Group therapy in a blog.
“Marriage on Their Minds”…But Is It? I Mean, Really?
Like many long-time single Jewish Upper West Siders, I read “Marriage on Their Minds,” by former editrix of Heeb Jennifer Bleyer, with great interest, and admittedly, some jealousy. The color green (jealousy) comes courtesy of the writer in me, who’s always been jealous of the category known as “people I moderately know who are suddenly writing about Jewish single life in the NY Times instead of me.” And the interest, of course, comes from what seems a sudden interest in the social lives of UWS Jews -an area I’ve had some interest in for some time – from the Grey Lady.
The piece is a basic intro for those not familiar with “the scene,” and a trip down memory lane for those of us who, at any point in our lives, lived it. To sum up: lots of singles in NYC, lots of Jews, Lincoln Square, Jewish Center, Bangitout and their annual Tu B’Av festivus (scheduled for this Thursday in NYC), “not in the shtetl anymore,” singles with marriage on their minds (on paper, at least) but who never have to grow up. To sum up even further: News Alert–Jewish Singles Found on Upper West Side: Who Knew?.
On paper, “not in the shtetl anymore” is a good thing: increased freedom of choice, not having to marry someone just because your parents say so…but one can’t help but look at the numbers of people who move here and get singles-stuck vs. the number of people who move here and actually do get married, and which, if either of those groups succeeded because they had “marriage on their minds.” Or rather, we couldn’t help but look at those numbers if we actually had the data to peruse. Although there was a study recently published about the role of single Jews in Jewish life, as far as I know, no one’s done a survey that predicts the average length of Upper West Side stay for a single Jew before he or she either a) gives up and moves to another state, b) succeeds and gets married, or c) continues to live on the UWS, hope persisting, but optimism dwindling. All we have are anecdotes: “my cousin’s best friend met her fiance on JDate!”; or “you went out with that guy? Now we’ve all dated him…”; or “all the women I date want to know how much money I make,” or “I felt like I was out on a date with a Hobbit/Rob Schneider pretending he’s a ‘hot chick’.” (OK, so that last one may not be widely repeated, but hey, it happens.)
I’m going to go out on a limb here. I’ve been here so many times that I feel like it’s MY limb, engraved with a little gold-plated plaque like they have on the pews in the synagogues. There are lots of issues at stake when examining “single life” as some sort of quantifiable entity. I don’t know much of anything about quantitative/qualitative analysis, but I have to imagine that there are no numbers or statistics because there are too many variants to be able to predict anything. Some people are superficial, others fear commitment, still others are waiting for the perfectly tumultuous storm of beauty, brains and money. And still others are just unlucky, in the right place at the wrong time or vice versa, trapped in their urban tribes with some friends who get married and move out of their neighborhoods (and often, their lives), and others who form their seemingly permanent posse of the uncoupled.
But while the Upper West Side may offer an expanded pool of singles, some say its social offerings can distract from the presumed goal of marriage. The lifestyle sometimes resembles a relatively chaste version of that depicted in the television series “Sex and the City,†featuring below-the-knee designer skirts and kosher wine in place of Cosmopolitans.
[Allow me to interject here. Most of the UWS singles aren’t necessarily all that into kosher wine–to generalize, it’s about beer and the occasional cocktail. The one thing about this sentence I thank God for is that it says “kosher wine” instead of “Manischewitz.” Because really, I’ve had enough of that brand name being injoked (def: invoked in the name of comedy). Plus, a great many of those skirts only pretend to be below the knee. I’m just saying. Thank you. You may now return to the regularly scheduled article.-EDK]
“In a way, the West Side is like Never-Never Land,†Mr. November said. “People tell their parents they’re going to meet someone, but it’s an extended childhood.â€
And paradoxically, the large numbers of eligible singles can make for more pressure to find a mate, not less. “You don’t have thousands of Irish-Americans moving to Boston to try to meet someone Irish,†said a brunette from the Midwest, who declined to be identified because openly criticizing the community might hurt her own marital prospects. [Believe me, it does.-EDK] “I’ve met people who said, ‘I’m here for two months to date.’ In a way, it becomes too much.â€
While some of these complaints are specific to the Orthodox community, others are common to many young New Yorkers. The freedom to live an extended single life and the wide array of potential spouses can foster what is sometimes called option paralysis.
“It’s the cable TV syndrome,†explained Rabbi Schwartz of Congregation Ohab Zedek. “There are so many channels, so many things to watch out there, you don’t end up watching any one thing.â€
It’s the paradox of choice. But choice itself and alone cannot be blamed. Nor can singles be blamed for the individual aspects of their personalities that might contribute to their singleness–believe me, enough of them spend enough time blaming themselves already; they don’t need the community to chime in with disapproval.
