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Moving Day

Blogger is so five minutes ago. What's new and now? Wordpress, or at least that's what my web team tells me. Don't get me wrong, Blogger's ok for beginners. But it's time to take this whole thing to the next level. So, effective today, I'm switching over--having purchased a huge can of "Blogspot remover," I'm heading over to jdatersanonymous.com. Easier to remember, and hopefully a cleaner look that will enable me to do many new and exciting blogthings. After this post, all future JDaters Anonymous posts will be on the new site. Please join me over there, and don't forget to update your links. Want to get me a homepagewarming present? Comments always help to decorate a new place. :) Catch y'all on the flip side...

National Singles Week Recap

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)

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 loop—it’s like an episode of “The Twilight Zone.”

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 reaffirm—not just for the sake of celebrating love in the public eye, but to put their own souls at ease—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!

Let's Get Married...Britney-Style

If you wanna be like Britney, there are a few ways to do it. 1) Let your baby drive, then drop him on his head. 2) Have "Irish twins" (two kids in under two years). 3) Get married in Vegas. Opting for Vegas (baby, Vegas)? Smart choice. And now Wedlok is here to help you in two ways: 1) To corrupt your understanding of how to spell wedlock, and 2) To tell you everything you need to know about getting hitched in Vegas. I've never been to Vegas. But I hear that what happens there, stays there, unless you need meds prescribed after or go into labor nine months later.

Flawed Facebook Fornication Foucault's Fault

University-based social networking tool Facebook is all the rage these days for the college and recently-graduated set. And sometimes social networking gets extremely socially intimate. For instance, take this story of girl sees boy's Facebook profile and is intrigued, sends him a "poke," he pokes back out of courtesy, and they set up a date. Three Stella Artoises later, they move from the common room into the girl's bedroom to "see some of my books," she says:

But when the conversation turned to late cultural theorist Michel Foucault's interpretation of religion under late capitalism, Gold and Larson found themselves at an awkward impasse. "I was shocked when he said he believed in 'a greater spirit,'" Larson told The Herald yesterday. "I mean, how was I supposed to respond to that?" Unsure of how to move beyond the topic of God and religion, copulation of the most "awkward, perfunctory variety" ensued, according to Larson.

Well, who hasn't been there...when philosophy fails, there's always fornication. Of course, there's the awkwardness of him sneaking out the next morning, and her sending him a note asking him to be in an "It's Complicated" relationship with her, which he thinks is too much of a commitment. Why be tied down, man? Especially to someone who doesn't believe in "a greater spirit"? I mean, how would they raise the kids? On an ending note, I do need to state that I believe this is a joke from the good people at Brown. The date on the story is April 3, which is close enough to April 1st to give one pause, and if you need any further convincing, check the woman's thesis title. Still, entertainingly written and conceived, and not altogether impossible in today's sexually casual but intellectually complicated world.

NY Times Vows in Video!

If you've run out of friends who decide to get married, you're undoubtedly missing all of the "how we met" stories that happy couples regale listeners with... But now you're in luck: The NY Times has launched a new Vows site, complete with videos of the happy couples talking about how they met. Allow me to recommend: 1) Sheera and Steven talk JDate, Swamp Thing and paying for your own filet mignon 2) Matthew and Shari learn that there are cool places on the Upper West Side, and how Hawaii vacations can break up your relationship... 3) Lisa and Sam meet on JDate and experience some relationship turbulence... Beware...viewing these videos might make you simultaneously long for romance and long for anti-nausea medication. Or maybe that was just me. Mazal tov to all the happy couples...

Never Never Never Trust a...

The good news is I've solved the conflict between Muslims and Jews. All we have to do is agree that the opposite sex is evil and that singles should only mix in pursuit of immediate marriage. Whaddya say, kids? Doable?

Those of you who are loyal Jewlicious or JDaters Anonymous readers may remember a post I did last year about a site for frum (religious) teens called, well, FrumTeens, which had a post cautioning girls (in 71 different "reasons") to "Never never never talk to boys..." According to "It's Muslim Boy Meets Girl, But Don't Call it Dating" (NY Times), American Muslims "equate anything labeled “dating” with hellfire, no matter how short a time is involved." (Well, they're kind of right. Or at least it feels like hellfire sometimes. But usually a trip to the doctor clears that up.)

The couple of hundred people attending the dating seminar [at the Islamic Society of North America’s annual convention, which attracted thousands of Muslims to Chicago over Labor Day weekend] burst out laughing when Imam Muhamed Magid of the Adams Center, a collective of seven mosques in Virginia, summed up the basic instructions that Muslim American parents give their adolescent children, particularly males: “Don’t talk to the Muslim girls, ever, but you are going to marry them. As for the non-Muslim girls, talk to them, but don’t ever bring one home.”

But what about online dating and email messages? Surely that constitutes innocent and pure behavior, providing a safe space for Muslim singles to interact? Not so fast...basically, the article tells us, to Muslim ears, "dating" is a euphemism for premarital sex. Or, as the dating seminar moderator put it, "All of these are traps of the Devil to pull us in and we have no idea we are even going that way.”

Still, most American Muslims acknowledge that the optimal mate-finding process--an arranged marriage--is unattainable in this day and age. But they still want to be involved in the process.

So here's the idea...a Joint Muslim-Jewish Task Force on Eradicating the Evil Process of Dating in the Modern World So That Singles Can Hurry Up and Get Married Already But Not to Each Other (Heaven Forbid). The JMJTFoOEtEPoDitMWSTSCHUaGMABNtEO(HF) may just revolutionize relationships, between Jews and Muslims as well as among their respective singles populations. And you heard it here first, folks...

Hooray for Singles!

Sometimes singles feel reluctant to admit their uncoupled status, as if it's some sort of stigma or something...well, singles rejoice! Because now we can take couples in a fight--we've got the majority advantage. According to unmarriedamerica.org, the number of unmarried Americans (which includes singles, widowed, and divorced Americans) is now at 50.3%, In your face, Married America! And if that weren't enough good news, I'm pleased to also share with you the discovery that National Singles Week is 9/18-23, which begins Monday and runs through next Saturday. (No revelry on Sunday the 24th, though. I don't know why we don't get a Sunday. That's just the rule. Don't ask me. I've got no sway with them, unfortunately. Maybe National Singles Week just "doesn't make Sunday...because of God.") National Singles Week was started by the Buckeye Singles Council in Ohio in the 1980s to celebrate single life and recognize singles and their contributions to society. So in tribute to all the wonderful singles out there, I'm asking you all to submit your nominations for "Greatest Human Contribution by a Single Person." Or some other such category. Consider it open nominations for any category involving single people. Allow me to get you started with some suggested categories...the rest is up to you:

• Most Responsible Online Dater
• Least Likely to See a Matchmaker
• Best Performance Involving an Embarrassing Situation
• Best Online Dating Profile
• Best Singles Book
• Best TV Representation of Single Life (Since the Cancellation of Sex and the City)
• Most Creative Breakup Strategy
• Best Blog on the Subject of Singles and Dating

And no, that last one doesn't have to be me. And you don't have to stick to these categories either. You know, just like in dating...no rules here. Just be nice to each other. After all, in the world of the uncoupled, we all have to stick together. Happy National Singles Week to all you JDaters Anonymousers....

Belated Roundup

I've been compiling some recent posts by other people that I thought were worth linking to, and was hoping that they'd gel into some larger lesson about dating, but I seem to be lacking the necessary gelatin. So here they are, sans great insight from me, presented on their own merits. Discuss amongst yourselves... Forbes had done a story on whether men should marry career women, and the answer was a resounding no. So naturally, Forbes asked one of their female writers, a career woman herself, to respond. Essentially, she tells dudes to start going to the gym. Elsewhere, a woman posts about being told by her laundry lady that she'd better hurry up and get married; the only upside is she gets Gawker traffic for it. And EW's Popwatch (with an assist from me) coins a new word that has dating lexicon potential: ventimentality. On the Jewish side of things...At the Philly Jewish Exponent, a writer gives his moderately amusing advice about what to do and not do at your next singles event...Draydel writes about having been to a singles weekend, and discovering that men have insecurities too, she feels a new empathy for them, which is very magnanimous and open-minded of her. But I suspect there's no forgiving what happened to this friend of Chayyei Sarah's, who went on a date with a guy who was already on a date with someone else. I only wish I were kidding. A real disturbing story that might make you hate men (or at least, men who behave like the dude in the story did). So consider yourselves warned. And in other news, I'm nearly broke. Donations accepted via PayPal and in the form of magical voodoo rituals that ensure prosperity. No goat sacrifices, please.

Smokin' Singles: A Dream Becomes a Google Alert

A few years ago, I met someone through the internet. He was a real sweetheart online, but with a serious edge when we met in real life. He lived far away, which wouldn't necessarily have discouraged me if the chemistry was right. But when we met, I think it was immediately clear to both of us that it wasn't a match. Plus, he was as devoted a smoker as I was a writer. Despite my sending him an occasional email, we fell out of touch; because there was really little point, I guess. Last night, I had a thought before sleeping that crossed into a dream state--I knew a girl for this guy; she had spunk, and humor, was a Republican, was passionate about Israel, and she was a smoker. If the distance were no issue, I would set them up. Not like being a smoker was the only reason to match people up--if the goal was to recruit new smokers or get the old ones to stop, a smoker/non-smoker pairing might be a better strategy. But the smoking factor, combined with the other ones, made me feel like maybe I should get back in touch with him, if only to put him in touch with her. They could be smokin' hot soulmates. Or they could be a total mismatch despite having things in common. Or the distance could prove too much for both of them. Who knows? But who was I to stand in the way of a potential match? And how else would these folks meet each other? It's not like there's an online dating service for smokers, is there? And this morning, there it was, in my GoogleAlerts folder--"Dating for Smokers Launches SpeedDating." DFS was started by UDrive Dating, a corporation that covers niche markets like Large and Lovely, Color Blind Personals, and yes, Smoke-Free Dating. (No reason not to cover both sides of the market; next up, "I only smoke when I drink, and since the NYC smoking ban, I can't smoke anywhere anymore and it sucks" Dating.) Anyway, this taught me that either a) I am a dating site prophet, or b) anything I might possibly think of has already been done. So the choice is believing myself prophetic or unoriginal? What will the lady choose...

Coming Soon, a Change

Because of various Blogger problems and a customer service department that rivals JDate in the race for the coveted title of "Ignoring Your Customers," I'm going to be moving this blog over to a new Typepad-powered site. So look for a new template, new graphics and photos, and most importantly, a new URL that's shorter, sleeker, and 50% more flame retardant. More on this situation as my technological ability develops. Stay tuned!

Are You Broken Up? MySpace May Know...

Are you and your special lady in a relationship? Are you sure? Are you and your boyfriend, like, totally broken up? Are you sure? In the electronic age, there's only one way to know: check all of your significant other's online affiliations. Because he may still be cruising JDate, or she may have changed her MySpace designation from "In a Relationship" to "Single," or your special someone may not be ready to move forward with you and only you--and you'll find out because her Friendster relationship designation is now "It's Complicated."

But what are the rules? How long are you supposed to wait to change your status after a breakup — or, for that matter, when a relationship begins? And beyond checking off status, what should you do with sexy comments a fling has posted? Or when do you downgrade an ex’s online avatar from your list of top friends?

But really this isn't news. Relationships are always complicated. The only way to make sure you're on the same page is if you sit down and have a conversation. Close that IM window, kids--I'm talking about a real conversation. You know, the kind you have over dinner or even over the phone. Yes, I'm radical. And still single, actually, so never mind, I have no idea what I'm talking about. Don't do drugs--stay in school!

"Wedding Bell Blues" (New Jewish Week Column Online)

From "Wedding Bell Blues," my newest column now online:

Weddings are magic. The details have come together according to plan. Two people have found each other and decided to spend their lives together, no matter what fate brings them. The bride looks like a queen; plus, she has special powers.

On her wedding day, the Jewish bride has the “Bridas Touch” — a temporary condition in which, particularly under the wedding canopy, her marital fortune is contagious. While she’s under the canopy accepting a ring from her betrothed, she gives single women her regular jewelry to wear, for added luck. The remainder of wine from her glass is also imbued with special powers and distributed to single wedding guests; this “segulah” wine is a Red Bull energy drink for the uncoupled, increasing the inherent bashertiness of the imbiber.

The bridal wizardry begins even before the ceremony. When the mothers of the bride and groom break a plate before the ceremony, signifying that a kinyan, or transaction, has taken place, the shards are given to single women for good luck. At my brother’s wedding, I reached into my purse during the reception, and promptly sliced my finger open on such a lucky shard. Luckily, a handsome doctor with a great sense of humor came to my rescue, cleaning the wound with vanilla vodka and suturing it using frayed napkin strands. After cocktails and dancing, we hid from the crowd under the Viennese Table and he told me he loved me — that table of delicious pastries serving as chuppah to our love. (Or if you prefer the truth to literary license: The finger-slicing was followed by a band-aid, and a hora, during which some other dancer impaled her four-inch heel in the center of my big toe.)

