Archive for October, 2005

Boy, 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.”

OK, 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…

Ladies 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…

That’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!