I’m not sure this is interesting to people who don’t live in it, and to people who do live in it, I would think that it’d be more depressing than exciting to see news of this “phenomenon” hit the mainstream media (if you consider the Times MSM, which is fodder for other conversations…)
I do think that quoting a woman unwilling to go on record doesn’t do the biggest service such a quote, critical of the community, could do. I think the conversation about communal criticism at the expense of real communal help is an important one. But anonymous quotes don’t raise the issue in a way that leads to real discussion and the potential for change.
But I think part of my issue is that no one called me to ask my opinion, which I admit with some queasiness because it stems from an egomania that I’m not proud of. But I’ve been living in this world for more years than I’d care to count – part Dian Fossey and part Carrie Bradshaw – and writing about it for more time than the average person spends in university, so it’s possible that I feel I might have something to contribute. This is my ego, I realize, and it’s not attractive, so I’ll stop.
I feel like this article is lodged in my throat and I’m not sure what that means. So I’ll leave it to the masses. Discuss amongst yourselves.
I know. Just dreadful, really. You’ve been at sea longer. Know all the winds, the trade patterns, the knots, the proper name & rigging for each of the sails. And this young whippersnapper comes along to steal your thunder, and makes it look all too easy! Some truisms:
1.) ‘It’s an extended childhood.’ A given really. Anytime you’re not working full or part time and or going to school the same? Either you’re incarcerated or enjoying the fruits of someone’s labor. Nothing wrong with that per se. But if you want to know why there’s so many cases of arrested development, this is one of them.
2.) ‘The Paradox of choice’ or the ‘Cable TV Phenomenon’. Sure. This is the essential insight into the scene, and not just for the Orthodox either. It affects almost everyone especially in NYC. But it’s clearly the bane of the modern age. We don’t know what ‘good’ is anymore, or even what ‘good enough’ looks like. Perfection and Mr./Ms. right can come along, but there’s no saying that he/she will come along anytime in your 20’s or early 30’s either. NYC is horribly expensive, 5 years and possible exile should be the hard & fast rule here for most families. They can not afford to subsidize such a search much longer than that. Very few can really.
3.) This said you Do try and fish where the fish are, right? And Yes, Catholic parents regularly like to ’tilt’ their odds in favor of Catholic mates for their kids by sending them to overwhelmingly Catholic schools & colleges. Notre Dame. BC. St. this & that. (Ditto for similar religious affiliated denominations & Universites across the nation).
4.) So no it’s no longer a shtetl. It’s a closely conscribed space defined by time & custom and not extending more than a few blocks in many directions. It’s also place people come to seek certain things, and this is well known. So more voluntary association, less strict enforcement by the Czars men & pogroms. And the jobs, clothing and accessories are generally better too.
5.) ‘The lifestyle sometimes resembles a relatively chaste version of that depicted in the television series “Sex and the City, ’ In other words, not really or not much. It just happens to be set in the same city. Even if it’s relatively chaste? It would ruin the perfectly constructed vibe of SATC.
6.) Yeah let’s all blame the 60’s shall we? Or perhaps, as predicted in most other sociological studies, women’s attainment of higher education alone explains most of the ‘delayed marriage’ phenomenon. And who wants dumb kids? So we’ve arrived at a paradox. Everyone more or less values education. Higher ed is necessary for most jobs and most decent paying jobs today. No woman can nor should depend on her husband to be the sole provider for the household, at least not for her entire ‘adult life’ post wedding. That would be supremely foolish. So like everyone else (most native born populations in the US) marriage is delayed for educational achievement. But because Jewish women also happen to be More eduated, it’s delayed a bit longer. It’s a conundrum.
7.) No one wants to actually talk about the underlying demographic & economic dynamics here, I imagine because they involve a modicum of Numbers. And if ‘journalists’ hate anything more than real criticism, it’s having to deal with or make sense of numbers & statistics.
8.) Mr. November is a poet on the UWS. That’s something we might see from a novel. But even tenured poets can’t afford to live there for long.
9.) The Times defines MSM. Ergo, it’s mostly stupid, slow & hard to manage & damn near impossible to ‘educate’. I could give cites. So yeah, they get the ‘flash in the pan’, but not really why the pan or the flash come together. ‘They’re supposed to!’ they’ll insist. Sure. But why not earlier? Why is it all so late? In fact some of the latest 1st marriages on record? We get a description of images made for TV. That’s about it. Nothing too personal or nothing much ‘in depth’. Just supremely superficial, the way the NYT does most things. You’ll invariably Feel more educated on the topic than you really are. It’ll make most of their readers feel better about their lives. ‘See Sol, it was good that we hooked up on that cruise!’
10.) I’m predicting the coming trend of arranged marriages. Or ‘family introductions’.
