HaBitza

I’m so sorry to say I don’t know who gets the credit for this cartoon. Please let me know if you know so I can give credit where credit’s due.

But in honour of the holiday season, and now that we’re 1 hour and 5 minutes into 2010 (so far so good, I’d say!), a cartoon:

"If anyone ever finds out about this, it'll be just terrible for my daughter's shidduch! (Good thing it won't affect my son's.)"

"I only date perfect profiles... I mean people."

As I mentioned in my post on how to write a good online dating profile, the written word is a finicky thing. With the written word being the main medium through which we communicate online, this leads to lots of interesting material. Click here for my guide on writing your online dating profile.

And now to figure out what people mean by what they put in their profiles! Here are a couple examples of how to decipher a potential match’s profile. It’s really quite obvious, I must say.

The photograph

No picture means…

1. They don’t know how to use modern technology and didn’t notice where it says you can mail a picture in to the site.
2. They think they are too ugly to have their picture up on the site.
3. They think they’re too beautiful to have their picture up on the site. They are convinced that a photo will cloud people’s judgement.
4. They aren’t photogenic.

A full body shot means…

1. I’m comfortable with you seeing the full me.
2. I’m uncomfortable with you seeing a close-up of my face.
3. I couldn’t find any other normal photos.
4. I’m not photogenic so the further away, the better.
5. I dunno… I just grabbed the first picture I found. I don’t even know what I’m doing on this site.

Character traits

Girl #1: Funny, sensitive and romantic.

Girl #2: High-strung, depressed and ADHD.

Hmmm… Who do I prefer? Lets see…

Girl #1 is one of the following options:

1. Self-aware and honest with very positive character traits. Quite a catch!
2. Stuck-up and unaware of how she really comes across in social settings.
3. Funny, sensitive and romantic.
4. Got her closest friend to fill in this part of the profile because she felt uncomfortable talking about herself.

Girl #2 is one of the following options:

1. Self-aware but too honest. Though at least she’s honest!
2. Unable to say anything good about herself – a perfect specimen to fix, if that’s what you’re looking for.
3. High-strung, depressed and ADHD.
4. Got her closest friend to choose for her – time to find new friends, don’t you think?

We sure learn a lot from people’s profiles, don’t we? In case you still haven’t read my guide to creating a good online dating profile here are a couple (other) things to keep in mind:

1. Add photos! More than one is better and close ups of the face make more sense.
2. Get a friend’s help.
3. Check your spelling and grammar! (Secret: I’m a creative speller. I LOVE spell check.)
4. Be freakin’ honest.

Photo by striatic on flickr.

Many of us live our lives looking for some kind of plan, some kind of blueprint for the future.  The blueprint can include some ideas about work, about where to live, about lifestyle.

But for most singles, almost by definition, uncertainty is the name of the game.  We take it for granted, but for single women many don’t even know if they will finish the year with the same family name they had when they started it.  Uncertainty about your own name. Uncertainty about whether to buy furniture (maybe my husband/wife won’t like it).  Uncertainty about whether to buy kitchen equipment (buy something cheap, you’ll get tons of these for wedding presents).  Uncertainty about whether to buy a small apartment that is not family friendly, or whether to wait.

For us, it was a dilemma:  were we to live our lives out as constant “ladies in waiting”?  Waiting for a husband?  Firstly, that fed right into the uncertainty, strengthened it.  It was like life was transient, nothing had real value because everything was conditional, I can take this job till I get married, I must develop my career now because afterwards who knows…  And secondly, how can I say this, it didn’t look good.  If someone asked – what do you do? – to answer “I’m looking for a husband” didn’t look good.  It looked like we didn’t have a life.  As we got older, it looked like we were bitter, nebbichy.  And the most frustrating thing was – this was a girl thing.  A guy could say “I’m looking for a wife” and sound manly, purposeful.  A woman who declared “I’m looking for a husband”?  So many sad jokes have been written about that one.

But the other side of the dilemma was this: it’s not good to wait around for someone who may or may not come.  It wasn’t joyous to put all our energies into something that may or may not happen.  So some of us created lives filled with fun, action, careers, adventure, we created identities that were independent of looking for spouses, we refused to buy into the idea that “you’re only half a person until you’re married and meet your other half”.  We refused to be temporary, conditional.

In the end, some of us married, some of us didn’t.  Some went ahead and had families without getting married.  Each to their own direction.

Many things have changed on the dating scene in the last 15 years, but some things have stayed the same.   Deena wrote about this several posts ago.  It seems that it is still taboo, uncool, for a woman to say “I’m looking for a husband” (much kudos to the reader who uses “insearchofhubby” as her username!).    And no middle way has been found to resolve the dilemma, whether to focus on getting married, or to focus on living life to the full, married or not.