For more, click the link above.

Being Single is a Draw

I always said that you could find a magazine quote to support any position...and if anyone doubted your methods or the opinion's validity, you could always say, "Oh, it's true, I read it in a magazine," because even if you hadn't, it was probable that you could have. Nowadays, it's all about the internet, of course, with new magazines and webwire services launching daily, and with a steady stream of surveys that prove pretty much anything. Well, you'll be happy to know that being single has its pros and cons. For instance, depressed people who walk down the aisle experience alleviation of their depression. Unless, of course, they marry the wrong person and experience a post-wedding life of conflict and unhappiness. As the article says, "People who were happy before getting married and end up in a marriage plagued by distance or conflict -- qualities associated with a depressed spouse -- might be better off single." (Ya think?) But, married people, on average, are fatter [typos from the original survey, which calls into question its veracity...].

One reason could be that married people have more relaxed attitudes in terms of body image, whereas singles may view themselves as part of the "marriage market" and will go to greater lengths to say fit, says Robyn McGee author of Hungry for More: A Keeping it Real Guide for Black Women on Weight and Body Image.

But single people die sooner:

A study by the University of California, San Diego and the University of California, Los Angeles professors found that out of 67,000 Americans, those who never married tended to die earlier than those who were divorced, separated or widowed.

And on the other hand, being married is no guarantee for longevity... married women who hold back on expressing their feelings also die younger than women who express their emotions:

Women who reported usually or always keeping their feelings to themselves when in conflict with their husbands, known as self-silencing, had more than four times the risk of dying from any cause compared to women who always show their feelings, the researchers said.

And of course, there's the old joke. Married people live about as long as single people; it just feels like it's longer. But I know these are all true. Don't believe me? I read it in an online magazine. Or five.

This Just In: Some Men Still Jerks

Over at the Jewish Journal's singles column, we learn--once again--that online dating can be emotionally perilous...even during the correspondence portion of the experience. After finding a profile that looked interesting, intrepid dater Diane Saltzberg zipped over an email, asking the potential mensch what he meant by wanting to hear from women who were "fit." I know...those of you who have been there and have a few extra pounds on you (and really, so many of us do) are saying, "Girlfriend, why'd you do that? We all know that men who put 'fit' in their profile mean that they want someone skinny! You shoulda just skipped him!" Well, we couldn't get to her in time, but the dude--who she dubbed "Mr. Sensitive" for reasons that will become clear and involve heavy sarcasm--responded in a way she'll never forget.

"Your profile is extremely well-written, as is your note. You are clearly very, very bright, as am I. That's why I can't understand why you'd be in such absolute denial of a clear reality. You didn't fill in your weight in your profile because you're not happy with it. If you were, it would be there and you wouldn't be writing all that senseless crap about Jane Mansfield, with whom you have absolutely nothing in common.

Look in the mirror, see the same thing anyone can see in your photos: You are soft, untoned, out-of-shape and, yes, fat. Then, either fix it or accept it, but don't try to make believe you're not. And certainly don't try to convince others you aren't because it makes you seem absolutely crazy. Now go do the right thing."

I felt like I had been hit in the stomach. His e-mail was breathtaking in its cruelty.

We've all asked this question before...who does such a thing? Who fancies himself so impervious to criticism, so above and beyond reproach, that he feels entitled to make someone else feel like crap, when a simple "Thanks for your interest, but I don't think we'd make a good match" might make a frustratingly generic, but merciful and menschy response? Or, as the writer puts it..." Why be gratuitously mean?"

Why indeed. It's the $64,000 question. She's willing to give JDate another chance--some of the rest of us have had it. But I would urge those of you who are out there and might be "inspired" to share your noble opinions, in the name of "tough love" or whatever in a similar mode to the above, please, opt for the generic, menschier response. Believe us, it makes you a better person.

The whole article is here, complete with her email address at the end--feel free to send her a note of support and commiseration...

"Coming Attractions" (new JW column is online)

Greetings columnizers. My newest Jewish Week singles column, "Coming Attractions," is now available online. Coming Attractions by Esther D. Kustanowitz New York Jewish Week, First Person Singular August 18, 2006

When my friends and I moved to New York City after college, theater and high culture were out of our price range. But at the movies, we found affordable, air-conditioned entertainment. Popcorn was always extra (in terms of both coins and calories), but a secret bonus was included in the price of admission: Before the film started, we were treated to numerous movie trailers, designed to entice us into future movie ticket purchases and to create buzz for upcoming film releases. We’d predict how many trailers we’d get, and be delighted when we got more than expected. Based on how good each preview was, we’d make our decisions right there — “no way!” “totally!” and “maybe on DVD.”

In the dating world, several mechanisms operate as trailers, setting us up with overly vast expectations or none at all, and causing us to make instant judgments about the people we meet as romantic potentials. If we’re looking, we’re often “treated” to previews of the main attraction before we even determine whether the featured presentation holds any attraction at all. The movie judgment mechanism is activated. Bearing little information, we discard potential dates before we ever meet them, or elevate our expectations to such a level that no man or woman alive can ever hope to reach them.

To read the rest of this article, visit this page at EstherK.com.

Online Dating So Easy a Monkey Could Do It!!

According to the AP, orangutans (don't call them monkeys! I mean, except for clever headlines...) will be using the internet to find mates. Zookeepers are planning to hook up single orangutans from the Netherlands with others from Indonesia. (Those meddling zookeepers, always trying to marry off the singles...) Sources (and by "sources" I mean "there are no sources, so wait for the joke to hit you") say that the single orangutans' parents insist that their kids don't need the internet to find a mate, and are shocked that scientists are plotting the dating and mating of their offspring to orangutans from another country. First of all, we all know how hard it is to have long-distance relationships:

[A spokeswoman for the Apenheul ape park in the central Dutch city of Apeldoorn] said the chance of two orangutans actually mating as a result of the online interaction was small due to the problem of transporting them between the Netherlands and Indonesia. "But I wouldn't rule it out completely," she told The Associated Press.

And if you add the cultural differences and the language barrier, it makes for some awkward family moments: she wants a traditional Dutch ceremony, and he wants to raise the kids Indonesian. For more hot international orangutan action, click over to this article that tells you all about how single orangutans will meet and mate using the same internet that you use for your, er, Amazon shopping.

"The Love Computer"

Last week, mid-heatwave, I saw a couple--visibly sweating into their clothing, causing darkening patches to puddle on their backs, chests and under their arms--who insisted on not just holding hands, but occasionally walking with his arm around her shoulder...you know, the kind of people who never want to be apart, even if it's 100 degrees out.

"You've found that special someone, and you never want to be apart..." I know that SNL's "Love Toilet" was a fake product. Really. But I really have a feeling that this new trend of "Couple-Surfing" is an outgrowth of that kind of disgustingly-crazy-in-love couple, for whom PDA still means "public displays of affection."

While I'm all for couples communicating--whatever method they decide to use--I feel like this trend introduces a third party and may not facilitate communication; in some cases, the intervening layer of technology may lead to misunderstandings...

In any case, thank Wired's blog for this list of the interesting things couples said about how they view the internet, including:"An infomaniac is better off with another infomaniac who understands and partakes of their addiction, rather than mixing the tender electrovert with a more organically-centered human," and "There is something poetic in an e-mail correspondence, even if you see the other person every day. The e-mail personalities can be somehow different."

I've long mourned the loss of the love letter tradition--will our emails of LOL and ROTFLs someday serve the same romantic and nostalgic function as the lovingly inscribed, handwritten declarations of feelings immortalized by couples separated by life and war and parental or social impediments? Perhaps this trend of couples communicating with each other online might serve as a romance renaissance of sorts?

One thing's certain...if the article/list reveals any essential truth, it is this statement:

"I think my lover would prefer it if I wasn't checking blogs at 2 in the morning in my underwear."

Yeah, we're pretty sure you're right about that.

Shocking Quiz Development

Taking the "Which Sex and the City vixen are YOU most like" quiz over a year after the series is over... and the results are...shockingly...

You Are Most Like Miranda!

While you've had your fair share of romance, men don't come first Guys are a distant third to your friends and career. And this independence *is* attractive to some men, in measured doses. Remember that if you imagine the best outcome, it might just happen. Romantic prediction: Someone from your past is waiting to reconnect... But you'll have to think of him differently, if you want things to work.

Which Sex and the City Vixen Are You?

Coping with the Question

(Here's my latest singles column...I wrote this column before finding out about last week's Upper West Side tragedy, so any thematic similarity between Hamlet's ponderings and those of someone who's clinically depressed are strictly coincidental, and not intended as a commentary on the tragedy; still, I felt I had to address it in some way (and that's what paragraphs 4 & 5 are about. I hope that the community comforts Sarah's family and provides support for them and for all singles and marrieds in the future. EDK)

Coping with the Question by Esther D. Kustanowitz (First Person Singular, NY Jewish Week, August 4, 2006)

“To be, or not to be, that is the question,” Hamlet pondered, torturing himself with an existential query. As singles, we too grapple with an essential question: “Why are you still single?”

Pose the question, even theoretically, and hordes will respond: you’re too picky, fat, short, ugly or boring; you’re not putting yourself out there; you have issues; you’re spiritually or morally bankrupt; you fear intimacy and commitment; you’re waiting for impossible perfection; or you’re so “whiny,” you should “just freakin’ wed anyone already.” (That last one? Courtesy of an anonymous blogger, complaining about my June column.)

While self-examination is already a single person’s occupational hazard, asking such a question repeatedly takes an emotional toll. When we’re alone, the question echoes, engendering a burgeoning paranoia that the purgatory may well be eternal, and because of some unrevealed and essentially unforgivable hubris. Men blame women, women blame men, everyone blames their parents and their community, and themselves.

I had already completed this column when I got the news that a 25-year-old Upper West Sider, known by most as a happy young woman, had ended her life. Over the last week or so, there has been much discussion of who or what to blame for her death: named suspects include the community pressure to marry, a recent breakup, and clinical depression.

And although the community is not necessarily — as others have intimated — responsible for clinical depression, it may well have been one of many factors creating stress and hopelessness in the young woman’s life. I can only hope that the community will respond appropriately — helping her family to mourn and find comfort, and creating programs to better ensure that people of all ages feel supported and valued, socially, religiously and emotionally.

But the question “Why are you still single?” or alternately, “Why aren’t you married yet?” is yet another form of community pressure and expressed expectations. When a single responds with “I guess I just haven’t found the right person yet,” the yenta-in-residence leans in, sometimes touching your arm, shoulder or leg to indicate just how sympathetic they are, and “consoles” you: “Don’t worry, we’ll find you someone. God willing, it should be soon too by you. Maybe you should try meeting some new people?” Oh. Like we hadn’t thought of that before.

When it comes to the question, everyone — especially those who aren’t single — thinks he or she has the answer. Those Rules ladies thought they knew (“never accept a Saturday night date if he calls Thursday”). Those people who told us that our potentials were “just not that into us” thought they knew, too. Shmuley Boteach thinks he knows; in a Beliefnet.com article from June, Boteach told one mother that the reason her 29-year-old daughter was (oh, the horror!) still single was because she had friends. Ask her to sever ties with her friends for a few weeks, Boteach advised — after experiencing true loneliness, she’d be ready to accept a partner into her life.

Evan Marc Katz, E-Cyrano.com’s “online dating guru,” who I interviewed in one of my first columns, employs an irreverent, humorous approach to the infernal, eternal question in his new book, “Why You’re Still Single: What Your Friends Would Tell You If You Promised Not to Get Mad.” Katz and his co-author, Linda Holmes, present perspectives rather than answers, and the resultant honesty is refreshing. Against a backdrop of pop culture and humor, the duo delves into the depths of dating do’s and don’t’s, acting as the friends you really need — the funny ones who aren’t afraid to hurt your feelings if it will mean helping you out.

Struggling with one major question or many smaller ones, we understand that friends cannot take the place of our bashert. But neither should the pursuit of a significant other take the place of our already-significant friendships, the ones that provide love and support in a dating environment that — as we suffer the slings and arrows of our outrageous fortunes — can often feel like a friendless void.

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is defined by his solitude; the Melancholy Dane cannot trust the people who surround him, not even his family. Most of us are luckier than Hamlet. Perhaps if he’d kept company with friends other than Ophelia, or if he’d experienced the proper support from his community, his existential dilemmas might have seemed a little less weighty.

Esther D. Kustanowitz took too many Shakespeare classes in college. You can reach her at jdatersanonymous@gmail.com.

