Group therapy in a blog.
Esther Kustanowitz
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Posts by Esther Kustanowitz
Murphy’s (Online) Law
417 years
What’s Murphy’s Law? If anything can go wrong, it will. Everyone’s experienced that at one time or another.
What’s Murphy’s Law? If any of your myriad sites with years of content goes down, all of them will.
OK, so that’s a slight exaggeration. But that’s the reason I haven’t posted here. And as for EstherK.com? It’s also down right now, but I’m hoping for a resurrection in the next few days.
It came at a bad time, of course. I’m heading into “conference” season, with a slew of speaking engagements and travel plans, which I’ll tell you about in another post. But the other part of the “bad time” was because The Jewish Week, where I do much of my dating pontificating (“pontifidating”?) was also undergoing a site redesign, so much of my content is unavailable. I hear that this little quirk will be tweaked shortly as well, but in the interim, I have no way to link to my own content.
This has pointed out the need for me to hire an intern, who could scan all my articles into my computer as PDFs, so I can have my columns at my beck and call. Wouldn’t that be nice? Like the episode of “Seinfeld” wherein Kramer hires an intern for “Kramerica Industries.” Who couldn’t use an intern? (Step back, Mr. Clinton…)
Anyway, thanks for standing by me during a period of silence. More posts to come.
Forgive Us Our Dating Sins
017 years
At the risk of sounding self-promotional (a risk I take regularly), I wanted to re-share one of my best-received and most-often-remembered singles columns; it’s thematically appropriate for the Yamim Noraim (High Holydays) and has this year been reprinted in both the AZ Jewish Post and the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Rereading the litany of dating sins again this year, I am a little depressed by how many of them I am still guilty of. Here’s to not perpetrating them in the New Year:
In this season of atonement, Jews of every stripe of observance stream into temples, synagogues, shteibels and shuls to recount their wrongs. Beating their breasts in repentance, they beg for absolution for the sins they have committed in their daily human interactions over the past year. On Yom Kippur, many wear canvas sneakers, the plainest of shoes, in a show of simplicity and humility.
As singles, trying on different slippers and hoping for a perfect fit, we have assayed to squeeze ourselves into many an improper shoe during the past year, blistering ourselves and others in the process, becoming callused as we try to move our lives forward. This battered state yields an impressively long list (and uncomfortable memories) of dating-related crimes and misdemeanors. It is only fitting that past and current singles seize this moment to take stock of the unique ways that we have wronged each other, as men, as women, as eligibles populating the same singles pool. Once and for all, let’s take the sin out of singles.
Just like the Al Chet – the prayer in the Yom Kippur liturgy wherein the individual confesses to a litany of collective sins – that inspired it, this original reading is also written in third person plural. We may not recall having committed each of the individual sins in this reading, but as members of the global singles community, we admit to every transgression, in the New Year’s hope that the memory of this confession will make us think twice before committing future infractions.
Preliminary studies suggest that this reading is at its most potent when read responsively before or after a singles event. For maximum dramatic effect, read the first two lines in each stanza responsively, first men, then women. The third sentence should be recited by men and women together. And while we’re asking God for forgiveness, remember – it can’t hurt to beg for a vision or a bat kol (heavenly voice) that reveals the e-mail address of your bashert (intended). Or at least a location, so you know whether you’re trying on uncomfortable shoes in the right city.
True Dating Tales…
617 years
A friend IMs me today…she says she “NEVER” gets e-mailed on JDate. But in the last week she’s had 3 e-mails:
One from a gay guy telling me I’m cute and he’d date me if he was straight.
One e-mail from a lesbian asking me if I ever get curious.
And the last e-mail was from an Italian guy who is not Jewish and does not believe in religion.
And now, cue the reader who tells me how great JDate is and that her cousins and her best friends met on the site and are now happily married with lots of little rugrats. Also, the reader who tells me that I’m just bitter. And then the other readers who leap to my rescue.
I love you guys!
Enjoying the Larger Story in the Summer of Ted
217 years
Daily, there’s this thing that lives with you, whether you invited it in or not. It’s called tedium, and sometimes it goes by a nickname, like “Ted” or “lease renewal,” or “blind dating.” But whatever you call it, it’s like a cloud, obfuscating all else, making things inexorably hazier and robbing you of your Precious, whether it is something as complicated as happiness or as simple a pleasure as clarity.
