HaBitza

Words words words – what do they really mean?

Did he really mean xyz when he said that?
Did she really mean xzy when she answered?
I know you said… but what did you mean… and did you mean….?

Anyone who knows the old joke about Moshe Rabbenu saying to G-d: “do you mean that we should….” hands up.  Anyone who doesn’t – maybe I’ll post it.  Or maybe not.

Recently I’ve heard of several situations where people said things that other people thought meant something different.  If your date says:  “Good Luck” at the end of the date – does it mean “Good Bye”? (or possibly “Good Riddance”?)  I knew someone who said to a friend, when the friend said she doesn’t like cleaning, “I wouldn’t expect my wife to clean” – and the friend went into agonies of “what did he mean?  Does he want something more than friendship?”

And to be honest, how much do we play with words, how much are we almost deliberately ambiguous, to leave a door open, or to mess with someone’s head?  And yes, it can be fun…

I think if we all start measuring our words very carefully to say exactly what we mean all the time…life will probably get very boring.  On the other hand, trying to figure out when to take something at face value or to read more into it is challenging in the extreme.

However, if given the choice between boring and challenging, I’d probably go with the latter.  So go know…

The importance of What-The-Heck-Moments:

There are times in life where you just have to say “What the Heck”.  Or “Who Cares”.  Or just “&*#@*()^ it”.  Just to feel the freedom.  Just to feel your life isn’t all laid out according to certain patterns and rules determined by others.

There are times when you just need to send the mail, jump on/off that bus, make the call, put yourself out there.  If you don’t you probably won’t get hurt.  On the other hand, if you don’t, you will never, truly, feel you have lived.

We can’t always understand why someone else says or does what they do.  We can’t always measure the best thing to do, at work or at play.   And even if we’re doing what we’re “supposed” to do, according to all the rule books, if it’s not living, not connecting with our inner fire, what’s it worth really?

Have you never done something you were expressly told isn’t wise, to find it brought you the most fun or value you’ve had in ages?  Have you never decided that it doesn’t matter what the other person wants, you know how it should be…the options are getting arrested for stalking or shedding light into dark corners.

So What The Heck – I’m posting this!

This is in response to Deena’s post about that ole losery feeling.  I wish someone had recommended this therapy to me years ago!

Shabbat Shalom to all

This post relates to Deena’s recent post on being nice.  But perhaps this post isn’t nice…

I’m going to explain my central point here, as Deena says I’m too obscure – just stay with me willya!  So many stories build about dating situations, and each story impacts us, whether it’s based on truth or misunderstanding.  He wasn’t nice.  She wasn’t nice.  It was meant to be but didn’t happen.  These stories are for the most part negative, so their impact is negative, and as they build and make themselves at home in our psyche, they drip their daily drops of poison…often for years and years…

Every relationship that comes after suffers from these stories – and I stress that the stories may be completely true, the guy/girl may have behaved like ***@#@#, etc.  But have you never been in a relationship where the other person totally over-reacted to something and it turns out there was a previous relationship where someone did something similar etc. etc….

Ladies and Gentlemen – WHY WAIT?  don’t let that story build, and take control of your life.  Life’s too short.

You had a good time, you’d like to see the guy again, he didn’t call, you don’t know why, why wait?  Call him!

You had a great time, she’s nice, your therapist says you shouldn’t be in relationships right now, you’re still thinking of your old girlfriend, you’re not earning enough money to get married – don’t overthink!  Call her!

Until you resolve, you can’t move on.  Not in the relationship in question, or not to a new and better one.  And until someone calls, everyone is so mired in the story of the thing that didn’t work out, the person that didn’t behave nicely, that no-one moves on.  And no-one gets married.

This isn’t a case of nice or not nice, in my not nice opinion.  This is a case of sense or senseless.   This is a case of passing up on a good thing – or moving on to a better.  This is a case of giving your life over to your stories, or living it for yourself.

Say “what the heck”, try a glass of wine, try moral support, but just call.  The longer you wait the more the story and its baggage builds.

Here is our latest poll where we asked you if you would want to ask your date who they’d want to be if they could be anyone.  I have to say, we are so impressed.  At least one person (you know who you are) had the nerve to do it.  And to tell us about it through the poll.  If you feel like writing to us about the experience we’d love to hear from you.

It really is such an interesting question – and the answers can shed light on someone’s soul.  Personally I’d like to be… well, I don’t know really… there’s Queen Elizabeth but preferably living someplace with modern plumbing and no death threats, or Avraham Avinu (ditto about the plumbing)…or a brilliant concert pianist…Deena says she’s like to be a French nobleman living in a castle (ditto about the plumbing and the death threats)… so who would you like to be?