So Much Sadness

In addition to my ongoing concern about the situation in Israel, a situation that looks like it may further involve some of my friends and relatives, I've been struck by the number of sad stories in the press, many of them about single people struggling in their lives. The other day, I saw this story (hat tip to Canonist). And before I knew it, I got a phone call, talked to a reporter, and voila...a friend got a call from another friend who told him I was "on the cover of the Sun." My friend didn't even grab a copy--and certainly didn't read the story--before calling me to congratulate me on my fame and imminent fortune. Having not read the article, or even having been aware of what the context was, he seemed confused when my response was not "Yippee," but "oh." My heart fell. To be sure, a writer wants to be acknowledged for her work. But to be clear, there is no fame and fortune to be gained from such a story...only a prevailing sense of sadness and the tragedy of the circumstances. May Sarah's family know comfort after this senseless tragedy.

"Do the Right Thing...It's Just Business"

As a freelancer, I do a lot of business with different clients. Usually we contract for a certain rate (only in rare cases does that actually involve a real contract), I do the work and they (eventually) pay. Ideal would be immediate payment on delivery of the product, which is submitted by a certain deadline adhered to by both parties. But realistically, there's often a delay on the return. And sometimes, an initial client meeting clarifies that there's no chemistry between us and we go our separate ways. That's business. With that as preamble, allow me to introduce the following situation (already well-covered in the blogosphere during my Middle East assignment, most notably here, in a post cited by the ever topical Steve Silver). A man and a woman meet on JDate (or any other online site). They trade an email or two, talk once or twice and decide to go out. They go to an expensive dinner (his choice); when the bill comes she offers to pay half, and he tells her he'll take care of it. They both go to their respective homes; when he calls her a few days later, she doesn't call him back. And that's where it all goes to hell. He gets it in his head that she owes him her half of the dinner bill and that he aims to collect it. He sends her emails and leaves her a series of voice mail messages to that effect, first appealing to her to "do the right thing"--since dating is equal to business in his world, her agreeing to accept his offer of dinner payment was her unspoken acceptance that there would be a future date--and ultimately threatening legal action against her at her place of business. The guy has a strong confident voice, and conveys that he's used to doing business. Even while threatening, he seems socially able, if annoying--as if he's reporting on traffic conditions or conveying information about an apartment she might be interested in, telling her that "the ball's totally in her court" and that she should "do the right thing." Soon the voice mails and emails are all over the internet, including his name and hers, and being discussed all over the blogosphere. But it's fifty bucks. Let me repeat that. Fifty bucks. While fifty bucks is nothing that's ever been spent on me for a first date, and perhaps it shouldn't be, it's still not a major amount of money for anyone with an actual job. For him, I doubt it's about the money. It's a control issue; it's a rejection issue; and it's the principle of the thing--he wanted to go out with her, and she didn't, therefore he feels that she owes him. But that doesn't mean she owes him money, whether it's fifty or two hundred and fifty bucks. But this situation raises questions about what's right from a point of etiquette, from a point of technical legality, and from a point of menschlikhkeit (behaving like a mensch). There's no way to know if "let's split it" means "let's split it," or "let's never do this again." I understand the pain of not being called back. And, although not proudly, I will admit to not having called guys back even if I said I would; when a guy asks if he can call again, it's harder to say "I don't think so" than it is to say "sure." Is agreeing to go on a date a business transaction? If so, is there any standard contract, terms to which both parties have implicitly agreed even though no one signed anything? How does one dissolve a partnership that was never started? And what are our obligations to the men and women we date?

Last Nights

Last nights have always been difficult. One tends to get caught up in the details of departure, and within those details are layers of doubt and lingering regret--over the undone or underdone, over the potential for intrinsic change, and for the vanishing moments of the now in the stark awareness that the present becomes past in the instant it happens. Being here has been everything and nothing I'd anticipated. The anxieties were mostly unfounded, and the experience overwhelmingly positive. Friendships were forged and realizations discovered. To an extent, I feel younger--as if some sort of vital essence were recaptured and, to my great surprise, reinvigorates me. I'm infused. And now, because it's a last night of this, a genus of freedom that I've lived through the last few weeks, I fear its imminent pastness, the moment at which this becomes that thing that once was; and puzzle at the fact that the life I left behind is again my future. More characters will be typed, but only after departure.

Sign Me Up, Scotty...

Already find yourself dating Klingons or Vulcans or singles who seem like they're from space, the final frontier? Skip the formalities and sign up for TrekPassions, the online dating site for science fiction fans. And yes, they've already added a "Browncoat" Group. If you don't know what that is, this probably isn't the site for you. According to the report in the CBS news site:

Trek Passions received a boost back in March, when, on his late-night talk show, Conan O'Brien quipped: "The fans say the dating website is going great and any month now they hope a girl will join." It's not quite as bad as that. Although Passions Network President Michael Carter says they don't track such things, an informal count suggests more than a quarter of the 2,550 users are women. [...] In many ways the site attracts about what you'd expect. One person interviewed for this story left the endearingly rambling voice mail of a man not entirely comfortable with women. And some profiles seem to be written in another language: "A TOS-TNG-DS9 Fan Looking For par'Machi."

As someone who just told a story on Shabbat afternoon about how Return of the Jedi helped me get an SAT question right, I'm so glad I didn't understand that.

Request from a Reader

I just got this email from a reader, and he asked some questions that I thought would best be served by JDA's other readers, so feel free to respond in the comments section and I'll then forward the URL link of the post-plus-comments to him...thanks, and wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

I have only recently come into contact with your column and blog(s) and was merely looking for some kind of direction to take being that my Jdate experiences were too hard to handle, in my opinion. I placed my cancellation with Jdate today, after 7 months of lead-ons and 'just be friends' speeches. I thought that a faith-based/ethnic-based/spiritual-based dating web site would produce at least some meaningful contacts...but sadly, every person that I encountered blamed everything on "chemistry" and used it as an excuse to have no further contact. I certainly understand why people do not want to be brutally honest about certain things....but it really does hurt all the same when rejection occurs. I do not know if you have any contacts with people who have experienced this type of frustration....but if you know of some place, online forum, or venue that similar people use to speak about these issues, could you please help me?

Miles Away, In More Ways Than One

I write this from Jerusalem, after having been away for almost three weeks, and with two more to go. I can't guarantee that I'm making any sense in this post, or that it's concretely related to dating. But it is about relationships, altered consciousness, and the intensely frightening and intensely sought state of change. Miles away--rather, thousands of miles away--you hope for some sort of perspective in absentia, for clarity to emerge as you unimmerse yourself from the dailyness of you and revisit the decisions and emotions that you've experienced in the past. You hope for it. Sometimes, especially in Holy Cities, you pray for it. And eventually and to an extent, it comes, at odd moments when you're unprepared for it, or can't experience it viscerally, or can't write it down. But clarity brings responsibility. Running away isn't an option, and words spill forth on their own, leaving you behind. The things you are and the things you do must be the same. But if sentences seem disjointed as they emerge, is the march really toward clarity or toward something else? The wonderings are as wanderings, meandering in and out of meaning until clarity has engendered a new confusion. More topical posts to come...

Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

...don't know when I'll be back again. The date is rapidly approaching. I report to Newark airport Sunday morning, for my flight to Israel with birthright israel...while there I will be observing international trends in Jewish dating. In other words, "watching kids hook up with each other on the trip." Well, we do have a bunch of siblings with us, so statistically that probably reduces the number of people who are potential hookups on our bus. But still, I have some hope that some young Jews on our bus will find love as they discover Israel. That would be totally Jewlicious. In addition to having the chance to see Israel again through the eyes of newcomers, I'm hoping that this trip really helps me reconnect with college age kids--find out what their concerns are, explore their relationship with Jewish life and their nascent connections to Israel. If I can, I'll arrange for some guest bloggers. But if not, stay tuned, and I'll try to post again soon. Next post from Jerusalem!

Mars & Venus Go To Shul: Jewish Dating Blogcarnival's Potentially Last Date

Blogcarnival! Probably the last one for a while, too, since people have stopped submitting posts and I simply don't have the time. Plus, I'm not convinced that anyone's been really reading this series, so I'll take June and July to reconsider, potentially reviving the Carnival in August, but we'll see. My favorite piece of news from recent weeks--which means, for those of you not following my sarcasm, my LEAST favorite piece of news--is that the Jewish singles "crisis" has been upgraded to "Tropical Storm David." Just kidding. But if an ad in a recent issue of the Jewish Week is to be believed, the crisis has indeed escalated, to the point that they're calling it a..."catastrophe." So in case you thought tsunamis or hurricanes or war or terrorism were catastrophes? I quote Inigo Montoya: "You keep on using that word...perhaps it doesn't mean what you think it means." But more on this later. The new ABC show "How to Get the Guy," is set in San Francisco and features Teresa Strasser, former host of "While You Were Out," as well as the former FOX 5 morning show correspondent who interviewed me about Rosh Hashanah in 2004. JTA reports on the JDate trip to Israel, which was advertising as a trip that was for ages 20s to 70s. (Why didn't I go?) and also informs of a Ukrainian Jewish singles site to help combat intermarriage in that region.

Attention Frumster Shoppers documents the end of his long-distance relationship, with humor and then with a more introspective post. AFS also shows his sense of humor with his utilization of Frumster screen names as lines of poetry. Sarah compares herself to Angelina Jolie. Sort of. And Writersbloc talks of alone time and wanting a certain kind of clutter in her space.

I'd love to say that every singles piece I read teaches me something. I wish I could summon the love for this piece from the Jewish Journal about online dating and how great it is. I'm thrilled that it took the writer, a veteran of years of long-term relationships, a matter of two short years to find someone special via the internet. But I can't. You read it, and maybe you'll be able to...

Cruises (and other things) cost more when you're single. Via the Jewish Standard comes this oddly disjointed piece that seems to make three points (life's cheaper when you're coupled; there should be some sort of rule for who pays when couples go out with singles; and in fact an entire book of etiquette is needed to help people cope with singles-related situations) or none at all. Full disclosure, I know the writer--she's a longtime family friend and talented writer/editor who's been very supportive of me. Which is one of the reasons that this piece is puzzling to me. If she's reading this, and wants me to comment in a follow-up piece, I'd be happy to.

Shmuley Boteach irks me again, this time with his response to a mother who's concerned about her 29 year old not finding her bashert. His advice takes several parts: 1) the mother should definitely get involved in helping her daughter meet men, 2) that the daughter needs to cut herself off from her friends and get really lonely. And I quote:

"When I counsel singles like your daughter, I tell them first to cut themselves off from their friends for three weeks. After three weeks, they'll really yearn and crave company. Then, they'll see a man as someone special instead of someone in whom they can find flaws. Second, I urge young people to observe the two-date rule: go on a second date no matter how bad the first date was. Don't dismiss people immediately, but instead learn to simply enjoy human company. It is usually those second dates that lead to real possibilities."

Second-date rules are probably a good idea generally speaking. But if a woman, say, in her mid-thirties, cuts herself off from her friends for three weeks, the result is less likely to be healthy dating and more likely to be depression and suicidal tendencies. When you're depressed, you make no one a good date or a companion. Or at least that's what my friends tell me. Here's wishing you all love, happiness and satisfaction. Have a great summer.

"A Dating Departure"--First Person Singular (JW)

This week's column, "A Dating Departure," shares some of my reflections from January's JSinglesCruise to the Caribbean:

[...] It had begun the night before departure, like the night before my first day of camp or college. Part of it was the packing process. The more I put into my suitcase, the more it seemed to take out of me. I wondered if clothes would hinder me socially or matter at all. Still, beyond the grip of my own anxiety, I understood that future always lies just beyond the vanishing point of your own vision. On the horizon, there was something — of an unknown quality and duration, but still, something — to be found.

For more, click the above link.

Gotta Get a Gimmick

They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. But Babe Scott wants her due, from you, and you, and you, and you, and you. (That's five of you. Times twenty.)

The Web site Babe has set up, takemeoutforlunch.com, demands exactly that: She wants 100 guys to take her to 100 fancy restaurants and she'll blog about them afterward, maybe squeeze them into a book. She may even find Mr. Right.

She may find Mr. Right. But she'll milk a lot of guys for free lunch before she admits it. Because that's her gimmnick. Look, there's enough men in the world. She can have a hundred of them. I don't need a gimmick. Or maybe I do, but don't want one. At any rate, I bet she gets a TV show before I do. Which might be a good thing.