Etrogs at the Shtibelach

Recently, in a 5 minute telephone interview with a matchmaker, I was asked the following questions:

1. How old are you?
2. How long have you lived in Israel?
3. What work do you do?
4. Do you wear skirts and pants or skirts only? [How is this fact going to impact in any way on a marriage relationship?]
5. Do you plan to cover your hair when you’re married? [Isn't that a bit personal? I'm not asking you what colour underpants you wear!]
6. Send me a picture! Its the most important thing.

After some amount of thought, I have a few questions of my own to ask this matchmaker:

1. There are 613 mitzvot in the Torah. Why are you choosing to ask me about two, which aren’t even necessarily de’oraita (straight from the text) mitzvot?
2. Did Abraham choose a wife for his son based on these questions – or was “loving kindness” his main criteria?
3. Does covering your hair and wearing only skirts make you a good wife and mother? If so, I’m in! I thought being a wife and mother was good hard work that demanded all your efforts and talents!
4. Do you believe human beings are static? Do you assume that my answers today will still be my answers in ten or even twenty and thirty years time? And finally…
5. Am I an etrog? Am I a religious vessel in the hands of you or some young man? Will you check me out in the market, take a good look and then throw me away if you think I won’t do the job? Or am I a living, breathing human being who is the product of thousands of years of Jewish history and individual choice?

Singles, I think that if you are asked a question you are not comfortable answering, regardless of whether the answer is yes or no, that you politely decline by saying “I’m sorry. I don’t feel comfortable answering that question.” These self-appointed matchmakers are often attempting to service a real human need, and answering their misguided questions will only serve to encourage them in their folly.

Photo by Deena Levenstein

One of our avid :) readers commented on my blog post, “Shhh… I attended a singles event.” She calls herself insearchofhubby and she has a blog whose goal is just that – to help her find a hubby. I so respect her putting herself out there like that. She wants to get married and you can’t say she isn’t doing something about it!

Here are some of her ideas regarding the planning of singles events:

1. Event organizers/hosts should adopt a stronger “social butterfly” attitude.

It helps if the event’s sponsors/organizers are good at circulating themselves through the crowd and establish themselves as social connectors/mediators for the evening to help people to mingle, draw different people into conversations, actively introduce people to each other and so on.

Some people are more socially adept than others. If the host is a social butterfly, s/he will get everyone involved and help guests to circulate themselves. If you leave the guests on their own, most likely the event will be thought of as “blah” by most guests.

2. Enforce age control.

If the event line reads: “This is an event for people in their 30s,” then the event needs to cater to that. Don’t allow young 20s in, and neither welcome people in their 40s. I decide to go and do/not do an activity based on its description. If the description reads one thing, and the reality provides another picture, the gap can and often is annoying.

3. Enforce reasonable ratio of sexes.

If the event has 40 guys signed up and 120 girls, for crying out loud, cancel the event! Such ratio is bound to create various uncomfortable dynamics. It is likely that guys will feel awkward because they are so vastly outnumbered by women, and feel pressured. Girls are likely to feel thoughts and pressures of “Oh my gosh, the competition is plain crazy!”

At the same time, even with those three suggestions/changes I would like to see, I hold that at the end of the day it is up to the guests to make the best out of the event. If you are going to look at it as new experience and embrace it as a possibility to experience something new you haven’t before, than it is on you to work on yourself to stay positive, and see the light everywhere.

Make sense, people?

Because of this site I’m getting an education – I didn’t know anything about the beauties, the perils and the wackiness of online dating sites.  Seems you can define exactly what you want in a partner, like the perfect shopping list.  And especially where the matchmaker is an algorithm rather than a human being, you get exactly what you asked for.  And if you didn’t remember to ask for it – well, tough.  Not just that – you can present yourself as the girl/guy of your fantasies, how you’ve always wanted people to see you.  And the beauty is, no-one will ever know… (manic chuckles in the background).

So at this point various areas of my brain catch up with each other, and come to this brilliant conclusion: it seems like you* present yourself the way you want others to see you, and are matched with the perfect image of someone presenting themselves as they want others to see them… Halloo, is there anyone real out there? Urgently required, some facebook therapy, but whoops!  It’s more of the same!  People presenting themselves as they want others to see them to others hiding behind their own fantasy profiles…and let’s not mention LinkedIn, oh, I just mentioned it, too bad…
* “you” – not you personally, all the you’s out there, but if I write “one presents oneself the way one wants others to see one”, then one will be accused of being a Brit… which one is…

So the internet has created a situation where basically lots of avatars are relating nicely (or not-so-nicely) to each others, while their core human beings stay at home and practice typing…

But there’s something more.  I didn’t intend just to write a confused piece about who is real, who isn’t, and the abyss separating them.

