Group therapy in a blog.
Archive for October, 2006
“Date Now, Meet Later”–Romance Meets Skype
019 years
Are you a Montreal-based Raelian who “gets tested in medical experiments for a living” and believes that aliens are among us, but–somehow, inexplicably–you still can’t find love domestically? The good news is that there’s likely a lovely 42-year-old Guatemalan nail technician out there for you, and you can use a combo of online dating and Skype to date her without ever meeting her. You can even watch each other sleep using Web cameras. [brief pause for creepy shudder]
Or maybe you’re a “5.5 or 6″ on a scale of looks. No reason you shouldn’t get yourself someone who could be a model. (This coulda-model was apparently under 5 feet tall, but still.) Or maybe you’re a dude from Michigan who falls in love with a Cairo girl. Forge a relationship that’s true, and maybe her parents will like you so much that they’ll let you stay with them in Cairo instead of relegating you to a hostel.
These are today’s hopes of modern romance, informeth the L.A. Times, with an interesting piece about the role that digital phones have in revolutionizing the way people date online. Sort of. [“Harvey, would you roll those soundbites about creepy phone sex and people who reek? Thanks…”]
Skype Me, which invites strangers to contact one another, […] has a seedier side as well. Some female users complain that signing onto Skype Me mode invites a barrage of men looking for phone sex who send vulgar pictures or messages. One user complained on an online forum: “I’m sure that at least half of the people who Skyped me could probably be considered clinically insane.”
Some psychologists say a relationship created and sustained by Net phone can be incomplete. Net phone contact is “simultaneously allowing people to become more intimate and yet have less patience with real life and real-time human fumbles and foibles,” said Linda Young, a psychologist at Seattle University who has counseled many students who have sustained or developed relationships over Skype. Not having to deal with another person’s bad temper or foul-smelling habits makes the Internet pal seem more perfect than he or she actually is, Young said.
Maybe it’s easier to stick with Craigslist after all, no matter what an endeavor like that brings…ÂÂ
A New Look for JDA
519 years
by Esther Kustanowitz
in Tech Stuff
Welcome to the new and hopefully improved site for JDaters Anonymous. But don’t worry–just because we’ll be prettier doesn’t mean we’ll be part of the jocks-and-cheerleaders clique. We still remember our roots, and will rock the representin’ righteously, yo.
Change your links and tell your friends, because there’s lots more coming down the pike…
National Singles Week Recap
419 years
As you all may know, September held a week dedicated to us, all the singles out there… was it as fun for you as it was for me? I believe I met a few deadlines, earned a few theoretical checks that haven’t arrived yet, attended a wedding where I was the only single person there, and looked in the mirror every morning, saying “Hey you. You’re single. But it doesn’t matter. Because you’re good enough, smart enough, and goshdarnit, people like you.”
How did you celebrate?
I also started a top five list of the best things about National Singles Week, and only came up with three.
1. No one knows about it, so no one will know if you don’t have a date for it.
2. No cards or flowers necessary–all you need to celebrate is your own overwhelming sense of solitude! Just curl up in your bed alone and cry…hey, you’ve just celebrated National Singles Week!
3. It’s the only weeklong holiday that doesn’t require you to change your routine at all–just continue to register for online dating sites that you have no intention of paying to become a member of, sit around the house with your two favorite men (Ben & Jerry), and watch TiVoed episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.
Anyone else?
“Recommitment Ceremony” (JW-First Person Singular)
219 years
Wishing all my readers a shanah tovah u’metukah–may this year be one of health, creativity, peace and happiness for us all.
Recommitment Ceremony (Jewish Week–First Person Singular)
by Esther D. Kustanowitz
(09/29/2006)
To err is human, clearly. And during the High Holy Day season, even those of us who acknowledge our errant ways and engage in the process of repentance with a pure heart still possess the fatal flaw of our humanity. As soon as the hunger pangs from the Yom Kippur fast wane, we’re back on stage in our tragicomedy of errors, slinging gossip over bagels and lox, and likely violating any Rosh HaShanah resolutions before sunrise on the 11th of Tishrei. Another year goes by, and we’re back in our synagogues, proclaiming our guilt all over again in an endless annual loopâ€â€it’s like an episode of “The Twilight Zone.â€Â
What’s the point in persisting in this annual dance of repentance?
In the literal realm of human marital relationships, some couples, after five, 10, 20 years or so, decide to proclaim to the world that the person they’ve found is the person they still want to spend their lives with. They hold “second weddings†or “vow renewals†or “recommitment ceremonies,†inviting friends to witness the re-consecration of their partnership. But often, such ceremonies are prompted by the discovery of a breach in confidence or respect or another violation of the rules of sanctified relationships. Or perhaps the pair has survived a trauma and feels the need to reaffirmâ€â€not just for the sake of celebrating love in the public eye, but to put their own souls at easeâ€â€that despite all that has happened, their mate is still the One.
So the two stand there, opposite each other, looking into the eyes of their beloved and looking for a trust and commitment that they may not find. A partner may admit that he or she has made mistakes, and may swear before you and a group of people that from here on in, it’s all faith and devotion. But there’s a part of you that’s unsure: can people really change?
The relationship between God and the Jewish people is often cushioned in the metaphorical language of marital commitment. In Genesis, God made a covenant  sealed in flesh in the form of a brit milah (circumcision), which promised the Land of Israel to Abraham and his children. The terms of the agreement  God gives the land of Israel to the people, and the people will worship God  are reiterated at Mount Sinai. The term that God uses to refer to the people is segulah, which indicates a special, sanctified relationship like marriage.
And a midrash on the Mount Sinai narrative interprets that when the text says that the people stood b’tahteet ha’har, literally “in the bottom of the mountain,†that the mountain was suspended, chupah-like, over the heads of the assembled people  were they to try to end the relationship with God, they would have been crushed. And some suggest that Song of Songs, which describes a physically passionate affair  seemingly between a man and a woman  is a metaphor for the relationship between God and the Jews.
When it comes to actual marriage, something I admittedly don’t know anything about, I imagine that certain violations are forgivable and that others are not. At some point the two people who make up the zug (the couple) have to assess whether the relationship is worth it. But in the relationship with God, in which we have no way of really knowing whether God has forgiven us, the best we can do is see this annual assessment as a state of the union between the Jews and God.
The High Holy Day season is a chance to renew our relationship with Jewish life. Every year, we stand with our metaphorically wedded partner under a canopy of recommitment, and promise to marry each other all over again. As our Creator, surely God knows not to expect perfection  our entire relationship has been a bumpy cycle of imperfection: We violate our contract of commitment with God, and God rebukes but quickly forgives.
Still, we do what we can to make positive changes in our lives, to increase our commitment to living as nobly and morally as human beings can. We critically assess our actions and hopefully forgive ourselves as we attempt to curb evil inclinations, in the pursuit of more permanent partnerships, with other people and with God.
Shanah tovah!