"Living the List"

Living the List NY Jewish Week, May 19, 2006 I only deserve the best,” a friend recently told me. “I’m not just taking the first guy who really likes me because I’m sick and tired of waiting. People who do that are making the biggest mistakes,” she said, noting three such couples in her life, who “got married, not sure that the love was there,” and are now divorcing. “If I have to wait longer, I will.” For those concerned with Jewish demography, women (and men) like my friend are dooming the Jewish people to slow, steady destruction. They’re marrying later, decreasing the number of children each couple is likely to have. And by the time we reach a certain age, even if wanting children is in the plan, we’ve been so single, for so long, that doing our national duty is less important than finding a soul mate, someone who has most of the qualities on their lists. Everyone has his or her deal breakers. But many have cited the mere literal or figurative existence of such lists as illustrations of the “pickiness” and “inflexibility” of singles. If reasonable, the list can function as an independent auditor, which theoretically helps singles to make smarter choices. If adhered to inflexibly, the list can be a single person’s undoing. At the recent “Michael Steinhardt Presents...” series at Manhattan Jewish Experience — named for the philanthropist/event emcee — dating coach Robin Gorman Newman suggested that singles “actually write down” their lists and, after looking inward to determine what they themselves have to offer, to assess whether they were really giving people a chance and “throw half of it out the window.” “Making the effort isn’t enough; the right attitude has to be there first,” the “How to Marry a Mensch” author told the audience of singles ranging in age from 20s to mid-40s. “Everyone wants to be ‘on Cloud 9,’ but Cloud 8 isn’t anything to sneeze at.” Co-panelist and Manhattan Jewish Experience Rabbi Mark Wildes noted that the list “sometimes grows as time goes on,” and suggested reducing the list to one item: “I believe we are incomplete without a partner, someone who understands you. Reduce the list to that one person who understands you.” But therein lies the problem, especially in high-density areas like New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, where every night presents a crop of fresh new faces to assess for compatibility: Sometimes choice itself is the problem. Confronted with a veritable buffet of tasty options, even if they find an 80 percent match — by all accounts, a pretty good fit — singles experience the nagging feeling that there still might be someone out there who’s better. Still, singles complain that there’s “no one out there.” What they mean is that they had a certain set of expectations when it comes to dating, and that when those expectations were not met, they were disappointed. The fact that there may be hundreds or thousands of other compatible singles out there might as well not be true, because it feels hopelessly false. While most of the singles in the room at MJE or at Makor or the JCC or any other Jewish meeting place on any given night are looking for love — or answers — with the hope of a committed Jewish relationship, few of us are looking for “baby daddies.” Yes, even without reminders from doctors or demographers, we’re all aware of the biological challenges that face us as we (especially women) age. But we want partners. And we’ve waited this long — we’re willing to delay the procreative process until our lists have more checks than exes on them. My friend deserves happiness, to love and be loved in equal measure. She says she’s not willing to settle. But I like to think that she — and singles like her — are not married to their lists. They’re still open-minded enough to give the decent ones a chance; they’re willing to look at the big picture rather than judging on a sacrosanct list of must-haves and must-not-haves. They’re the ones who refused to date Republicans, until they met one they liked, who refused to date men their height or women they claimed were “not their type,” until they did and found they were. Although they often help us, our lists are not divine, nor even divinely inspired. They’re human, and superficial, and inherently flawed. Just like the singles who made them.

Oops, I Did It Again

I will admit to some bad behavior. Not inherently evil, or illegal in any way. I mean, this is still me. I still color within the lines. I don't shoplift, or cheat at Scrabble or anything. I live within a deplorably boring framework of morality. But damned if I don't still feel it when things don't turn out the way I'd hoped. Even if the hope itself was a hope against hope, it was still small, sheltered, naive...desperate to grow and become something better. Oops, I did it again. Not a girl, not yet a woman. Just a healthy plate of the familiar-turned-contemptible. No choices. All the options I thought I had are mist. Smoke. The vaguest drizzle of a hint of more still slickens my skin. I feel it there. But it's too late. I've gone into my head again. Patterns, man. They're a bitch. And sometimes, as a result, so am I.

Shomer Negiah Blog Profiled in Jewish Week Column

...but not in my column. This time, the Jewish Week profiles NJG, giving a rundown of her site. When was NJG's last post? February. And wait, who's their singles columnist, anyway? I forget... For those of you who've been waiting for more about NJG, how she's doing and what's going on in her life since her last post, well, don't look here. If you've been reading her all along, you'll find nothing new here. And this is why print media is dying a slow death; because things hit the blogosphere first, run their course, and then are profiled in the print editions, finally reaching those who are "internet-resistant." Don't get me wrong, there are those people who will always want to hold the newspaper in their hands, or toss it to the bathroom floor when they're done, and listen to it make a satisfying "thwap" sound that says "I so read that paper." But in terms of showing the world something new? It's all about electronic media, kids. The new revolution--journalistic or sexual--will be blogivised. I know. I'm preaching to the choir.

A Question from a JDA Reader: About Matchmaking

A reader writes:

On the Saw You at Sinai site many "shadchans" say they don't charge a fee, but what if they make a match, what is considered a nice "fee/ gift" for making the match?

Is a shadchan "gift" for a shadchan from Brooklyn cheaper than one from Manhattan or out of town? On the Saw You site they have an article from a Rabbi saying it is important to give a gift to a shadchan that makes a match, but doesn't give any guidance on what is considered one. I asked Saw You at Sinai what are the gifts aka "prices", they told me to ask a Rabbi. Can you help?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

"Interrogating the Dating Guru" (JW-First Person Singular)

If the title of my latest column in the Jewish Week seems a little familiar to regular readers of this column, it's because it originated as a post here...except here, we met a "dating hermit." Well, my editor wasn't fond of "hermit," so it became a "guru." But the concept is the same, and some of your opinions are represented in this piece, so thanks for the help you didn't know you were giving me. Keep visiting and commenting...your feedback helps JDaters Anonymous maintain its place as a dynamic community. Interrogating the Dating Guru by Esther D. Kustanowitz May 5, 2006 When people find out that I write about the single life, they often ask me dating questions. I try to answer on a case-by-case basis, always with the caveat that they understand I don’t have all the answers. Recently, someone asked me, “Why aren’t people meeting each other?” I thought about this. Was it true? I mean, it felt true. But what of the myriad parties, blind dates and Jewish events? Surely people were meeting, weren’t they? “The opportunity to meet new people is always there, every moment you are out in public,” says Aryeh Goldsmith, founder of free Jewish dating site TwentyFourSix.com. “But people aren’t even trying anymore; you can’t meet people if you don’t even talk to them.” He explains that new people are immediately assessed for relationship potential and written off. “They aren’t given the option of becoming your friend because you don’t want more friends — you’re looking for a significant other. This is basically the act of becoming less and less social.” In effect, the questions may actually be, “Why can’t I meet anyone special?” or “Where do I go to meet someone?” They could be “Will I ever meet anyone?” or “What the hell is he/she thinking?” or “Why am I always confined to the Friend Zone?” And I don’t have any of the answers — if I did, I’d likely skip this Jewish Week gig and go straight to Oprah. On my JDatersAnonymous blog, I asked readers to imagine that they’d climbed to the top of a remote mountain to seek an audience with the Dating Guru — a person who held all the answers to all questions regarding the courtship process. What questions would they ask? One man in his 30s asked how he could “overcome the issues I know I have, and how will I know if I’ve found the right one?” One reader asked if he would be “happier single than waiting around for ‘good ones’ to show up.” Others wanted to know if they’d made a mistake by breaking up with someone who might have been “the one.” One male reader wondered why women don’t give shorter guys a chance; and one female reader asked why men have such difficulty opening up emotionally. One woman just shy of 30 wondered, “If I am as wonderful, beautiful, interesting, funny, intelligent and loving as everyone says I am (and if I know it’s true too) then why don’t I have the relationship I deserve?” A 20-something woman wants to know if she’s wasting her time. “Have I missed my chance or is my bashert still out there? If he’s still out there, I’ll keep trying. But if I know for sure that he’s not, I might take up some new addictions.” The good news is that, on paper, people are meeting. As the New York Times Sunday Styles section or Times Square billboards will tell you, everyone knows someone who met on JDate. Or Match.com. Or at a party. Or through a blind date. But there’s no guarantee that any of those venues will be right for you, and that’s disappointing. Sure, you try to reframe it. You’re waiting for your bashert, the timing hasn’t been right; you declare a moratorium because you’re too busy for relationships, anyway. You try to take the power back from the ether, hoping it will make you feel better. But with every denial, uttered with the best of intentions — emotional self-preservation — you may be taking a step backwards, retreating from the relationship that you want. By convincing yourself that love will find you when you’re not looking for it (another untrue cliché) you stop looking for love. And that may seem like a positive move, but it’s not very goal- or action-oriented. “We all need to identify the things that trap us and do our best to take responsibility,” says dating consultant Evan Marc Katz. “The right person is out there, somewhere, but tends not to magically appear in your living room with a red ribbon on his head. If he does, you should probably call the police.” Perhaps because there’s such a fine line between doing all the right things and not becoming obsessed with something that’s largely out of our control, these festering questions can drive us right up to the edge of that hazy border between love and insanity. But most of us are just asking “Why is this taking so long?” And that, unfortunately, is a question that only the Dating Guru can answer. Too bad gurus, like a good match, are so hard to find. Esther D. Kustanowitz does not aspire to fill the shoes of any active or retiring Dating Gurus. Still, you can reach her at jdatersanonymous@gmail.com.

Men and Women?

I happened upon this quote from Katharine Hepburn: "Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then." I feel like that sometimes. I understand women better than I do men, although a male friend of mine claims that understanding men is easy: they always and only say what they mean, and there are no secret agendas or hidden meanings. (Up for debate in my humble opinion, especially since said friend admitted that he often "tricks" women into "stealth dating" him by proclaiming interest in a professional collaboration, and then transitioning that into a romantic relationship.) But as much as I enjoy the company of women, I also enjoy being a woman in the company of men. There's something energizing about being surrounded by men, especially those who are just drunk enough to be uncensored but not dangerous--it's like an all-access pass into an entirely new way of thinking and speaking, like a vacation from the mundane. Of course, always being in the company of men and being able to hold one's own--whether the discussion is politics, philosophy, dating or pop culture--can sometimes transform a woman into just one of the guys, privy to locker room talk and lowering blinds that prevent her from being seen as a woman. She becomes an audience, or a brain, or a sharp wit--good because she ceases to be the enemy and may even achieve the status of a conversational equal. But maybe there are things that men say to men that they shouldn't say to women. What do you think? (More substantive posts to come next week, hopefully...)

"Free to Be" -- First Person Singular (JW)

This time I'm reprinting the whole column here, for your convenience...and I have to say that given the tax I had to pay on this year's purported income, the column turned out to be remarkably prescient. May your days be filled with the sweetness of freedom.--EDK Free to Be... by Esther D. Kustanowitz Growing up, I often listened to a work of feminism undercover as children’s album and book — “Free to Be You and Me.” From “Free to Be,” I learned that I could be anything, that parents were people and that “every boy in this land learns to be his own man, and in this land every girl grows to be her own woman.” I learned that partners should not be your superiors, but equals, running neck-and-neck with you until you both cross the finish line together. I learned that those who expect to be treated like royalty because of their looks and who demand “ladies first” will probably be eaten by a pack of hungry tigers. (Metaphorical tigers, I’m sure.) Today, with the girl in me having grown to be her own woman, living single and independent, even my profession has liberation in its name: I am a freelance writer. Friends are envious. I am my own boss, I choose my projects and my hours, and I’m flexible — able to work at a coffee shop or a library. When summer arrives early, I can take an hour to enjoy the sunshine or sit in the park, while my peers are chained to their desks. But with no central employer, I’m also free to worry, buy my own health insurance, and to wonder if my doctors will suddenly decide — as they recently did —that they’re no longer accepting my coverage. I wonder if I can stretch this month’s earnings to cover next month’s expenses. I’ve got to stay on top of my invoices, or my clients will feel free to not pay me. And if I can’t make freelancing work, I’m free to either get a full-time job or, although I haven’t asked them, to move back in with my parents. So freelancing isn’t really free. With no such thing as a free lunch, there are always obligations, strings attached, although they might not be visible at the time. Pessimists say that’s what dating’s all about — determining if the inevitable strings attached to supposedly free meals are strings you can live with. I don’t love that definition, but it makes me realize that for all of my professional independence, financially, I’m not all that free. I have often wished that I were part of a creative commune, where we would all work to provide each other with sustenance and shelter, with enough to enable us to focus on our creative work without worrying about financial security. We could judge each other by the content of our characters rather than have our perceptions tinted through money-colored glasses. On this creative kibbutz, a basic stability would free our minds. We wouldn’t need excess, only comfort, to create. And by being more in touch with our inner muses, we’d be truer versions of ourselves, more open to relationships, and, to paraphrase the Bard, we would not admit impediments to the marriage of true minds. For artists and other miscellaneous creatives, the search for comfort is constant. They hope that a deep enough excavation will uncover love, happiness or some other great truth. But once a dream is achieved or a truth is attained, everything shifts, compelling the creation of a new dream, a higher goal, a deeper truth. Writing itself — as profession, leisure activity, spiritual exercise, intellectual inquiry or demonic exorcism — is not a right; it’s a luxury, living in the domain of the independent and the land of the free. Every spring, Jews revisit freedom as a concept. And we don’t think solely of our literally enslaved ancestors: we think of the restrictions that we have placed on ourselves, metaphorical enslavements of the heart, will and mind. We understand that our inability to move forward in relationships or our fear of change isn’t slavery of the make-bricks-from-mud-and-straw variety. Actual slavery still exists throughout the world — from poverty in New York to Indian children born into brothels, from Russian prostitutes in Israel to poverty, violence and atrocities in Darfur. And here I am, pondering my metaphorical freedom and my own professional “enslavement” to Manhattan rents and sub-par insurance plans and complaining that a month of JDate is too expensive. My freedoms aren’t rights. They’re luxuries. And all of the smaller enslavements of daily existence for a single youngish American Jewish freelancer — even JDate — are insignificant when you consider the major benefit to living in a free society: I have the luxury to keep on dreaming.

