JDaters Anonymous
Group therapy in a blog.
Romance, Religion, Kidnapping and Craigslist
420 years
Sometimes, I find myself wishing that I was born into a more religious community, where dating would be different, and I thought, easier. A community where there is less emphasis on romantic choice, and therefore more likelihood that I would be in a different stage of adulthood by now, raising my children in perfect faith within a community that shared my values, even if I never had the chance to challenge them through emotional inquiry.
But being super-religious isn’t all fun and games in the romance department. This story has already been circulating for a few days, but I felt the need to have it here too as part of this week’s romance roundup.
The wayward son of a powerful rabbinic family kidnaps and violently abuses
his teenage sister’s would-be suitor to prevent an affair that violates the family’s strict religious codes. The real-life tale culminated in the arrest earlier this week of the wife, daughter and son of Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, and two alleged Bedouin accomplices.The family members were suspected in the abduction and assault of a 17-year-old, ultra-Orthodox youth because they reportedly objected to his relationship with the rabbi’s 18-year-old daughter, Ayala, whom he met in an Internet chat room.
“In our society, as long as people are not married … no contact between a girl and a boy is acceptable,” [another of the family’s sons who was not involved in the abduction] said.
That’s in Israel. But here in America, on the internet juggernaut that is the Craigslist M4W board, we have seen posts from religious people seeking sexual liaisons with people outside their community and outside their marriages. Now (hat tip: Dov Bear), a prophet of old seems to have emerged, and has taken on Craigslist as his personal shonda (source of embarrassment) to be eradicated through the time-honored technique of tokhakhah (rebuke for the purpose that the miscreant should repent). Here’s an excerpt (spellings preserved, translations mine):
Aishes ish [relations with another man’s wife] causes mamzeirim [bastards] in klal yisoel [klal yisroel: the Jewish people]. Cheating on one’s wife is also ASUR [forbidden]! Imagine what you are doing to your children – to your families! Giluy Arayos [forbidden sexual relations] is yahareg v’al ya’avor [a sin you are commanded to die for rather than commit]! Arayos is one of the three cardinal sins – on par with muder and idolatry. This is the downfall of our society. Even if they are strictly amongst single people, it is terrible. Even if the ads are not real, they are still a terrible chilul [desecration of God’s name]. Even if you think nobody knows, it is still terrible. Even if you think nobody will ever find out, besides for you being wrong, it is still terrible.
You know I’m more moderate than the people who posted both the ads and this rebuke to the people who are looking for these liaisons. But I think that what they point to is the power of the Internet to reflect things about ourselves, and even in our most religious communities, that we wouldn’t cop to in real life.
Married people looking for no-strings sexual relationships with other people should be working on their marriages; maybe the two people were never suited for each other anyway and only got married because of parental/communal/social pressure. (“I can’t believe I’m 20, and haven’t met my bashert yet!”) Maybe they grew up thinking that boys were liars and girls were stupid. Or maybe the kids in question weren’t fully-cooked individuals and shouldn’t have committed to a relationship with someone else that was supposed to be forever while half-baked.
Whether or not there’s rebuke involved, the mere presence of these ads and the story about the kidnapping illustrates that life isn’t always greener on the other side of the religious spectrum, and that a more restrictive and isolated lifestyle isn’t always to be envied. Relationships are hard, and when it comes down to it, maybe the success of the relationship is really up to the two individuals who are trying to make it work.
“Instant” Gratification
420 years
My new singles column, “‘Instant’ Gratification,” is now online.
In the age of the Internet, who writes love letters anymore? The romantic epistolary tradition has gone high-tech; online love is all about the Instant Message (IM) window, with its unique language of shorthand endearments: BRB (be right back), IMHO (in my humble opinion) and the ultimate phrase representing devotion and commitment potential, the coveted LOL (laughing out loud). But at the end of an e-communication, can we trust our memory of what happened? Absent of intonation and physical cues, how do we discern if a sentiment is mutual? And how real is the connection for today’s daters?
Click here to read the article in its entirety.
Thanks to all of you who helped out with this article by emailing me or leaving your comments here. This is one of those columns that has your names written all over it…
Enjoy!
Reason #34: YOU CAN NEVER NEVER NEVER TRUST A BOY
420 years
I try to be open-minded and respectful, really I do. Occasionally, I slip into an area that’s more of a loving lampoon than an angry tirade, which is just part of being single, I think. I especially try to be open-minded to Jewish or religious ways and views which are not my own. (For instance, although I don’t choose to share her lifestyle, I linked to Nice Jewish Girl and could appreciate what she had to say. I thought it was incredibly brave for her to explore her heart’s desire in the context of her religious commitment. Others disagreed with me on the bravery front, but still…) I’d like to be that person who can get along with Jews (and in fact, non-Jews as well) of all religious stripes. It’s all good, and it’s all about love.