And believe me, this summer, though full of wonderful things, was also the summer of Ted. Everything good that emerged from the last three months has had its own process of painful, sleep-depriving birth–none of it coming with a lovely and dreamlike injection of painkillers and muscle relaxers. It’s not like I labored and no one believes me. People know. People acknowledge. I hold magazines and newsletters in my hands, and have expanded my Rolodex and Facebook friends list. But I think–and this is a hard thing to admit–that the minimal sleep and intense creativity might be having an adverse effect, and my recovery time is not what it once was.
Which is why moments of Tedlessness, in which the fog doesn’t so much lift dramatically as dissipate molecularly, in small, barely perceptible minutes, are so precious. These times provide reinvigoration, and spiritual renewal, or other new agey sounding patchouliness. It’s why I’m glad that I’ve come to realize that the people and endeavors that inspire me, and who are present in my life aren’t just there randomly–they and I both are part of a larger story.
Gone are the days of “we all met in college and have been friends ever since.” Gone are the days of “we’ve been friends ever since we met at camp when we were twelve.” Or, at least, those days are gone to me. These days, when I look at a person, I remember our specific story. I sift through perceived and actual memories of our meeting, our first encounter, which, more often than not, was through the internet, or through something that I’d written. A reader put us in touch, hoping it would provide more work. (It did, repeatedly, along with a lasting friendship and partnership.) A colleague put us in touch, thinking we’d get along. (We did, incredibly well.) An Israel program showed us the relativity of age and the importance of finding creative people to partner with. (And we did, intensely and with great success.) In one case, although it certainly gives me no pleasure or ad revenue to admit it, I might have even met one of the members of my creative posse through JDate.
I enjoy these larger stories because it makes me feel like life is less random, like there’s definitely a karma-like aspect to putting out creativity and having it boomerang back at you in an incredibly inspiring and non-violent fashion. It creates within a cynical heart the possibility of redemption, and provides a chamber for the echoes of optimism that escape, pinging about a cavernous mind, and bouncing off its walls. It makes me believe, even if foolishly and naively, that we’re more in control of what happens in our lives than we might ever estimate on a given day.
Which is why on those most normal of everyday days, it’s important to see a larger picture, and enjoy the larger story. Especially if the day in question happens to be a day of Ted.
How to Solve the Singles Crisis, Part 2: “Date and Marry Out”/”No, DON’T!!!”
1017 years
A few weeks ago, someone wrote a singles column that reverberated coast to coast. And it wasn’t me. (Here endeth the jealousy and continueth the discussion.) Over at the Jewish Journal, Rob Eshman wrote about the fact that he knows “too many beautiful, brilliant single Jewish women in their 30s and 40s.”
I hear too many stories about the lack of available Jewish men, the first dates who are too lost or too pathetic, the fights over marriage and children that end the relationship and send the woman, now a bit older, diving back into the ever more shallow pool. But I don’t blame these women, of course not. I blame rabbis.
Rob suggests that rabbis need to lift the restriction on dating and marrying non-Jews, so that the Jewish women facing their 40s can go ahead and have children if they want to, without the stigma of having “married out.”
And if you thought the column was incendiary stuff, check out the letters to the editor that came the next week.
Gentile women don’t seem to find a shortage of Jewish men, one person notes. Although a statement like that–and a conversation with a friend who converted to marry a girlfriend of mine, in which he revealed that his conversion class was more than 90 percent female–makes me wonder if its the other way around.
There’s a lot of anger out there. And it’s damaging us all, maybe to the point of no return, whatever that is. But with a sentiment like that from a Jewish male, boiling down all his dating problems to the women who were “holding out for an Adonis with a heavy wallet,” I have to admit, I’m fighting an urge not to look at him and generalize him as the problem. What’s helping me is the fact that this person has no name. Well, I suppose he does, but here, it’s “Name Withheld By Request,” a common name for people responding to this column. No one wants to go on record about this stuff, and I don’t blame them. I really wonder sometimes what JDaters Anonymous or my column would look like if it were totally anonymous–with the fetters of self-identification removed, might I fall into the same sharp language, the same accusatory tones? I could choose to believe that I’d be a better person than that, but I know I’d be lying to myself.
The question of who’s to blame is not a productive one. What we all need to be is kinder, more open-minded, when regarding the people around us and that familiar-looking stranger in the mirror.