Best Way to Advertise Your Upcoming Record Release? JDate

I just got a press release about Chad Love (not Chad Lowe), a hip-hop artist who is taking advantage of the "enormous web portal" at JDate to promote his upcoming album. (Visit his site for samples, a theme that borrows heavily from the Six Million Dollar Man and the Terminator--and a bit from The Lion King--and a creepy graphic of the artist as his sunglasses seem to blink at you in an indication that he may be becoming Jeff Goldblum in The Fly.) His PR people are calling him a "Crossover where all ethic [sic] backgrounds can take center stage in creating new visions using past inspiration in the hip-hop world." That's right...JDate is the new MySpace for somewhat Jewish artists. Um, isn't this illegal? I went to the Terms of Service to find out. While they do impose a 30-message a day limit to protect members against people who might use the site for spam solicitations, the only other limit on what's in the communications is "You will not engage in advertising to, or solicitation of, other members to buy or sell any products or services through the Service." Technically speaking, Chad Love's people are promoting him, which is one technical step removed from contract violations. Maybe. I'm still not convinced. In any rate, the move makes sense at least in terms of language. Firstly, his name is "Love," so I get the theoretical connection to JDate as a place that one might (theoretically) find love. Secondly, in record terminology, he's gonna drop the record like it's hot, and people on JDate get dropped all the time like hot potatoes. So poetically, I'm on board with it. And after seeing the dude and hearing his tunes, you know the dude's Jewish--he sounds like Derek Zoolander. The site describes him as an Italian Jue, a "Pizza Bagel", and someone who grew up in "an upper-class suburb of New York City." But that don't mean he ain't keepin' it realz, yo. Does he roll on Shabbos? Probably, because it's hard out there for a pimp.

"Free to Be" -- First Person Singular (JW)

This time I'm reprinting the whole column here, for your convenience...and I have to say that given the tax I had to pay on this year's purported income, the column turned out to be remarkably prescient. May your days be filled with the sweetness of freedom.--EDK Free to Be... by Esther D. Kustanowitz Growing up, I often listened to a work of feminism undercover as children’s album and book — “Free to Be You and Me.” From “Free to Be,” I learned that I could be anything, that parents were people and that “every boy in this land learns to be his own man, and in this land every girl grows to be her own woman.” I learned that partners should not be your superiors, but equals, running neck-and-neck with you until you both cross the finish line together. I learned that those who expect to be treated like royalty because of their looks and who demand “ladies first” will probably be eaten by a pack of hungry tigers. (Metaphorical tigers, I’m sure.) Today, with the girl in me having grown to be her own woman, living single and independent, even my profession has liberation in its name: I am a freelance writer. Friends are envious. I am my own boss, I choose my projects and my hours, and I’m flexible — able to work at a coffee shop or a library. When summer arrives early, I can take an hour to enjoy the sunshine or sit in the park, while my peers are chained to their desks. But with no central employer, I’m also free to worry, buy my own health insurance, and to wonder if my doctors will suddenly decide — as they recently did —that they’re no longer accepting my coverage. I wonder if I can stretch this month’s earnings to cover next month’s expenses. I’ve got to stay on top of my invoices, or my clients will feel free to not pay me. And if I can’t make freelancing work, I’m free to either get a full-time job or, although I haven’t asked them, to move back in with my parents. So freelancing isn’t really free. With no such thing as a free lunch, there are always obligations, strings attached, although they might not be visible at the time. Pessimists say that’s what dating’s all about — determining if the inevitable strings attached to supposedly free meals are strings you can live with. I don’t love that definition, but it makes me realize that for all of my professional independence, financially, I’m not all that free. I have often wished that I were part of a creative commune, where we would all work to provide each other with sustenance and shelter, with enough to enable us to focus on our creative work without worrying about financial security. We could judge each other by the content of our characters rather than have our perceptions tinted through money-colored glasses. On this creative kibbutz, a basic stability would free our minds. We wouldn’t need excess, only comfort, to create. And by being more in touch with our inner muses, we’d be truer versions of ourselves, more open to relationships, and, to paraphrase the Bard, we would not admit impediments to the marriage of true minds. For artists and other miscellaneous creatives, the search for comfort is constant. They hope that a deep enough excavation will uncover love, happiness or some other great truth. But once a dream is achieved or a truth is attained, everything shifts, compelling the creation of a new dream, a higher goal, a deeper truth. Writing itself — as profession, leisure activity, spiritual exercise, intellectual inquiry or demonic exorcism — is not a right; it’s a luxury, living in the domain of the independent and the land of the free. Every spring, Jews revisit freedom as a concept. And we don’t think solely of our literally enslaved ancestors: we think of the restrictions that we have placed on ourselves, metaphorical enslavements of the heart, will and mind. We understand that our inability to move forward in relationships or our fear of change isn’t slavery of the make-bricks-from-mud-and-straw variety. Actual slavery still exists throughout the world — from poverty in New York to Indian children born into brothels, from Russian prostitutes in Israel to poverty, violence and atrocities in Darfur. And here I am, pondering my metaphorical freedom and my own professional “enslavement” to Manhattan rents and sub-par insurance plans and complaining that a month of JDate is too expensive. My freedoms aren’t rights. They’re luxuries. And all of the smaller enslavements of daily existence for a single youngish American Jewish freelancer — even JDate — are insignificant when you consider the major benefit to living in a free society: I have the luxury to keep on dreaming.

Mars & Venus Go to Shul: Third Date (BlogCarnival of Jewish Dating)

Sorry about the delay in this Carnival...looks like once a month is the best I can hope for with this kind of crazy schedule... and now, with Passover, I probably won't get back to writing here for a week. So enjoy the links, explore on your own and write in with your recommendations for the May edition of Mars & Venus Go to Shul... Mars & Venus First Date Chick, who became blogfamous for chronicling each of her first dates with a new man, has started seeing someone, and is wondering what that might mean for her blog audience. She might want to check in with Honorary Jew (although I'm not sure that's a compliment) Ken Wheaton at the Non-Dating Life with his post about "what to do with your dating blog when you're in a relationship." First-timers club....Ladies and gentlemen, the battle of trying to understand another "planet" doesn't end once you're married...I give you the Muqata on the subject of Passover cleaning. First-time Carnivaler Channahboo, at Little Miss Graham, is a triple submission threat as she presents her views on PDA, adventures with Purim costuming, "Got Milk?"and anthropologically ponders the differences between the Jerusalem single woman who is "Desperately Seeking in Katamon" and the "Katamonster":

The Katamonster deserves no pity as she gives none. She has no pity for the women she tramples over in the scramble to claim her prize; she has no remorse for those she leaves heartbroken in her trail; she bares no thought to the hurtful words she uses to badmouth a competitor.

Whatever happened to sisterhood? Oh yeah, all's fair in love and the search for love. You Don't Look LIke Your Profile (Online Dating Adventures) Our carnival regulars, Hilary and Annabel Lee, are still struggling with the games of dating and relating with guys they meet online. So check them out in general, now and forever. I mean it. P-Life, passionate and high-energy as ever, has thrown himself into a new relationship with a woman from California--they're totally making it work so far, and P-Life took it on himself to sort of semi-retire from his single blogger life, naming me among others as one of the pioneers in the writing about Jewish singles arena. Also calling it quits is JeruGuru. ILikedYourProfile has launched a "funny dating email contest" that could win you a $20 Starbucks card. Hilary gives words to the thoughts of many singles who find themselves homeward bound for Passover. Don't forget to make your submissions for the next edition of this BlogCarnival, coming in May to a blogspot near you... Happy Passover and/or Easter...

The Power of Paying

One of the toughest questions in dating is also one of the shortest, and seemingly, one of the simplest. But the reality is that in today's world, where we pay lip service to equality, the question of who pays for dates is not as simple as it seems. So, who pays? One of these is the correct answer, so consider each one carefully. 1) The man pays. Every time. No excuses, unless it's his birthday and his woman wants to buy him dinner. Aww, shucks--ain't she sweet? 2) Whoever did the asking does the paying. It's a modern world--if a woman asks a man out, she should assume the responsibility of paying. 3) Whoever makes the most money should foot the bill. 4) Whoever chooses the restaurant should pay. 5) If you'd like to make a gesture that says "I like you and it was my pleasure to sit here with you," no matter what your gender, or whether you were the asker or the askee, you should pick up the check. 6) None of the above and all of the above. We're all screwed. Over at the E-Cyrano blog, Evan posts about this issue of the expectation of payment. (Feel free to weigh in over there as well...) He hits many of the issues, but for me, the issue of who pays establishes a strange kind of power dynamic that I've never been 100 percent comfortable with--in dating and with my other friends too. But in dating, payment feels especially like a contract, like I'm expected to deliver something that I might not yet (or at all) be comfortable delivering. Maybe that's a sign I'm watching too much Law and Order SVU. But because money has a disproportionate value for me--I tend not to spend it because I don't have that much post-rent-and-utilities wiggle room in my budget--it's therefore a big deal when someone (even my parents) treat me to dinner. With friends, I feel obligated to "get them next time," and usually manage to keep that promise even though I'm budgetarily limited...but this is probably my issue and not everyone else's. Is money power? And does the forking over of cash for dinner establish any other kind of contract? What do you all think? Because the more I think about this, the more I think I have the answer. The answer is 6).

And That's Why Men Should Kiss Men and Women Should Kiss Women...

Too many episodes of Queer as Folk and The L-Word for Esther? Perhaps. But that's not the point of this NY Times article about the art (and artifice) of the social kiss, especially in business settings.

The kiss is "happening more and more," agreed Peggy Post, a spokeswoman for the Emily Post Institute founded by the doyenne of etiquette. "We're much more informal in everything from the clothes we wear to how we greet people." Ms. Post advocates the handshake and agrees that it's better "to steer clear of kissing people of the opposite sex, which can be misconstrued in some cases." This is especially true on first meetings. Later, kissing as a greeting depends on the relationship, she and others said. [emphasis mine--edk]

I think the answer is for all of us to become shomer negiah all the time except for when we are in relationships with other people. Think of the clarity: first of all, no awkward business kisses. (Or Shabbos kisses, if any of you remember those boggling busses from that time between the Friday night service and dinner at Camp Ramah or USY Conventions.) Secondly, you'd never have to ask "What is the deal with those two? Are they dating or not?" nor would you ever have to answer "Well, no one knows for sure." Kissing etiquette is hard. So that's why I'm glad my staff of research assistants sends me articles like these, with helpful hints buried on page two of the article, like the fact that Blistex maintains a section on kissing etiquette (and pretty much anything you'd ever want to know about lips) on their site. On a not wholly unrelated note, today I bought two new lipglosses. Smooches, everyone! Or not...

F-Word

Here's the way it happens. There's clicking, audible and palpable. One shoe of expectation has dropped and the resulting thud is reassuring--it massages you like your trainer as you prepare for your moment in the ring, readying you for your graduation, at long last, from this infernal division. The thud is a herald: "this is it!" it trumpets, kneading your shoulders and prepping you for greatness. But you've been here before. You've been this close to the title, and have never worn the belt of achievement. You've seen it up close, touched it with your greedy, deprived little fingers, but it was never yours. So now you wait for the other shoe to drop, the way it always has in the past. And when that thud comes, it's anything but reassuring. You try to see it as a new beginning, as freedom from the slavery of just not knowing. That it's an end should serve as some relief. But you can't help feeling that it's a small death of sorts, the end of something, the curtailing of possibility, the decapitation of hope. You hear it spoken, as you have many times before. It never sounds good. But now, repeated ad nauseum by voices of various timbres over decades, it sounds somehow sinister, as if hissed with a forked tongue, even though the word itself should be a badge of honor. Is there anything more important? Use of the word in proper context is a compliment like no other. When meant, truly heartfelt, it conveys the deepest respect. It's an acknowledgment of greatness, of affection and honor. It designates you as special. It separates you from the herd, brands you with a special marker, binds you to the speaker through public accolades of your importance. And yet, every time you hear it, your disappointment overwhelms you, obliterating the positives. As the syllable rings in your ears, the only thing it sounds like is failure.

Double Standard?