But today, I came across this list on FrumTeens.com, a website for religious teenagers to discuss various issues. The list (located in the “Long Skirts and ‘Platonic’ Relationships” forum of the site) is titled “71 Reasons Not to Talk to Boys.” And aside from the appalling spelling (and I mean, appalling), I’m a little frightened. I’m not saying this to ridicule the members of the list, God forbid. I just don’t understand how advocating a complete separation between the sexes until it’s courtship time can be a good thing.
Some examples (spelling and punctuation preserved)…
3) You risk getting caught by, and being thrown out of your school
Maybe because it’s not my community, but I don’t understand how talking to a boy leads to expulsion from school. In my yeshiva high school (which admittedly was co-ed), I was reprimanded for cuffing my friend Mark on the shoulder once (a rabbi saw me, and gave me a “you know you’re not supposed to touch boys” speech). But I never got the feeling that I was in any danger of expulsion.
6) You WILL NOT stay shomer negiyah [not touching the opposite sex], which is also assur [forbidden]-(a yaharog veal yaavor[a sin so grievous that you should be killed rather than transgress it])
Much discussion follows as to the exact origin of the prohibition against opposite-sex discourse, with some people disagreeing as to the character of the sin as yaharog v’al ya’avor.
7) The guy is 100% talking bad about you to his frineds in one way or another
I think this breeds a distrust of all men for all time. How do you go from being paranoid about all boys to trusting one man enough to spend your life with him? And it’s not like girls are never mean to other girls. If you can’t trust boys and you can’t trust girls, who does that leave you with?
9) Every boy is a liar, a pervert, a jerk, and you will eventually find this out
OK. I’ve got no problems with this one. I’m kidding.
I would say we can all be liars, perverts and jerks, boys and girls alike. And this one, like number 7, breeds a mistrust of all men that will undoubtedly follow the girls into their adult and married lives.
26) a guy will prob @#$% %** cus of you,, and thats like one of the wosrt averriois [sins], and im sure we get part of it
I’m guessing that missing word has something to do with self-love, but to me the concept that girls shouldn’t talk to boys because said boys might go home and think of the girls when they, ahem, you know is like saying that we should stop producing peanut butter because some people are allergic to it. OK, so it’s not a perfect analogy, but that it falls to girls to prevent adolescent boys from pleasuring themselves? Please.
And of course, there’s #34, the one that inspired my post here today:
YOU CAN NEVER NEVER NEVER TRUST A BOY
How many “never”s is that?
I’m with Maidel123, who points out:
While I agree that there are many negative elements of guys and girls talking for no particular reason it is also important not to paint the opposite gender as evil or anything of that sort. Not just because it’s not nice, but because I’m not sure I understand how, for example, a girl would make the change from thinking guys are scum etc. etc. to thinking that THE guy is the one with whom you’ll share so many things-a relationship as a couple, builders of a Jewish home, builders of a Jewish family…so while members of the opposite gender may not be APPROPRIATE they are not inherently CH”V [that’s an abbreviation for chas v’chalilah, which means God forbid] evil.
Much discussion on the boards ensues, from both boys and girls (and I suspect there are some older men and women there too, as the spelling and sentence structure is vastly improved in some of the subsequent responses).
If I were still in my yeshiva high school, as constricted as I felt there, I know that this bulletin board/forum would have been way too right-wing for me. I just hope that these girls and boys don’t grow up so scared of each other that it creates marriages that are built on foundations of mistrust and fear.
(Hat tip for the list, even though he may not like what I’ve done with it: Seraphic Secret)
Technology: Dating Friend, or Foe?
1220 years
I need your help, my readers and friends:
Does Internet-based technology (email or IM) help or hinder romance?
- How far into a relationship do you exchange email/IM info?
- Do you think people communicate better or worse over email/IM?
- How do you prefer to communicate with potential dates? (Phone, email, IM?) Why do you prefer that method over others?
- Have you ever misunderstood someone in IM/email that has led you to heartbreak or disappointment?
- Do you think the IM window is a better or worse way to get to know someone?
- Have you found that your online impression of someone (through IM or email or even through blogging) is different from how they really are in person? Has that been difficult for you to accept?
