Group therapy in a blog.
A Dating Book I Won’t Be Reviewing in the Jewish Week
Usually when I hear about a book like Eric Schaeffer’s “I Can’t Believe I’m Still Single,” I do an internet search for the publisher or PR agency, send them an email, and ask for a review copy so I can write about it in the Jewish Week. And if the author is cute and Jewish, I might nominate him for Single Semite of the Month. But in this case, I owe a debt of gratitude to a gossip website. Thank you Gawker, for providing excerpts (“I mean we’re men. We’re wired to see a woman, smash her on the head with a bone, drag her unconscious body back to our apartment by the hair, and fuck her”) and saving me the trouble. Somehow, I don’t think the Jewish Week’s quite ready for Schaeffer.
What’s interesting to me is how Schaeffer seems to have become a guilty pleasure of sorts over at the G–they began posting about him, then swore they wouldn’t post about him again, then swore that they’d just do one more post, then one more…if you trace the headers of the Schaeffer posts, you’ll see how reluctant blogging transitioned to full-on taggable addiction. They can’t stop. Partly because it’s their job to snark about guys like Schaeffer. But I think it’s also partly because they love it. Or love to hate it. Or hate that they’re loving it. Whatever. It’s a fine line.
Yes from one of those Gawker posts from ‘Jupiterpluvis': [I’ve cleaned it up a bit, but just]: “One of “Melinda’s” friends posted this on her MySpace:
“what the f*ck? he f*cks whores, steals your shit – steals women’s clothing, let me reiterate – is so illiterate it hurts, and is proud of being mean to women. what a gem. let’s do better from now on.”
Simply put, the reigning interpretation of this ES ‘phenomenon’ is that he certainly makes the rest of us poor blokes look positively sterling by comparison. But this is nothing more than the typical ‘rich [frat] boy’ mentality writ large, and embodied by a fairly prosaic looking 40+ year old never married bachelor. There’s a very good reason why people are naturally wary of anyone who remains unmarried or unattached by the time they’re say 45 or so. You’re either very dedicated to your single status, your job/career, reasonably unlucky in love, or you’re just not quite fitting in with the crowd. In this case that crowd would include most of humanity from the sounds of it. Which is fine. There’re people like that everywhere. He’s got just 16 months to make it into one of those cushy jobs with the Bush administration. Cheers & Good Luck! ‘VJ’
Although the point is moot, you should know that Mr. Schaeffer is an admitted non-member of the tribe. He just trolls J-date for women.
As much as I enjoyed the orgy of ES bashing over at Gawker (it was like early Khanike)… I came to have mixed feelings about it. Yes, he put himself out there for our ridicule, no question about it. And he is contemptible. Buuuut… why linger on the turd on the sidewalk? Shouldn’t we be looking up to admire the rainbow, or something like that? Or is it all the Chofetz Chaim I’ve been reading before bed?