So, you guys remember that post that started because someone wrote me a letter suggesting that women in their 30s consider dating men in their 40s and 50s? Well, we determined that some of those men feel that they "deserve" a woman who's young and pretty, who can wear the designer fashions that they want to see their woman in...and the truth is that for some of these men, 30s is too old...they skew toward late twenties... The other night, at Blog Night, a reader told me that she read somewhere that some ridiculously high number of older woman-younger man relationships fail. But we didn't have any stats about the older man-younger woman dynamic, probably because it's more common and no one cares. But if Demi dates Ashton, or Cameron dates Justin, everyone's like..."ooh...she's old enough to be his mother!" So my question is: is there a double standard in effect, or am I (this is the theoretical "I", of course) "allowed" to date someone ten years younger than I am? And if not, is the double standard biological in origin--that men have a biological drive to procreate, so they seek out those likely to be the most fertile? And what about that possible-myth about women reaching their sexual peak in their thirties, while men peak at 18? Is there any truth to that, and if so, what's the big deal with women dating younger men? And now I step back graciously, as the discussion commences.

"Making Space" (Jewish Week)

Many of today’s college and post-college-age young adults are involved in an online community called MySpace. When you register, you are given a homepage, which you decorate yourself: You design it, decide what biographical information to include in the profile, what kind of music or video will greet page visitors and put up as many pictures of yourself or other people in your life as you want. And although you can invite other people into your network, it’s still not called “OurSpace” — you choose your affiliations, but ultimately the profile belongs solely and completely to one individual: you. In some ways, MySpace inherits a solid literary legacy, with subtle flavors of both Virginia Woolf’s “room of one’s own” and Emily Dickinson’s soul that “selects its own society.” The message of both concepts is that to find yourself — whether it’s your truth or your art — you have to experience solitude. To exist in a place apart from others enables you to define yourself in a relative vacuum instead of in a biased social or familial context. And so, online communities provide young adults with room to be and breathe in an environment of their own creation.

To read the rest of "Making Space," click here.

Small JDate World

For all of those of you who are experiencing some "challenges," let's call them, with the people and process of JDate, I thought you'd enjoy knowing that at least you hadn't had this experience yet...

Today, Jdate, the online Jewish dating service, e-mailed me a potential match. It was my brother. It's a small world, I know. And this is Georgia. But one would hope the idea is to expand the dating pool, not limit it to one household.

The article's worth a read, if only to finally understand what the whole VPL ban is about. Plus, Jdatesgonewrong gets a plug from one of the interviewed daters...

Find Your "Eerily Effective" Soulmate, Plus Ads!

Because the online dating scene is both unsatisfying and resplendent with fun-poking opportunities (not to be confused with "fun poking opportunities"), Google Romance has joined in the fun...

• Upload your profile – tell the world who you are, or, more to the point, who you’d like to think you are, or, even more to the point, who you want others to think you are.
• Search for love in all (or at least a statistically significant majority of) the right places with Soulmate Search, our eerily effective psychographic matchmaking software.
• Endure, via our Contextual Dating option, thematically appropriate multimedia advertising throughout the entirety of your free date.

And yes, if you click far enough (for instance, on the link to "Post multiple profiles with bulk upload, you sleaze"), you will suddenly be reminded of today's date, and feel silly that you believed they were totally for real. This is the way Google does Happy April Fool's Day, y'all. (Via EV, who has no website) And here's my vote for runners-up in the Best April Fool's Day post contest: "Watch Your Diet By Watching TV: Certain shows can put weight right on those hips, others found to help shed pounds" Keep dreamin' y'all...

Blog Night is Tonight...

The JCC of Manhattan presents Blog Night @ the Lit Cafe Thursday, March 30--8pm Admission is free...the JCC is at 334 Amsterdam Avenue at 76th Street. Hope to see you there.

Esther's Rent Fund

You'll notice at the right that I've added a PayPal Donation button...no, I'm not begging, and yes, participation over here at JDaters Anonymous is still 100 percent free and open to all. But in case any of you are high-powered career types with money to burn and would like to throw some Benjamins (or Washingtons) over here to support a struggling writer with a killer rent, I'm providing the option. Thanks for your support...

Desperately Seeking Sperm-Donors

Saturday morning, I read "Looking for Mr. Good Sperm," Jennifer Egan's NY Times Magazine cover story about women in their thirties who have made it their priorities to have babies on their own, with the help of sperm donors.

One day last October, Karyn, a 39-year-old executive, pulled her online dating profile off JDate and Match.com, two sites she had been using, along with an endless series of leads, tips and blind dates arranged by friends and colleagues, to search for a man she wanted to marry and raise a family with. At long last, after something like 100 dates in the past 10 years and several serious relationships, she had found the man she refers to, tongue only slightly in cheek, as "the one." It all began last summer, when she broke off a relationship with a younger man who wasn't ready for children and got serious about the idea of conceiving on her own. She gathered information about fertility doctors and sperm banks. "Then a childhood friend of mine was over," she told me. "I pulled up the Web site of the only sperm bank that I know of that has adult photos. There happened to be one Jewish person. I pulled up the photo, and I looked at my friend, and I looked at his picture, and I said, 'Oh, my God.' I can't say love at first sight, because, you know. But he was the one."

One cute Jewish person, and she's sold. Well, to an extent, I can't blame her, especially after 100 dates, which isn't a number I've reached. So I guess people who are not in sperm donor clinics shouldn't throw vials. And while a certain part of me shouted out a supportive "you go, girl!" to the women who aren't waiting for the men to get their acts together or emerge from whatever rocks they're hiding under, another part of me was appalled at what I perceive to be in part, the creation of a child to substitute for the warmth of a lover or life companion, as well as the reduction of any sexual relationships that the mothers may participate in to a mere flesh-on-flesh encounter, with no strings and absent of any meaning or potential for future. Some of the women, while certain that they want their own children, are also in "relationships" with men who don't want children at all, and there seems to be an understanding that although the relationship between the two consenting adults will go on after the baby's born, said child will have no relationship with his or her mother's sexual partner. Not only can't I imagine how this will work parenting-wise, I wonder if it's going to be a lot more work to try to keep those parts of her life separate. But here's the case that really interested me.

Q., a 43-year-old health-care manager who attended a yeshiva from kindergarten through high school (she asked that I use only one of her initials), first sought out a Jewish donor. "Everybody either had glasses, they're balding or their grandmother was diabetic and had heart disease— typical Jewish population," she told me. Her solution: a 6-foot-2 Catholic, German stock on both sides, with curly blond hair and blue eyes. "He really was the typical Aryan perfect human being," she said, laughing. "He was a bodybuilder. He played the guitar and the drums, and he sang. He was captain of the rugby team in college. When I had the in vitro process done, the embryologist said: 'This is some of the best sperm I've ever seen. It just about jumped out of the test tubes."' Q.'s golden-curled, blue-eyed daughter has just turned 2.

For a moment, let's put aside the fact that she found the entire Jewish population wanting and opted for a Catholic, a "typical Aryan perfect human being," as she put it. And let's not discuss the psychological reasons for choosing to engineer your child with stock from the perceived perfect population (and whether or not such a decision is, in its own way, eugenics albeit an extremely different sort than that practiced by Nazi doctors). Let us instead focus on her demographic profile...she attended yeshiva through high school. So did I. What happened to her between 18 and her current 43 in order to persuade her that this was the only way to move ahead with her life? And how did she overcome community disapproval? Is she even part of a community? And did that inclusion or exclusion influence her decisions? What kind of support structure does she have, both financially and familially to be able to support a child on her own? And the question I found myself asking as I read the article, theoretically and educationally, this woman and I share a background--if I get to the point where if biologically the choices are procreate or give up the chance for motherhood, would my choices be any different? I obviously don't know. But what became clear to me as I read was that I'm way luckier with the support structures in my life than she seems to be with hers.

[...]Q. developed severe hypertension during her pregnancy and had to be hospitalized several times. Her symptoms lingered even after her daughter was born, and she became preoccupied with what would happen to the baby girl if she were to die. Her brother and a sister are selfish, she says, and her mother is elderly. Last fall, she went to the Donor Sibling Registry and got a shock: the Aryan bodybuilder with the leaping sperm has fathered 21 children (and counting — he is still an active donor), including four sets of twins. These children are all 3 and under, and their families — four lesbian couples, three heterosexual couples and six single mothers — have formed their own Listserv, where photographs of the children (all blond, with a strong familial resemblance) are posted, and daily e-mail messages are exchanged about birthdays, toilet training and the like. They are planning a group vacation in 2007. "I was elated," Q. told me. "To quote the granny on 'The Beverly Hillbillies,' I wanted her to have kin. Now here's kin that look like her; that're in her same age range. I even thought that if I get to know somebody really well from this group, maybe I would pick one of these other mothers, if they would be interested, to be designated as a guardian for my daughter."

Her mother is elderly. And her brother and sister are "selfish," she says. I don't know what that means, other than that apparently they don't support her. So if something--God forbid--happens to her, it looks likely that she'll be designating one of the other mothers--of children who happen to share the same genetic material but who may have nothing else in common, especially if her Jewish heritage is important--to be the guardian for her child. I'm not here to judge the choices of others. I'm not in their biological or situational shoes, and until I am, I can't tell you how tight said shoes are. But as the author of a book about children who survived the Holocaust because they were hidden--often with non-Jewish families, with the most Aryan-looking among them standing the strongest chance at survival--I can't help but feel somewhat unsettled, on a Jewish collective unconscious level. I've said it before, even with parents and siblings who I think would be willing to help, I don't think I could do it alone. And I don't think I'd expect the help, or be brazen enough to ask them for it. And as a freelance writer, I don't think I'd ever have the income to do it. And of course, a substantial part of me isn't willing to give up the dream of having it all--the companionship, the compatibility, and the conception--with the right guy at my side.

From the Simple Street Meet to an Audience With the Dating Hermit

Walking up Broadway last night, I ran into a friend of mine. She was with a friend of hers, and after my friend L. introduced me to her friend L. (I swear, they're both Ls) as "the world-famous singles columnist Esther Kustanowitz" (immediately proven untrue by her friend saying, "I never heard of you"), we struck up a conversation about dating. And just like always, I had no answers to her questions, which didn't stop me from talking for about 20 minutes. But still, I had no direct answers, because I'm not sure there are any. Her main question: "Why aren't people meeting each other?" Now, there's no real way to answer this. Firstly, because there's no way to prove that people aren't meeting each other in general. It's too general a question: somewhere, people are meeting and even marrying. I know this because I get the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times and because I keep getting wedding invitations in the mail. But the question could be: "Why aren't people meeting on the Upper West Side?" "Why can't I meet anyone?" or "Where do I go to meet someone?" It could even be "Will I ever meet anyone?" or "What the hell is he/she thinking?" or "Why am I always confined to the Friend Zone?" And I don't have the answers to any of these questions, because, for f*ck's sake, I'm still writing this blog and my column. Are there questions about dating that actually have objective answers? Or is anyone claiming to have "the answer" (this means you, Rules ladies and He's Just Not That Into You) a liar by definition? Isn't it all subjective? And even in any objective study of dating and relationship patterns, aren't we all just asking "Why is it taking me so long to find love and when will it finally happen?" What do you guys think? Say you've climbed to the top of a mountain in the Andes, where lives a dating hermit with all the answers to any questions we might want to ask about the courtship process...and say you're allowed two questions...what do you ask? And what kind of answers would you expect?

Jury Still Out on Online Dating...

Three publications. Three headlines. Stay tuned for the kicker... Online Daters Report Mostly Positive Connections (USA TODAY) Online Dating Common, But Safety a Concern (i-Newswire) Most Americans Think Online Dating is Dangerous (Linux Electrons) ...the aforementioned kicker? All three articles are based on the same new Pew Internet study about online dating. Which, just for the record, is titled: "Americans who are seeking romance use the internet to help them in their search, but there is still widespread concern about the safety of online dating." (Snappy title. Take a hint from Fiona Apple, and title the study "Americans Who Are...") Which makes me think that "news about the online dating industry" is a lot more like tofu than we thought, picking up the flavor of whatever spices it's cooked with, but independently and on a molecular/flavoral level, inherently pareve. But like I said, this no longer affects me. I'm done. Again. For now.