To read How to Solve the Singles Crisis, Part 1, click here.
How to Solve the Singles Crisis, Part 1: YU Connect-2
417 years
As some of you likely know, the Orthodox movement has proclaimed a singles crisis (or, as some might say, a “catastrophe”) in the Jewish community. This all stems from the fact that even in the Orthodox movement, many singles are marrying later, or not at all, resulting in a drop in the number of Jewish births expected based on prior estimates.
Enter the Center for the Jewish Future. I mean, it’s right there in the title–they’re about making sure that there’s a Jewish future and that it’s centered. (Or something like that.) Anyway, according to the YU Observer, the school is entering the “we can fix the singles crisis” game with a new organization called YU Connect-2, which will employ a two-pronged approach to enable interested singles to meet prospective spouses. Social workers, rabbis and peers will all be involved in the new venture, which was created with a team that included mental health professionals/dating advisers, rabbis, and dating mentors.
The first venue for interaction will be a variety of singles events. “These are not just random singles events, but they’re really going to be to reach out to all constituencies of the YU community,†confirmed Rabbi Brander. The activities include more structured settings, such as shiurim given by YU Roshei Yeshiva, as well as more relaxed activities such as bowling or miniature golf. “There will be a plethora of different activities,†Rabbi [Kenneth] Brander added. […]
The CJF has spent the past few months training approximately 30 dating mentors: young, married men and women who will organize programming and meet with singles one-on-one […] As part of YU Connect-2’s effort to appeal to different facets of the greater YU population, the dating mentors were chosen from various neighborhoods in the NY region, including the Five Towns, the Upper West Side, and Queens. The goal is to have different types of mentors who will be best suited to meet the needs of the religiously diverse YU community.
But it’s not like today’s YU students have no idea that marriage and procreations are on the general (and specifically, the community’s) agenda for today’s young Jews. As student Revital Avisar (SCW ’08) noted in the Observer article, “YU in general is by definition Jewish Orthodox and obviously they base their curriculum and their overall activities on Jewish attributes and ideals,†she said. “One of those ideals is starting a family. I think it’s been implied and emphasized; it’s already so overwhelming. The environment that we’re in is already enough.â€Â
Sounds like the pressure is on, for everyone. And YU is at least admitting that the attempt is an initiative in process, so they don’t expect to get it right immediately. But they’re trying, which is something. My concern is the pressure noted by the above student, and likely felt by many others. That, and the reinvention of the wheel–how many other dating opportunities do religious Jews in NYC have? Many, many, many. The challenge will be making “this dating service different from all other dating services,” especially at a university where students already know what’s expected of them, and despite that fact (or maybe because of it??) are still marrying later.
Stay tuned for other posts in what is sure to be an ongoing series.
Picnictime
117 years
Same clearing as last time, strangely stark and comfortingly familiar. I found myself engaged in it again. As I took off the backpack, I felt on my back the dampness of the burden I had carried, but didn’t care–I had carried it so long, from so far, and I was glad to have the weight lifted, even if the perspiration was a portent. Opening the zipper, taking out the blanket, I noted the sameness of the entity–it was rolled up, containing everything I had brought, just like last time.
But there were no clouds hanging, no rains apparently imminent. I perceived this as encouragement, knew I was doing this for my own good, for the sake of truth and honesty. Slowly unfurling it, careful not to disrupt its insulated contents, despite its slowness, it had the feeling that I was ripping off a band-aid, and we’d soon discover if that adhesive was keeping my blood or words or emotion from spilling out. The unrolling made it seem like a cliche or flower about to bloom, or quickly wither. Whichever it was, it would be soon. I waited for whatever, and found, if not what I’d hoped, then what I’d expected.
Precedent becomes a pattern you can’t control until you face certain things about life or about yourself, and just because you know you deserve better and will likely someday find it doesn’t stop this familiar feeling from taking over and convincing you that this is the way you’re destined to forever be.
What is it about? What isn’t it about? Nothing and everything. No one and everyone. Me. And not me, whoever me is or I am. It’s about work and love and the abundance and lack of both thereof. It’s about wanting more than you have, and feeling guilty for not being satisfied. It’s about free verse and free writing and free bread crusts that you cling to as essential, comforting carbohdyrate replacements for what you’re really craving, whether it’s love or creativity. And its about being so overwhelmed that you lie down on the checkerboard tablecloth or blanket you’ve brought all the way from home, and hope that the ants will carry you toward a solution, or at least, away from your problems.