Feel free to leave your answers in the comments section, or email me with your response. Please indicate your age, location, profession (especially if you’re in a tech field) and whether you’d like to be quoted by name or by a pseudonym.
Your help is appreciated!
Can a Blog Have a Paper Anniversary?
320 years
If it can, JDaters Anonymous’s Paper Anniversary is today.
One year of kvetching about dating, online and off, sharing ideas and stories with others who are struggling and who have struggled in their searches for love. One year of discovering the quirks of JDate and the quirks of the people who inhabit the site: some are people who are very much like us, and others are, well, not.
I’ve learned a lot this year. Hopefully, you have too. Let’s recommit to the community we’re becoming. And to the prospect and hope of finding someone to love.
If these crazy kids can make a go of it, maybe we can too.
Happy birthday, JDaters Anonymous!!
Lies Lies Lies, Yeah
720 years
And now, from the “News That Isn’t Really News” Department…
TrueDater.com just released a study that confirms what we already suspected to be true: that online daters lie about what they really look like.
I know what you’re asking: What’s TrueDater.com? Think of it as Epinions for online dating profiles:
TrueDater.com, providing today’s online daters with the ability to read or review the truthfulness of people¹s dating profiles, asked its users which quality online daters are most likely to exaggerate in their dating profiles. Men and women both said the two qualities most likely to be misrepresented were weight and overall physical appearance.
“Amazon has book reviews, TrueDater provides dating profile reviews. Based on ourfree service, we are encouraging online daters to pledge honesty not only in their profiles, but in their everyday lives and a growing movement is championing this effort,” said Jason Jordan, TrueDater Co-Founder.
Users were asked what qualities online daters exaggerate or lie about most often. Choices were: height, weight, age, income, marital status, physical appearance and “other.”
- 34% of the respondents chose weight, with physical appearance coming in at 27%.
- Male voters ranked weight first with 45%, and physical appearance second with 20%.
- Marital status ranked third with 13%, all others received 10% or less.
- With female voters, general physical appearance ranked first with 36% of the vote, followed by weight (19%) and age (16%).
Surprisingly, female voters said men were more likely to exaggerate weight and appearance than height and income level. Also, more men than women complained that online daters had been dishonest about their marital status.
Very interesting results. Although the imbalance noted in the last paragraph (anecdotally, I know the situation to be just the opposite) has me wondering how many people they interviewed for this survey.
One last note that will sound familiar to my regular readers. There are certain elements of physical appearance that are objective, and will be learned/observed/discovered when we first meet someone. Height is one of these elements: if you’re 5’5 and tell me you’re 5’8, and if “5’8″ you and “5’5″ me are looking into each other’s eyes without the aid of heels when we finally meet, then I know, you’ve lied. Does the height matter that much, especially if the personality and humor are a match? Not to me. (Especially on JDate: I tend to automatically deduct 2-3 inches from the stated height in a JDater’s profile. For some reason Jewish guys seem to have no idea how tall they are.) But the fact that you lied? That matters a bit. And it might make a girl wonder what else you’re hiding…
And in terms of the lying about weight thing, I just need to reiterate that while weight is by definition an objective measure (even a non-science oriented person like me understands that a pound is a pound), weight looks different on different people. It can depend on how muscular a person is, how tall s/he is, the build, where s/he wears his/her weight, etc. Because of those variables, I think the “frame” descriptor is better than listing a numerical weight. Unless I’m your boxing coach (or you’re mine) and we’re prepping for a match, I maintain that there’s no need to determine whether we’re lightweights, middleweights or heavyweights. I also think it goes without saying that sometimes an internal attraction can alter a perception of physical beauty.
There’s also another component…I’m reminded of that scene from The Matrix, wherein Neo is in the simulation for the first time, and he sees himself in a certain way. Morpheus explains to him that this is the way he sees himself (even though in the “outside” world, he wears sackcloth and has all these connectors up his spine and in his head). Because we all see ourselves a certain way, we may be unable to see why a photo might be construed as an underestimation or overestimation of our physical assets. I may (theoretically) see myself as “fit” or “muscular” while someone else might describe me as “average,” “overweight,” “medium,” or even (in the Jewish world with my 5 feet and 5 inches) “tall.” In our heads, we’re all individual Neos. But how each individual set of eyes in each person in the world sees us? We can’t control that.
As for Truedater.com, who knows if it will take off. I guess that depends on how many people feel they’d like to review their dates for the site. And how many people will tune into this new site as a vetting process to decide whether or not the person’s worth going out with. And whether people will be able to distinguish the lies that matter from the unwitting misrepresentations that we undoubtedly all make when describing ourselves to others.