Mars & Venus Go To Shul: Jewish Dating Blogcarnival's Second Date

Sometimes the second date takes a while to happen. It shouldn't, if both parties are into each other. But busy schedules being what they are, sometimes, even if you really like each other, the second meeting takes longer than it should. And now, presenting the "Second Date" of Mars & Venus Go to Shul: the Jewish Dating Blogcarnival: Even though the two of them hail from different definitions of connection to Jewish life, Hilary and Annabel Lee both deal with dates for whom lack of religious observance may cause a problem. Nice Jewish Girl compares her life to a doughnut. Writersbloc suffers a pre-Valentine's Day loss, issues a wish list to the one that hurt her and learns to cope amidst marrying friends. SweetRose is a little shocked to find someone who makes keen observations about her in a relatively short time and muses on transparency. Passionate Life has formed a connection with a woman who's going through the conversion process, and decides to terminate correspondence with her, only to be resumed once she's become a member of the Tribe. The Trials and Tribulations of Me and My Rack (that's right) announces that Mr. Wonderful "has turned out to be anything but..." and Mission2Moscow ponders the Functional Value of Heartache. JeruGuru notes correctly that due to skimpy costumes and flowing alcohol, Purim's an excellent excuse to meet some eligible singles... and JDater relays a story about a spunky, fed-up female friend of his who gave an inappropriate questioner something to think about... Ben Baruch, Shabot6000's Aba, attended a Frumster focus group...and reminds this blogmistress that it might be time to revisit the whole classification issue... Maybe we should all just become acquainted with the true meaning of March 9: Get Over It Day (as reported by Annabel Lee)... Ladies and gentlemen, you've been wonderful dates. Maybe next time, we'll Blogcarnival back at your place? Be in touch and we'll work out the details...Next deadline is March 30...

Submit your blog article to this edition of “mars & venus go to shul”! Use our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Dumenco Opines: People Read Blogs Because...

Ever since I started blogging, I became a lightning rod for questions about the emergent technology: isn't a blog the same as a website? could anyone start a blog? and why would they want to? Now, media expert Simon Dumenco announces the answer to that last question: people read blogs because they want to get laid:

In this week's Media Guy column for Advertising Age magazine, Dumenco contends that knowledge of the hippest, hottest blogs can increase hook-up opportunities and boost sexual attractiveness. He maintains some people are using niche blogs such as Gawker.com and Defamer.com to gain pop cultural insights that make them more socially desirable and ultimately more likely to get lucky.

Picture it, Los Angeles, sometime last month. I'm sitting at a Coffee Bean with Nina Litvak, the co-writer of the new movie When Do We Eat (billed as the first Passover comedy, review coming soon...). A man at the next table, clearly also a writer, starts schmoozing with us..."are you guys comedy writers?" Nina explains that she's just co-written a comedy, and I say something along the lines of "I have a column in NY, and generally do a lot of writing, and a great deal of that is comedic." He looks at me, pauses, and says, "You're a blogger, aren't you." He said it just like that, no question mark at the end, just a period. He knew. And that was when I decided to dress a little nicer for the rest of my trip, and always put on some semblance of makeup, even if I was just going to the Coffee Bean. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if I looked like Cameron Diaz, no one would have assumed that I was a blogger. But in my jaunty cap, a sweatshirt, no makeup and jeans, and I was instantly identifiable. Which brings me to my point: blogs, and by extension, bloggers, are not perceived as sexy. As I've said before, after standing in a line of bloggers waiting for admittance to a screening of Serenity, "we are not a pretty people." Additionally, I believe that my blogs--particularly this one--have actually cost me dates. True, anyone who wants to know the real me will by definition need to understand and tolerate the blogginess of me. But there are those men who are easily scared by a woman who has a forum online and an audience of hundreds in which she can discuss any manner of dating-related customs, behaviors and miscellany. Never you mind if she doesn't actually discuss her own dates, relationships and specific personal behaviors the way some of her peers do. That the potential, the readership, is there, is enough. Couple that with my singles column in the Jewish Week, and it's a daunting media machine to come to terms with before a first date. So, although I hadn't ever intended it that way, acceptance of my blogs has become a prerequisite for dating, the way other people feel about having a guy get them a glass of water or opening a car door and waiting until they go inside. If anything, for me, involvement in blogging is impeding the lucky-ness that Dumenco seems to indicate that blogfollowers hope to get... Looks like I'm going to have to kiss a lot of blogs before I find my prince. No offense to the rest of the blogtribe, but I'm hoping that people don't always look at me and say, "You're a blogger, aren't you..."

Once a Quitter...

...always a quitter. That's right. Queen Esther's Royal Budget no longer allows for products with such a low return on investment, so she's opting out until her finances improve. Or until her optimism that she can meet someone great in real life plummet sufficiently. Whichever comes first.

Blog Night: Help Me Choose...(Part Deux)

Greetings, loyal (and new) readers... I'm pleased to announce that I'm scheduled to do a reading at the JCC's Lit Cafe Blog Night, co-featuring Stephanie Klein. And I've been asked to read some of the highlights from my blog (er, blogs). So now's the time for all good blogreaders to come to the aid of their--um, me. Over at My Urban Kvetch, I've taken the liberty of compiling links to a few posts that I'm considering reading. I'm doing the same for JDaters Anonymous so that you guys can see what I'm considering in terms of material. Feel free to vote, or nominate your own favorites...and come by to this FREE event on March 30th to hang out with Stephanie and me as we blogjourney before a live, wine-soaked audience. Back at Nothing The Vanishing In the Air Refraction Got others?? Share your favorite posts here...

Marching With the Penguins

Marching With the Penguins (JW-March 4,2006)

Every year, penguins embark on a long, dangerous journey. Their destination is the locus of all penguin life, the area from which they all originated, their homeland in the Antarctic. Although they are birds, they do not fly, and although they make their home underwater, they do not swim. They walk. One foot in front of the other, trudging on into a horizon that’s all ice, snow and instinct. The impetus for movement is biological and perhaps also emotional. Despite the frozen clime, they’re on a regenerative mission of life: the search for a mate. In other words, it’s kind of like a national Jewish singles event — think of the United Jewish Communities young leadership conference, or a JDate-sponsored trip to Israel, with all the marriageable Jews sporting permanent formal wear.

For the rest of the article, click here.

Back at Nothing

[Not sure if I ever posted this...I wrote it a while ago and shelved it. But on a night when I'm feeling wistful in the waning hours of my escape from my New York life, it seemed somehow appropriate to share it now. --EDK] I was sitting there at dinner with him, when I felt the change, like a click of a gear, or my breath stopping, or heartbeat skipping. It wasn’t anything he’d said, or his tone or body language that told me where I was. But suddenly, everything was altered, and not in the way I’d hoped for. My mood went from mirthful to mournful in a moment, and something in my eyes or face must have changed, too, because he noticed the shift. What’s wrong? he asked. Nothing, I said, because nothing was all I had to say. In the beginning, when I think there’s something, it all comes down to nothing. I thought he felt something, and he felt nothing. Nothing ever happens. Nothing is what it seemed to be. Nothing is what I’d expected—nothing but hope, that is, and hope has once again amounted to nothing. And there was nothing else to say. At that moment, I had realized where I was again. Back where I always end up. Wherever you go, there you are and always have been, as I always am, regardless of miles traveled on highways or through occasionally turbulent skies; regardless of the presence of leg or cleavage shown or the suggestive tint of lipstick; regardless of the hope springing eternal and the belief in my intrinsic, still-unacknowledged worth; regardless of how closely I’d listened and how well I’d understood. In the end, it doesn’t matter. Back at nothing is where you are when you realize that you’ve misinterpreted everything at every possible turn. Easy smiles and emotional nakedness do not a romantic connection make. In fact, the recipe may differ from circumstance to circumstance, city to city, but the resulting dish is always disappointment: yields one serving. Once again, I’ll be dining alone. That moment of a hushed eureka was one of pure understanding, pure disappointment. It extended beyond the reach of ordinary silence. There was simply nothing else to say.

Online Dating--Better for Flings or Relationships?

According to an article in this new online magazine called Shebrew, online dating, while good for casual hooking up, is no place to meet anyone for a long-term relationship. Now, we all know people who have met and married through online dating. But the question is, does the culture of online dating in general create an atmosphere of burning hot and fast, eventually burning out entirely, or does it actually serve as an important foundation on which to build a future?

The anonymity of the internet created a strangely depraved atmosphere. I was suddenly some kind of Jewish Casanova. I developed a system, documenting names and contact information as if I were running a business. It was fun, I cannot deny. But there was a surprisingly sleazy and sordid side to this dating site, and eventually the novelty was lost. I had signed up looking for a relationship, not a series of meaningless hookups. The promise of endless encounters with new women kept me ensnared for a while, with, but for me, the setup was too contrived to breed the emotional climate necessary for a real relationship.

Do we agree? Disagree? Discuss...

Like Reading JDA? You'll Love Commenting on JDA!

At the Jewlicious @ the Beach conference, I was just speaking with two participants who told me that they read JDaters Anonymous...so great that they identified themselves...so great, in fact, that they get a shoutout (yo, yo...Kevin and Jenna!) and inspire a post. You know I love and value all of my readers, whether you're silent or vociferous. But I want to encourage those of you who love to watch to actually participate in the conversation...your opinions are as valued as your site visits... So feel free to pick a Blogger identity, even if it's the very popular choice "Anonymous", and leave your two cents here for us all to see. You're all welcome here...

"Writing the Book on Breaking Up"

Nothing like a breakup-related post for just after Valentine's Day. Not that you should need it, ever, but still: Writing the Book on Breaking Up (Jewish Week, 2/17/06)

Famously, the course of love does not run smooth — have Brad and Jen taught us nothing? — nor does it always become the eternal substance of legend. Real relationships contain struggles, problems and arguments. And when a breakup occurs, whether it’s expected or an utter surprise, the end result is it’s over. Sometimes there’s pain or anger. Sometimes there are new, dysfunctional relationships with men or women who are not good for you (like Ben & Jerry or Sara Lee). Some people proclaim disinterest in ever dating again and others run right out and join JDate or Frumster. (Reactions to breakups may vary.) Or you could just pick up the new book, “It’s Not Me, It’s You: The Ultimate Breakup Book” by Anna Jane Grossman and Flint Wainess, which celebrates successful breakups of all sorts. INMIY, as it is bound to become known, derives its strength from humor and balance: one man and one woman lay themselves and their romantic histories bare to comfort and entertain the masses. If we are all soldiers on the battlefield of love, then INMIY is the USO show we’ve all been waiting for.

--more here--

Romancing the Bloggers...

For many people, the question is, "would you date someone who has a blog?" The implication is that said person who has a blog will undoubtedly blog in some way about your relationship. But increasingly, for bloggers, the question is morphing and becomes "would you date someone who didn't have a blog?" Over at WebProNews, Ken Yarmosh talks about why he'd like to date women bloggers:

It may sound funny but blogging may actually help foster more successful dating relationships. Why? Well just take a look at their blog either before or after a date and you'll begin to get a pretty decent picture of their beliefs, ideology, and interests. If their blog exists in a social environment like MySpace or Xanga, you can also get a pretty good idea as to who they are "interacting" with on a regular basis - yeah, I'm probably going to stay away from the girl who has tons of comments from other guys, she may be a bit too flirty. Would I date someone who doesn't have a blog? Yes, I guess I would. But blogging is attractive. It means the wheels are turning upstairs. It shows that someone is observant, pensive, and engaged in their world.

Oh Ken...have I got some really great, spunky, pensive girls for you...

"They're Not Even a Real Country Anyway..."

It's time we talked aboot this. We have nothing agaynst Canadians per se. Unless "we" includes South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but you already knew that they Blame Canada for everything. And George Carlin, whose "Let's Bomb Canada" routine makes strange, disturbingly violent foreign policy sense. Not that Canada should be blamed or bombed. No. Some of my best blogfriends are from Canada. But you Canadians need to get off your butts and ask us out. According to a new survey--coordinated by Harlequin Enterprises, so consider the source--a whopping 75% of Canadians lack the cojones courage to make the first move. Since I've made the first move three times in the last twelve months (never you mind the gut-wrenching results), this is proof that either a) I am not Canadian, or b) I am an exceptional Canadian. (Only the passport agency knows for sure.) So what's a Canadian to do? Become a "North American," because the survey then stops talking about Canadians per se and extends the territory of shyness to the entire continent:

More than 70 per cent of North Americans who were surveyed depend on friends to do the legwork when it comes to meeting people. Relying on an old college buddy to set up a double date can actually work, as 33 per cent of those surveyed met their current or last squeeze through friends.

Friends! Now why didn't I think of that? Now, where are all of my old college buddies? Oh yeah. Married. With kids. And SUVs. In the suburbs.

And if all else fails, some Canadians turn to fortifying their courage with alcohol. Twenty-six per cent of the men surveyed admitted to drinking in order to get up the confidence to approach someone, while only 15 per cent of women said a drink or two helps.

Finally an equal opportunity idea that we can all embrace. Happy hour anyone? How about AA?

The survey found that North America has a somewhat idealistic view of love as 42 per cent of those questioned said they think the best way to meet new people is by chance...[but] only 17 percent of those surveyed said they met their current or last significant other by chance.

Chance...like the meet-cute of movie legend. Stumble over a frog who loves you and suddenly he becomes a prince. But how many frogs exactly does it take?

Forty seven per cent said they believe you need to date between two and 10 people before finding the one, whereas only 12 per cent of those surveyed feel you only need to date one person to find your true one and only.