You can still vote if you haven’t and you can also see the results here.

Deena asked me what I used to do when I got depressed about being single, what helped me then.   (really, such personal questions!  ok, Deena, just kidding…)

It was an interesting question, made me think.  I can get depressed these days too – nothing has changed there.  Life is still full of challenges, insecurities, decisions, uncertainties.  Germaine Greer, I think, once wrote that people think marriage brings security, when it’s really the difference between one person alone on a raft in a raging sea – or two people on a raft in a raging sea…

For me personally the only thing that really helps is the same thing that helped when I was single – taking action.  Any action – preferably something that involves some form of movement, but also setting up a site, starting a movement, starting a religion (haven’t done that yet, working on it), writing a magnum opus, going out and doing something.

Any other suggestions?

It occurs to me that in relationships, we are the students and at the same time, we are the teachers.

How do we learn to have relationships with others?  Modern thinking would have it that we need to go to a workshop or a seminar to learn to relate – but I think most people know, deep down, that this isn’t true.  We learn to relate as children – and we teach our parents to relate to us as they haven’t done this before.  Even those parents who have a lot of children learn from each individual child about relationships with that child.

In friendships and dating – we learn to relate on the job.  Sometimes we mis-learn, the lessons are poor.  But I think that all too often, especially within the context of friendship and dating, we forget that in relationships we are the students and the teachers.  We abdicate our role as teachers.  We say “he/she just doesn’t know how to relate…”, we say “I shouldn’t have to explain this to him/her…”, to all intents and purposes we are saying – go do a BA in relationships and then maybe we can talk.

This is all too true in marriages as well.  We say “I’m not the mother/father here – I’m the partner!  I shouldn’t have to teach – if this person was a mensch they would know this automatically.”  Being a mensch isn’t knowing things automatically.  Being a mensch is listening when someone is teaching you how to relate to them, a subject that they are the true experts on, and absorbing and implementing the teaching.

I am the expert, at the outset, on me.  You are the expert, at the outset, on you.  Through the relationship I learn about you, and teach you about me.  You learn about me, and teach me about you.  And then the amazing starts happening.  I begin to learn from you – about me.  You begin to learn from me  – about you.  That’s when we are truly in a relationship.

Photo by Orin Zebest on flickr

Cary Grant (appearing opposite Vera Resnick - my dream come true)

Challenge:  no mice, just psychodrama

OK, OK, the mice thing was a silly question…those of you who voted made that abundantly clear!  50% of you said it, so I’ll bow out on that one…

So here’s the new challenge – would you ask your date: if you could be someone else for a day, who would you be? (Mickey Mouse isn’t an option, that belongs to the previous poll…)

Photo by A Continuous Lean at flickr

Age – a sign of the religious/secular divide?

Someone told me recently that the ultra-orthodox and the secular have very different attitudes to a guy who’s married an “older woman” (don’t know why I put the quotation marks, it just seems that the expression should be accompanied by a drum roll, melodramatic violins and possibly a greek chorus).

Apparently if a guy in the ultra-orthodox world talks of being married to a woman who is older than him, his peers will commiserate, suspecting that there must be something wrong with him if that’s the only shidduch he could get.

In the secular world, I’m told, having a wife who is an “older woman” (drum roll etc.) is something to brag about.  The guy will find himself slapped on the back, winked at, and other guy things which as a mere female I can only guess at.

Vive la integration! (forgive my pseudo-french)

If I created the world it would be a really boring place to live.  It’s true.  Everything would be as I planned it, but I don’t have divine imagination.  I don’t have celestial breadth or depth of thought.  I’m not even good at painting.

In situations where I control all the parameters – there’s no place for the unexpected.  For the flash of insight.  For the miracles.

I think that’s part of the difficulty with dating sites, and with some matchmakers.  You control the parameters through the profile, through your “shopping list”, your definitions of what you know would be good for you.  But think of the amazing things that have happened in your life – could you have planned them?  Could you have guessed that it would happen that way?  That job? That event?  That meeting?  That guy/girl?  What about the surprise parties that were great even if you announced in advance that you hated surprises?  What about the times everyone ignored you when you said “don’t bother, I’ll clear up after the meal, I prefer to do it in my own time” and your table and kitchen were clear and clean with so much less effort?  What about the times you said “I can’t be bothered to do/go/see…” but you were dragged into it and had such a great time?

On the other hand – if you don’t control the parameters you could land up with the empty dates, the evenings where you wonder why you hate yourself so much to do this to yourself.

Food for thought.  I have no answers for anyone on this – maybe someone out there does?