I think part of the problem is too much information.  Let’s face it, do we always want what we ask for?  When I was in my early twenties and into delicate, understated jewelry, my aunt brought me a ring with a huge eilat stone.  She smiled fondly as she gave me this monstrosity, saying “I remember you always liked very big jewelry”.  And being well dragged up, I couldn’t bring myself to say “duh, that was when I was, like, eight”.

Do you really think you can shop for another human being the way you’d shop for shabbat lunch?  Can you know exactly what you want?

More often than not, you can know perhaps something about what you don’t want.  But to define what you want in another person means you know everything there is to know about all the variables… and sometimes when the outlines are too sharp, too defined, there’s too much information out there.   I think a lot of people rule out possible partners because there’s too much information.  On the flip side – there’s a lot of disappointment from dates which should have been perfect – but fell far short of the mark.  Mr/Ms Perfect is not always Mr/Ms Right.

I think it must be possible to find a balance between the rather vague “looking for a mensch”, and the excessively specific “looking for a woman who’s exactly a size 8, with size 35 shoes, prefers wearing pastels, speaks french, german, finnish and hebrew, dislikes lasagne, loves rice pudding,” blah blah blah.

I suppose “blah blah blah” must look quite interesting on an internet profile.  Must try it.  Oh, forgot.  I’m married.

There is a guy who keeps pointing out to me that at many events/parties within the singles community, there are two-thirds guys and one-third girls.

That’s all I have to say. I forgot to mention this last week but told him I’d make sure to mention it this week. :)

Considering that each time he points it out to me, it’s true, what’s going on? Where are all the girls and I thought the opposite was the problem! I told him that in order to even things out, the next time there is an event, I’ll tell him he can’t come. :)

Girls, come out come out wherever you are.

A couple days ago I wrote a piece about how we are too nice on dates. The more I think about it, the more logic I find in that idea. Someone just told me that when she started hanging out with the guy she ended up marrying, they weren’t really interested in each other and so their guards were down. The first time they hung out they ended up arguing about different issues. They had such a good time that they started hanging out together.

There are certain ways we act in “regular” social settings that don’t happen as easily in a date setting. If someone says something you disagree with, then in a regular setting you’ll very possibly say something while in a date setting you might let it pass since you don’t want to confront the person and seem difficult.

But with this couple, because their relationship started off from that open place, they were really able to get to know each other and they saw that they liked each other despite the fact that at first they didn’t.

Getting annoyed at someone for something they say on a date is pretty scary. You don’t know how they’re going to react and if it’s going to mess up any chance of things working out with that person. Maybe you’ll even end up with a tainted image. You’ll be the girl who beats up guys on first dates.

Better stop beating guys up!

Anyway, in my opinion it all boils down to believing that your beshert is your beshert and davka if you act like yourself then you will more easily find your beshert. We don’t really need to be putting on shows.

Yikes.

Ever hear of this story?

Two people go out. Date #1 (and last). They sit across from each other for two hours, they smile, laugh, make conversation and it all seems pretty fine. But it’s clear to both that they don’t want to see each other again. What happened? The answers will probably be, “It just didn’t feel right,” or, “We just weren’t on the same wave length.” But maybe sometimes more is going on inside. If they were honest about it, there were things about the other person that really bothered them, even angered them, and on the date they decided to just leave well enough alone, smile the smile, part ways and choose never to interact again.

The last time you were on a date and he/she said something that annoyed you, what did you do? If your sister had said that, you wouldn’t hesitate to call her on it, but here you very possibly sit, smiling politely thinking, “Geez, that’s a terrible thing to say,” or, “Omigosh, I can’t believe she just said that.” *smile smile*

You might not even notice you’re doing it because for so many of us it’s so natural to just smile and nod when you’re with a stranger. You wouldn’t want to get all riled up, now would you?

Smile! You're on a date!

Are we too nice and polite on dates? Because I do believe that to a certain extent this stops us from getting to know each other. If they say something that bothers you and you show your frustration or surprise about it, it gives them the opportunity to explain where they’re coming from. You may not marry the person but at least you were open and so you were able to get to know the person a bit better, as they were able to get to know you.

Photo by mattwi1s0n on flickr.

Just got this cartoon sent to me by a friend.

I’m like the annoying school teacher who wants to make sure everyone learns a lesson even just from a cute cartoon. The lesson I see here?

LEAVE NO VICTIMS!!!

…or at least try not to.

P.S. I’m going out to buy a netbook.