The trick with ants is that there are some things that they can’t carry away. And so you’re left there, on your back, staring at clouds that shift maddeningly, eluding definition, but always seeming the same.
The Readers Sound Off, Part 1 of 47
117 years
It’s been a very full few years with the singles column, and I’ve received many an email/letter. The result is this week’s column, one of a likely series of 47 to explore some questions and comments from readers.
An excerpt for you:
Q: I know what’s wrong with single people. You’re living in a fantasy world.
A: Technically, sir, this is not a question. But there are certainly readers who “know what’s wrong with†singles in general, and suggest solutions. After I wrote about a mild winter depression, a reader sent news of a new treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder. After I wrote about a conflict with lighting Shabbat candles, someone wrote that the more a single person suffers, the more precious it is to God, and the more likely she is to encounter her bashert. As one woman wrote, “What I know for sure is that bitterness, whining, ‘WHY ME?’ kvetching, compare and despair, fear and singles-event anxiety, that energy is repellent and counterproductive. Change your thoughts and change your life!†(Well, if “The Secret†works for Oprah’s people, then maybe…)
And then there’s this guy: “So many of you folks are single in your 30s because of your compulsion to discuss the intimate details of your relationships with your friends and your relatives. A gentleman does not kiss and tell, and neither does a lady. Perhaps your crowd should follow that axiom. You may have less to talk about, but maybe you’d screw up less relationships.â€Â
Communication in a relationship, especially at the beginning, is so uncertain that asking friends for advice is a survival tactic. Sometimes people do make the private a public affair too often  especially online  but even those of us who write singles columns often keep our dating behaviors and interactions private.
No Daters Were Actually Harmed During This Simulation…
117 years
You know how speed dating works…after a series of short “dates,” you get to choose the people you’d like to date again. Unless you’re part of Moxie’s proposed new experiment, a modified take on speed dating designed to provide you with an honest assessment of what you’re doing wrong on dates. (Might I suggest the name of “Operation FunHouse Mirror,” to illustrate what it’s going to make participants feel like?)
I like this idea in theory. But I have to thank Moxie for adding the caveat that remarks about personal appearance would not be part of the assessment: “feedback should relate ONLY to the person’s demeanor and non-verbal cues.” Thank god.
In other simulated dating news, Zeenews reported that the “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” series from the late 70s and early 80s inspired this study at the University of Illinois about “how people manage romantic ties by looking at the choices that people make in simulated online dating relationships.”
The online study, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, “took participants through a series of scenarios about a relationship with a fictional partner. Each scenario ended with two options, from which the participant chose his or her response. […] By assessing how much the person trusts, confides in or relies on a current or former romantic partner, the researchers were able to profile the participant’s level of level of security or insecurity, anxiety, or intimacy-avoidance in romantic relationships.”
Gotta have more details? Click here.
Imagine the Implications…
017 years
Apparently, there’s a new computer program that can identify certain types of jokes within a body of text. Or so says the Wall Street Journal, if you can believe that rag.
The scientists gave their program a database of words and examples of how the words can be related to each other. When the program analyzes a passage, it uses that knowledge to find a word that doesn’t fit with the words around it. When an outlier appears, the program checks a pronunciation guide for similar-sounding words that would make better sense in the sentence. If a more logical term is identified, the program flags the sentence as a pun.
New Scientist offers the example of a boy who tells his mother that he has been in the garden so much because “teacher told me to weed a lot.” The program recognizes that “weed” doesn’t go well with “teacher” and that the similar-sounding “read” would be a better fit. As far as the scientists are concerned, the computer gets the joke.
This makes humor sound so technical and boring that I almost never want to hear another joke. It’s like someone explaining to you the chemical reasons that you have “the feelings” for a certain person, or telling you that candlelight isn’t really romantic, that there’s a physiological reason and it’s involuntary, and you’re like “shut up already!”
But still, maybe we should look at the practical implications of such technology…
If computers can apply logical processes in the service of recognizing jokes, maybe this can have implications for the online daters among us. Maybe a search engine could be specialized to weed out actual senses of humor from perceived senses of humor. Or we could enact the “personality filter” to generate a list of profiles where actually having a personality instead of having friend who think you’ve got a great personality ranks you higher in search results.
Oh, Brave New World. Send us the tools we need for success.