlap?
*Long-distance relationships (also, how far would you go to find love, either metaphorically or geographically)
*Pre-marital sex in the Modern Orthodox community
*Where is fancy bred: in the heart, or in the head? Do we fall in love independent of our intellect, or do we decide to fall in love and create our own self-fulfilling prophecies?
The Week in Secular Dating
8That’s right, I had so many things to cover this week that I’ve separated them into two categories: The Week in Jewish Dating and the Week in Secular Dating…here’s part one…
Part 1: The Week in Secular Dating
In case you haven’t seen it yet, First Dates chronicles all of First Date Chick’s first dates from 1998 to the present.
Dr. Annie Dennison is an adviser to singles, and her Smart at Love blog is getting a makeover from a group called the Blog Squad.
This MSN article tells you how to avoid the “just-friends†trap with a woman. Of course, you still can’t force her to be attracted to you. And if only the advice were actually translateable for women, as well, but still…
As usual, Dr. Janice has many topics for discussion on her bulletin boards at the new and improved DoctorLoveCoach site, so check it out, post your opinions, and tell her JDaters Anonymous sent ya!
And finally, a shout-out to the Fabulous Blogger Boys, Ken Wheaton and The Anonymous Blogger for being mentioned in the Village Voice this week. Kudos, boys.
Part two to come imminently, as soon as I figure out what technical error keeps making Blogger swallow huge sections of that post–actually, much of this post has been devoured as well…must be delicious stuff. Stay tuned!
New Column: “Traveling on the Guilt Trip”
1From The Jewish Week, 10/11/05
Traveling On The Guilt Trip
Esther D. Kustanowitz – Staff Writer
The most frequent vacation taken by single Jews? The Guilt Trip. We go out to parties and on blind dates because we feel guilty staying home. We have guilt from family and society, guilt for doing what we want and not what we should. We go out with our mother’s best friend-from-college’s son’s friend’s roommate, to help us answer a parental “but are you trying?†with a less guilt-ridden “yes.â€Â
Read more of the article, which proceeds to profile two excellent reads–Shanda, by Neal Karlen, and The Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt, edited by Ruthie Ellenson– here.
WTF? VH1 Sponsors Jewish Speed Dating?
9This is just weird. I mean, I knew about the “Totally Awesomely Jewish” show (I believe my brother was interviewed for it), but VH1 is somehow involved in this upcoming speed dating event for Shoshanna’s Matches:
Wednesday Oct 19 2005 – 7 pm to – 10:45 pm
JOIN VH1 AND ACTRESS ANDREA ROSEN AT SHOSHANNA’S MATCHES JEWISH SINGLES SPEED DATING & DINNER PARTY FOR AGES 21-38.
Event at Gente Ristorante Italiano Website: http://www.genteny.com 153
East 45th Street (Between Lexington and 3rd Avenue) New York, New York
10017
(The reason they will continue to be Shoshanna’s Matches is because Esther cannot afford Shoshanna’s services or events. This event, for instance, is $90. Yes, it includes dinner and wine tasting and speed dating, very nice. But I still can’t afford it. Plus, it’s like right after the conclusion of the first days of Sukkot, and I’m busy.)
Anyway, here’s the info. If you go, let me know how it went…