Esther Kustanowitz

I admit it, my ego is bruised. In several locations. Almost visibly. There’s nothing I can really do about it other than wear the wear-and-tear like a badge of non-shame, because it’s really no honor to be treated this way, especially by entities who proclaim love and concern and end up treating you like an indentured servant. Which technically, you are, but that doesn’t excuse the treatment. It almost makes it worse, this two-facedness of a proclamation of value and support that is in the very next moment undermined and denigrated. And who would want to keep going through that over and over again, with every heartbeat potentially bringing an elation followed by deflation?

Still, we do it. Or at least I do. I know I do, and I know I’d rather not. I’d rather be Teflon, that all of this–in its murky undefinability–would bounce right off me, deflected, and given nary a thought, of either a first or a second nature. I try to focus on the goal, the dream, the aim. And sometimes it works. And the other times? That’s when I feel like this, at some sort of swirling epicenter of things way outside anyone’s control, and when a hand emerges to save me, I’m all too aware that in grasping it, I accept that what redeems me may also, in precious seconds, smack me for my naivety.

Places that have fostered growth have done so reluctantly, providing just enough water for a seed to grow, barely enough for it to thrive. And when foliage develops, everyone’s surprised, but only you seem pleased. You know you and they have both worked hard; they could have given you a greenhouse, and the glory would have been theirs. And that would have been okay.

But they didn’t. They remained miserly with their affection and encouragement, and utilized you, in the coldest, most mechanical sense, not for your potential, but according to their own preference.

I still cling to what is possible, despite their best efforts to the contrary. But this tenacious belief sometimes edges toward madness, a road that leads back to the vortex, back to the cycle of affectionate violence or violent affection. If I succeed, many will claim credit. And if I don’t, they will assign me the blame. And when the choices you’re left with are success without acknowledgment or blame without basis…it becomes a matter of self-respect.

It’s enough to drive a woman to…

I certainly am glad for both China and Reuters’ Oddly Enough, for continuing to bring me stories of a blogworthy nature. This one, thankfully, features neither dismemberment nor bad puns blending the words dating and decapitation. (Apologies for that, really.)

This story involves the sordid affair of people hugging and kissing in public, and then finding out that this public display of affection had been recorded and uploaded to YouTube!!!

The three-minute video of the couple in their 20s was shot in September and uploaded to Youtube and Chinese video-sharing Web sites last week, Tuesday’s China Daily reported, citing a local newspaper. It drew more than 15,000 hits in two days, it said.

“A mocking voice can be heard in the background of the video. It has extremely embarrassed the couple,” the paper said. The couple had hired a lawyer in the interests “of all passengers traveling on metro trains in Shanghai,” the paper quoted the unnamed man in the video as saying. “Now every time I walk into a metro station I feel uncomfortable,” the man said.

That must have been some mocking voice.

Has anyone ever successfully kept a New Year’s resolution? I mean, really. Let’s face it. A New Year’s Resolution is basically an acknowledgment of a flaw we see in ourselves that is unlikely to change in the long-term. Maybe that makes me a pessimist, or a realist. But in either case, I’ve written my new column about it.

“Resolution Dissolution” (NY Jewish Week, January 10, 2008)

We’ve kissed the old year goodbye and welcomed a new one. We’ve made promises to ourselves and others that this year we’ll improve our behavior and make the world a better place. The thing is, for Jews, we already did this at our September New Year’s Eve commemoration, leaving this last day of December, as always, utterly secular, devoid of religious or Judaic gravitas, and redundant.

Just three months after repenting for Rosh HaShanah, followed by Ten Days of Repentance, followed by one additional day designated as the holiest day of the Jewish calendar year, we feel pressure to commemorate the end of a year, this time on the Gregorian calendar, and to re-promise that things are going to change. But here’s the catch— we’re always repenting, because we never really change. Otherwise, we’d only need one Yom Kippur, and it’d be a keeper. But every year, we’re back; part of the process of tikkun olam, of fixing the world, is tikkun atzmi, fixing yourself. (Really hardcore about taking every available chance to self-correct? Fear not: Tu b’Shevat, the new year for the trees, and the month of Nisan, designated by the Torah as the true head of the year, will be here before you know it.)

The new year — whether it’s secular, religious or arboreal — brings the renewed hope that this time is going to be different. We’ll have to be more open-minded. We’ll finally join a synagogue. We’ll plan ahead for tax season! We’ll be environmentally aware and exercise more! But resolutions made at the passage of another secular year lack Rosh HaShanah’s crime-and-punishment imperative that infuses regret with an active sense of moral or ethical responsibility. Maybe we even call them resolutions because we’re trying to re-solve the same problems every year. So this year, dissolve the resolutions, the attempts to change what is likely unalterable, and work within your strengths.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

This just in via the NY Times (from a loyal reader):

The parent company of the popular Jewish online dating site JDate has put itself up for sale, people close to the auction said Thursday, and is already in talks with several prominent media companies.

The owner of JDate.com, Spark Networks, which owns dozens of online personal sites aimed at religious, ethnic and other special interests, is in early talks with suitors that include Yahoo; eHarmony; IAC/InterActiveCorp, the Barry Diller company that owns Match.com; and MySpace, which is part of the News Corporation, these people said.

Shares of Spark, which trades under the ticker LOV, have jumped more than 20 percent in recent weeks. Its shares closed yesterday at $4.90, giving the company a market value of $131.4 million. Analysts suggested that a suitor might pay as much as $185 million for the company.

Spark also owns AmericanSingles, BlackSingles, ChristianMingle and other sites, so your $185 million would purchase a portfolio of sites and not just the “beloved JDate.”

If you bought JDate or any other online dating site, what would you change?