Welcome, New Readers
020 years
Just wanted to welcome any new readers who might be here because of Ken Wheaton’s Metro article about bloggers who blog their dates…
Posting’s a little light this week due to Passover, but there’s lots of stuff already here, so stick around, peruse the archives and new posts will be with you shortly!
Got questions? Email me, and I’ll gladly answer.
Thanks for visiting!
Wookin’ Pa Nub
820 years
I’m sorry, I cheated on you.
I did a blog post over at Jewlicious that I thought the boys there would consume with a sharklike frenzy. But alas, it received no love. I was, as Buh-weet might have sung back in the day, “Wookin’ Pa Nub in Aww Da Wong Paces.”
Was that because the post itself wasn’t as compelling as I’d thought? Or because it was overshadowed by subsequent posts about the election of a new Pope? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was blogkarmic retribution for not looking for love somewhere other than in my own blogyard…
I’ve learned my lesson. Next time, if it’s a good JDaters post, I’ll post it here first (and cross-post it later…)
Putting the “Man” Back in “Afikoman”: Craigslist Personals for a Satisfying Pesach
Tired of Endless Dating? Might As Well Eat…
120 years
According to Reuters in London, speed dating is out, and “feed dating” is in, “where the love-hungry can at least enjoy a good meal if they don’t find romance.”
Meeting people at dinner parties has become the most popular way for Britons in their 30s to find a new partner, according to a survey by food firm Geest. Of 1,000 single people, 34 percent said they wanted to combine food with flirting — with a safety net of having friends with them if the dinner date went pear-shaped.
Because JDaters Anonymous is a service-based weblog, we are pleased to provide you with this handy list of things to avoid when “feed dating”:
1. The Blooming Onion (greasy oil all over face and hands is almost never a portent of romance)
2. Any garlic-based dishes (no explanation is required, is it?)
3. Pesto (believe me, this one is bad–no matter how many times you try to dislodge the stuff from the crevices between your teeth, it’s not coming out until you brush it out with some Crest or Colgate later at home…)
4. Poppy seed bagels (see “pesto”)
5. Deli (deli is not sexy…except maybe pastrami, with its blend of pungent spices, which can get stuck in your teeth, see “pesto”)
6. Red wine (it stains your teeth almost instantly, and certain colors of long-wearing lipstick actually can also pick up the tint, creating a “clown mouth” effect…don’t ask me how I know that…)
7. Grapefruit (no way to eat this and not spritz your date in the eye with a blinding spray of citrus)
8. Chocolate (because of the teeth thing–see “pesto”–, and because it may remind you that you have no need for companionship of the opposite sex)
9. Matzah (crumbles into a million specks that will instantly adhere to clothing and make you look like you suffer from gargantuan dandruff)
10. Pasta with red sauce (because you will ALWAYS spill it all over yourself, especially if you’re wearing white)
Not quite the Ten Commandments. But I think they’re decent suggestions.
Equal Time: Enter the Anti-Gump
620 years
Usually, we present the female perspective here on JDaters Anonymous. But I read this article by Matt Lipeles in the Jewish Journal and thought I’d share it with you, in the interest of equal time and for the purpose of discussion.
In the article, titled “The Love Impaired,” Matt writes:
But it really got me to thinking, what is love anyway?
I bet you thought I was going to answer that question, didn’t you? Well, I can’t. That’s the point. I don’t know. I’m 37 and single. I’m a relationship moron. I’m romantically impaired. I don’t know what I’m doing  at all.
(Matt, don’t worry. None of us know what we’re doing. Partially because everyone’s different. And partially because of John Hughes movies and Sex and the City.)
He continues:
But, before we go looking for solutions to this problem, maybe it would be worthwhile to take a look at past generations. Why was it so easy for them anyway? Maybe it was because they had matchmakers and arranged marriages. It used to be that your parents would arrange a match for you and, unless you found your intended completely repulsive, you married them. Boom. Just like that.
So Matt got me to thinking…would it be better/easier/more results-oriented for us to revert to a more antiquated system of relating, dating and mating? Then we could spend our time worrying about things other than dating and emerge from whatever bubbles of insecurity that we’ve been hiding in throughout our dating years…romance could be created within the context of a relationship between two people who are empirically likely to be compatible. Or would you change nothing, and maintain the agita, the slings and arrows, the misunderstood emails, misconstrued IMs and misinterpreted gestures of the dating process?
Your ideas to be discussed here, please…