JDaters Anonymous

Who? Leslie Mann, who has been in such movies as Big Daddy, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and the upcoming Knocked Up (with suspectedly single, suspectedly Semitic Seth Rogen).

Mann’s married, and Mann’s man is writer, producer, etc Judd Apatow. But was it love at first sight? Not exactly. Here’s an excerpt from a great interview on ABC.com:

A recurring theme in Apatow’s work is of a geeky guy getting a girl whom he normally wouldn’t be able to get.

“It’s a nerd fantasy,” explained Apatow. “That’s the bad thing about doing a lot of work. Slowly the seams begin to show. … You realize it’s all one idea: pretty ladies like goofy guys. It’s just a fantasy. … But I think that a lot of it comes from the fact that on some level it’s really about wanting people to recognize you for who you are, or take the time to get to know you.”

Actress Leslie Mann, who had a memorable if brief role in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” as “the drunk girl,” has a larger, meatier role in “Knocked Up” as Heigl’s married sister. In real life, she’s married to Apatow, and admits that his recurring theme might have some basis in reality.

“I remember driving in the car with him,” she said, “looking over at him, thinking, ‘This is the kind of guy I should be with. I would never be with him, but this is the kind of guy I should be with.’ And then somehow, we went out again, and he kissed me, and then it was all good after that.”

What I’m hearing? Second chances are good.

Everyone makes New Year’s Resolutions. But there’s no reason you can’t come to a realization, say, in the middle of the fifth month of a given year, and a month in advance of your next birthday, and decide, “You know what? I’m tired of doing this. Enough already.”

This is not an announcement of blog retirement. It’s hope that writing this resolution down–even in the abstract rendering below–and swearing it before you all will keep me honest and true to the spirit behind the conviction.

I’m lucky to have wonderful people in my life–my born family and what I like to refer to as my “acquired family.” (If you’re reading this, you might even count yourselves among the members of that group.) I’ve got a lot going on in my life, and a lot of it is pretty damn great by anyone’s standards. That I’m missing a companion is unfortunate, both for me and for him, whoever he is, because I’ve always tried to be that person who goes out of her way for someone, especially if she sees something special in them. In the past, it hasn’t mattered whether that something’s nature is clearly platonic, mildly murky, or holds some sort of perceived potential. Perhaps my kindness has been calculating and manipulative–my version of “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” or something like that–and that’s why it’s never been rewarded.

But here’s where it stops. I’m tired of exerting myself for people, especially men, who don’t appreciate the effort. I’m going to stop. I’m going to stop reading into what isn’t there, and stop trying to create a deeper connection through excessive kindness. Because if there isn’t even a thank you? I’m just engaging in self-delusion, which is a form of unkindness to the one person I’m really destined to spend the rest of my life with–myself.

So that’s it. Maybe less earth-shaking or life-altering to you than it is to me. But it’s an attitude shift that’s been a long time coming. So there it is.

In perusing some of my regular dating-related reads, I caught up on my friend JDater Joe, who had the following to say about JDate after corresponding with a woman who then disappeared. (Hilary? Is this another victim of The Bus?)

“When you haven’t met the other party, you end up having a relationship with yourself so it’s always better than it turns out.”

Is this the problem? Should we meet immediately, to avoid becoming lulled into the comfort of a relationship with ourselves, whose company we already love?

We hear a lot about non-Jews using Jdate to seek out Jewish dates. One more recent post is over at the JTA, actually not written by me. (As the descendants of the Marx Brothers and Woody Allen, we’re not sure why anyone would want to be part of the club that would have us as members, but…) But here’s a new spin, as someone named Fake Jewess writes in the Jerusalem Post about falling in love with a Jewish guy. They’re together, they’re magic, and then they’re over:

We had an awful fight. We said awful things. I cried every day for weeks, until he called. He sounded meek, not the blustering, brainy jokester I knew. “I miss you,” he said. “Me too.” We agreed to be friends. And with some prescience, I made him swear he would be the one to tell me when and if he got married.

Being “just friends” was rough. He scrutinized me for flaws, determined to find them. (I sometimes made this very easy for him.) “You and I are not viable,” he wrote tersely. Soon, we were no longer talking.

Selfishly, I could only think of how achingly I missed him. He had once told me that he used JDate to meet women. I began checking the site to see if any profile rang a bell. It wasn’t long before I recognized him. Oh, he had fudged some facts, but I would know him anywhere, my Jewish Guy.

I had to talk to him. But I was afraid, as “not viable” me. So I created a JDate profile.

What happens next is actually a surprisingly touching story of how love gone wrong remains a mystery and can eat at our curiosity, and the lengths we go to to learn the sources of our disappointment. Not everything has a rom-com ending. And maybe that’s ok.

I’m kind of surprised that Gothamist didn’t think of this first, but LAist has joined JDate…or at least one of their writers does. Calling herself Jewgirl, one of their writers submits to JDate membership as writing and dating experiment:

I’m not necessarily looking for “the one”, but certainly someone who is nice and cute and funny. That’s not too much to ask for, right? I mean, if they happen to be nice, cute, funny, tattooed, artistic AND Jewish, all the better…

I guess she thinks these are realistic expectations. And maybe they are. And I applaud her decision to keep her own identity–and the identities of the men she has dates with–anonymous. As you know, I’m a firm believer in “just because he’s not for me doesn’t mean he’s not for someone,” and keeping it all anonymous helps us all stay positive, and not drag anyone’s reputation unnecessarily through the dating mud.

I also have questions: how long do you think it will be until she goes out with Evan? Or will she use E-Cyrano’s services to help improve her profile? Does she know Hilary? Does being Jewish really matter to her, or is it just a parental preference she’d like to satisfy?

Whatever the answers, I hope she has better luck than most of the others of us who have dated and documented our efforts. May she experience some great men who give us all reasons to believe that there are others–maybe even non-tattooed ones–out there.

It looks like this post reveals the geek side of me, since it unites two geek-guilty pleasures, Conan and Star Wars. But if you view the video before, and wait for the last character to be introduced, you may put A and B together and remember, as I did, that there’s at least ONE (and let’s face it, probably more than one) JDate guy who uses that character’s name as his screen name.

Click here for the Defamer post about the segment.