Cheers & Good Luck! ‘VJ’
As someone who lived in NYC and in other cities, i can tell you that it is mainly an issue of choice. When I lived in smaller J communities, it seemed that a very large percentage of the people came and met someone. The pool was just way smaller, and so you made choices with what you had available. Sort of how like everyone in school or camp dates someone else in the class/group because that is what is available. No points of comparison. It wasnt settling, it was that there were no points of comparison. Like a restaurant with a huge menu, you often feel like you should have chosen something different when everyone else’s dishes come out and they look so good. With a limited menu, there are few items and so you can easily focus on what you know you like and are happy with the choice.
To that problem, add the fact that women are more liberated, can usually support themselves (sometimes quite well), and feel that they dont “have to settle”. So they wait for the Mr. Right to come along – when of course, Mr. Right (if he actually exists!) may be looking at the younger, cuter girl down the block… And, there friends are in the same boat, so they have a little community and dont feel as much pressure…
Hey, did somebody say “paradox of choice”?
http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/0060005688
Esther, I can give you this book when you’re here if you’re interested. Good stuff. After I finished reading it last summer, I bought a pair of jeans at the Gap in FIVE MINUTES. Of course, after returning to Israel, I thought “why the hell did I buy these long, baggy jeans?” But it changed my decision-making like “Fast Food Nation” changed my eating habits.
Would love the book, Benji. Since I’ll actually see you this visit, it’s even convenient! I look forward to the spontaneous purchases I’m likely to make as a result.
VJ, thanks for sharing your insights as always.
And Jonmymind, I hear you on the large town v. small town thing. It’s a bit of a mixed blessing in either direction: either you have too much choice and never choose a thing, or no choice and you feel boxed in (and then likely seek out a community with too much choice, so the whole thing can become a cycle).
The Paradox of Choice is about behavioral economics or choice theory. It’s been a hot topic for at least a decade or more in economic research circles. And it’s a point I’ve tried to make here & elsewhere too for awhile.
Part of it has to do with how our choices are perceived, and a lot of that has to do with the massive effects of the media culture on our consumer choices. Simply put, even if a ‘mate selection’ may be part of your consumer behavior, there better be more of a serious thought process to it, or else everyone is going to be lost in the morass for a very long time. You may simply adore Cindy Brady CA 1975, but she’s really not coming back, and she was fictional to begin with! But all together too many media produced products that we come to demand. We can not all be ‘owners’/Partners of & with that perfect Scandinavian style, tall & sultry ‘beach blond’, there’s just so many of them to go around. And only some of them even speak English or have any reason to visit America.
Everyone has a certain ‘type’ they seem to favor. Part of the problem is that we are bombarded with idealized images in the media of each and every type possible. So instead of just enjoying the bounty of nature before us, (wherever we are), we come to want & desire more from the population at hand. But still there’s just so many ‘tall leggy models’//Tall dark & handsome dudes to go around. Just so many this & that too. So the paradox of choice is that with more choices or Our Perception of same, these will actually be more confusing to most people, and make their decision More difficult & haphazard. Especially if the criteria you are using is unreliable, too changeable, or too dependent on outside criteria & media influences. And this applies to consumer choice on a wider scale too.
This is why there is & was a real tactile & tactical difference with the shtetl. It’s a lost world mostly and one unlikely to ever return. That marvelous wondrous woman great great granddad knew and happily came to marry was perhaps one of only a few dozen women he ever talked with as a young man! He knew nothing much of the next village, let alone what might be hidden in the nearest city. Travel was popular, but still very arduous almost everywhere until fairly recently (perhaps since 1900 & 1950 say).
Next we might say something about the importance of images themselves. Up until the modern era (say Victorian times), it was highly unlikely that most people would ever see the naked human form in other than ‘high art’ or by viewing this spectacle in person. Now every kid with a computer and net access can be inundated with images that would be almost incomprehensible to their forefathers & mothers. Now, let’s say for the sake of argument that there’s not much direct ‘shame’ in this, but it’s almost as bad, if a bit more chaste in much of the modern media, magazines, billboards & TV . You do not have to go very far to view an image of a comely naked form. Yes, once upon a time this was quite rare, but now it’s ubiquitous. And that’s got to be having a tremendous impact someplace. It takes away from the immediacy of the prospect of ‘dating’. The surprise and the elements of revelation. I think this also tends to delay things a bit.
But again, I’ve discussed all of this over the years here. And of course there really should be a book in it for someone, right? Cheers & Good Luck, ‘VJ’
[…] to go to the Bangitout Tu B’Av party in NYC–which draws about 800-1000 Jews all (theoretically) looking for relationships. If I still had the Jewish Week singles column, I would have gone for […]
Having personal experience with the UWS Phenomena, all I can say is good luck to those who choose to remain single and good luck to those who choose to find love