New math: Forty-seven plus twelve equals a hundred. It doesn't? Well, count me among the 41% who are missing in action on this question. I don't have any answers. I just don't want to buy anything sold or processed. Or sell anything bought or processed. Or process anything sold, bought or processed. In a word: kickboxing. It's the sport of the future.

What's Wrong With Us?

We date. And date. And date. But why can't we get to the next level? What's wrong with us? Glad you asked. Because now there's a book. Says author Jillian Straus of her new book, Unhooked Generation:

This book explores why so many of us face a rocky, detained, or pit-fallen road to long-term commitment. Why is the search for love so difficult for us, and what can we do about it?First I will take you through my own story as a typical thirtysomething single, urban professional. Then I will examine the cultural factors uniquely affecting this generation, what I call “The Seven Evil Influences,” that undermine our relationships every day. Through the stories of single men and women I will explore how these influences make us look at potential partners, how they confuse the dance by which we court each other, change how we perceive commitment, and pose real obstacles on the path to romantic fulfillment.

I'm tired of these books: what's wrong with us, why can't we, why isn't he into you...it's enough to drive a person mental. Or, as it's known in the scientific parlance: the week before Valentine's Day. There'll be more. Because there's always more. And it's only February 9.

Love-a-Mensch Week

No, I'm not kidding. And yes, I wish I were. Leave it to JDate and love coach Robin Gorman Newman to bring you this week, which just so happens to lead up to Valentine's Day. Coincidence? According to a PR Newswire alert, JDate asked members to select their favorite single celebrity mensches. "Mensches are the people that every mother would love," said Robin Gorman Newman, creator of 'Love a Mensch Week' and author of "How to Marry a Mensch." Women prefer Braff. Of course. Zach Braff got 27% of the vote. Then, the poll gets a little strange. Sex and the City's Mr. Big himself, Chris Noth (since when is he Jewish? Maybe he just fits Newman's definition...) gets 20% of the vote, same as #3 pick, Howard Stern. (What? I know.) Then we've got Brody (Adrien), Brody (Adam) and Brooks (Al, which I can only imagine refers to Albert Brooks). And the men like themselves some Portman--Natalie ranked at 46%, with Sarah Silverman and Lisa Loeb rounding out the top three. (Trailing these three are Winona Ryder--still, guys?--and Jamie Lynn Sigler.) How am I not ever on this list? Oh yeah. Not a celebrity. Yet. Oh, and by the way...not for nothing, as they say, but: Braff, dating a non-Jew; Portman, loves Israel but is always dating non-Jews; Silverman, dating Jimmy Kimmel. There are more, but I don't want to depress myself. Again, not that there's anything wrong with finding love. I mean, most of the commenters here are looking for that same thing, but you understand my issue...

Carnival's A-Coming...

...sometime over the next two days, I'll probably post the next edition of Mars & Venus Go To Shul: the Jewish Singles and Dating Blogcarnival. Things are starting a little slow with this carnival, because I've been traveling so much. But if you'd like to submit to this edition, please let me know. And if you'd like to host the blogcarnival on your blog, please speak up, kids! In the interim, here's something you might appreciate... We all say we're looking for someone who speaks our language. But maybe that's just a metaphor. Now we don’t have to limit ourselves. Or at least men don't have to thusly limit themselves: A new service called CuteOnly.com introduces Russian women to men all over the world using an online, automated translation feature. Hooray. (via Online Personals Watch)

Do You "Need a Mensch"?

If you're holding out for a hero mensch, you might enjoy Frumster's latest viral video, scripted by the online dating company and creatively designed and animated by ShaBot's Aba, Ben Baruch. "Enjoy!"

Older Men, Revisited

A recent post by Chayyei Sarah, titled "No More Creepy Old Guys," has inspired me to reopen the earlier discussion on older men/younger women. She notes that on one of the internet dating services she frequents (although I'm not sure she'd love my using that term), DosiDate, they've just instituted age limits to their member searches. "Given how many men in their 50's have "initiated contact" with me through the various dating websites on which I'm a member," she says, "you can bet I went into my Dosidate account right away to set up an acceptable age range." She says she was "extremely liberal," in both directions, when setting the boundaries, but that her "policy has long been that if a man is closer to my father's age than he is to mine, he's just out of luck. My father was 24 when I was born. You do the math." She also makes some important distinctions, that there's a difference between slightly older and creepy older men looking for trophy wives, that men and women should both be a little more open-minded in the dating process, but that both sides have to be realistic. Feel free to go over there and comment, or carry on the conversation here, as you've been doing, even while I was away. I know that people feel very passionately about this issue, and that's leading to some people being accusatory and judgmental, and others becoming defensive...let's keep the discussion civil, and agree to disagree where we have to. I maintain, as I said on CS's site, that online dating, although good at expanding the circles, which is unquestionably the name of the game in Jewish dating, also offers us a chance to reject someone based on a different set of criteria than we might observe if our original encounter is face-to-face. Picture it...thirtysomething you goes to a party. Friends introduce you to a man who has a friendly, open smile, a warm sense of humor and an engaging demeanor. As you talk, you determine an intellectual--and, what's that?--a religious/spiritual compatibility. Then later, you find out that the person is in his late forties or early fifties. You may feel a momentary disappointment that the person doesn't share your immediate frame of reference, but if there's enough "else" there, you probably won't care. Because it's about connecting with a person. One friend of mine married a man in his fifties who already had five kids, one of them with a child...The couple had a baby about a year later, a few months after one of the other kids had a baby, rendering my friend a grandmother before she was even a mother. There are, of course, exceptions. A friend of mine recently told me about a man who was in his late fifties who wanted to date her; she liked him, but she was concerned. If things worked out, he'd be in his sixties when their kids were born, seventies when they were in high school and college, and it was likely that my friend would at some point, end up bearing the lion's share of the parenting, either through infirmity, or decreased energy due to aging, or G-d forbid, even because of an early widowhood. True, no one can know what life has in store. Philanthropists become victims in fatal traffic accidents, and terrorism cuts off lives in their prime. Illness knows no good timing or age or circumstance. Those are things we cannot control. But is it any wonder that for women in their thirties, what they're ideally looking for is to maximize their chances with a partner they can build a life with, and with whom they can grow old, together? A radical idea? Eliminate the age range entirely, and have people respond solely to picture and profile content. Rumor has it people mostly respond to pictures anyway...

Very Interesting Discussion, Kids...

For the most part, very well-behaved, respectful discussion of two very interesting subjects: friends with benefits, and age-based dating decisions. I enjoyed checking in with the conversation from various tropical climes, and once I've fully read through the discussion thread from start to finish, I will hopefully get around to doing some additional commenting on the subjects myself! Things you can do to entertain yourselves in the interim: -- Visit Hilary and Annabel Lee (as well as constant supporters C and Ken "Long-Lost" Wheaton), and show them some comments love -- Vote over at the JIBs (Jewish and Israel Blog Awards) -- Visit Jewlicious and read about our upcoming conference on Jewish identity -- Register for said conference -- Check out "It's a Blog World After All," an article in the Jewish Journal about Jewish blogs

Vote early, vote semi-often

On Esther's behalf, while she's sailing the high seas, I thought I'd let y'all know that you can now vote for JDaters Anonymous for Best Jewish Humor Blog over in the JIB Finals. And My Urban Kvetch is a finalist for Best Jewish Culture Blog. You can vote every three days between now and 2 February 2006. Best of luck to all the finalists! (Which - sob - does not include me.)

"Friends With Benefits"

About this Friends-with-Benefits situation... I know what the components are: friendship + fooling around. But I've never been able to understand it fully. Maybe I'm looking at things in black-and-white, but the way I see it, if you're attracted to someone, and you like their personality and want to hang out with them, why isn't that called--or why wouldn't you want it to be called--a relationship? Which of these elements is present in a relationship that is not present in a FWB scenario?

• Trust
• Attraction
• Mutuality
• Convenience
• Understanding of the rules
• Respect
• Concern

I suppose if both people are equally invested in the casual nature of the relationship as FWBs, then it's fine. But how do you ensure that both of those people are on the exact same wavelength at the exact same time? And how do you prevent attachment?

Is such a relationship by definition limited in duration, until the whim of either party expires, or can it go on for years as long as both parties acquiesce? And again, absent the formal declaration of an agreement, does such a tacit arrangement constitute the very commitment the pair of FWBs are seeking to elude? One last question...is FWBs more generally acceptable in the college-age population? Can people in their thirties and forties engage in these kinds of relationships with impunity, or is there always ultimately a price to pay? I'm sure other people will have opinions on this. So I'm going to board a boat and let the sparks fly while I'm away...who knows? Maybe I'll even give you some guest bloggers...

"...Exciting and New..."

I'm off to cruise the Caribbean with Jewish singles. Why? To make sure that you guys have interesting material to keep you warm throughout the winter months. And because I need some relaxation that doesn't involve hibernating in my apartment in flannel pajamas because it's too cold to even let my feet touch the uncarpeted floor. (Want to read my Urban Kvetch post about going on the cruise? Don't let me stop you.) Internet access will be expensive and limited, so I can't promise heavy posting. But I'm going to try to do some posts in advance so you'll have what to talk about while I'm away. Let's start with a controversial topic: Love...is it really "exciting and new"? Or is love comfort, stability, and calm? And what is the craziest thing you've ever done for love (or for the possibility of love)?

Resolution: Post Links to Articles Sooner

OK, so I've missed a column or two. So here are the last two columns I've not linked to yet...coincidentally, the first two columns of 2006: What You Can't Leave Behind

Last Friday night, a few blocks from home, I sat in a row of chairs along a sanctuary wall. This particular synagogue was not some place I’d normally go, but accompanied by the excuse of friends from out of town, I tried something new-ish along with my Jewish. It wasn’t the traditional service I was used to; many congregants danced as they celebrated the incoming Sabbath, and a few white-clad, barefoot Jews reminded me of the hordes I had seen emerging from L.A.’s Kabbalah Centre in September. It was foreign but spirited, revealing an enthusiasm for prayer and Shabbat that I hadn’t felt in a while. After the Jews had been seated, the rabbi asked us to close our eyes. As we headed into Shabbat — which happened to coincide with the weekend of Rosh Chodesh, the new moon, and which was also marked on the Gregorian calendar as “New Year’s Weekend” — the rabbi asked us to think about what we could leave behind during this transitional moment. As I tried to clear my head of weekday clutter, sensory over-stimulation and the teeming army of germs conspiring to attack my sinuses, one word came into my mind: a proper name. As the year slipped away, I knew what I had to leave behind...

Soul (Mates) on Ice (no, I don't understand the title either)

Four 30-something women sat at a table, talking about relationships — it all seemed very “Sex and the City,” only with maki sushi instead of martinis. The subject was soulmates. “You have a net of available soulmate options,” someone said. “But some of them are quick minnows. You think they’re there and available, but they dart away.” The soulmates-as-fish-in-the-sea metaphors seemed appropriate, if a little insensitive to the spicy tuna rolls on our plates. One married friend maintained that soulmates were defined by commitment. “If the commitment readiness isn’t there, he’s not your soulmate.” But did that mean that soulmate was just another synonym for commitment or love? If something is bashert, meant to be, isn’t it always meant to be? And what of fizzled relationships that seemed promising before they plummeted; what of the perceived soulmates gone inexplicably AWOL? ....

For Your Consideration: Two More Voting Days

Watching last night's Golden Globe Awards, it suddenly struck me that I've been remiss in mentioning here that JDaters Anonymous has been nominated for Best Humor Blog in the Jewish and Israel Blog Awards. And since I don't have a tip jar on this site or a fancy graphic pointing you to my Amazon Wishlist, I'm asking for a retroactive Chanukah present. Check out the main page of the JIB Awards site (and/or my recap of the category on Jewlicious) and if you feel I deserve it, spend a few minutes voting for JDA for Best Humor Blog. Let's be clear: I don't expect to win. A few of those blogs have more visitors per day than I do all year. Statistically speaking, it's not possible for me to win. But I'd like to rate a little higher, and if you'd like to help me, I'd be most grateful. While you're there, check out My Urban Kvetch's two nominations, for Best Personal Blog and Best Culture Blog (the one contest where I have a chance of making it to the next round). And what the hell...why not vote? The only other pitch I'll make is for that other blog I'm all enmeshed with: Jewlicious, which is pretty much nominated in every category. Of course, feel free to explore some of the other options there and vote it up big time for the blogs you like. And thank you all for your voting support, as well as for your active commenting here...JDA wouldn't be the same without you...

JDate News Central...

[slightly updated] Two JDate related news items this week...firstly, if you've been to Times Square recently, you might have noticed JDate's ginormous ad next to the W Hotel, featuring a smiling, embracing (or, has it already led to dancing?) brown-haired couple and reading "Experience Israel." The ad is what I believe is the first ever Times Square billboard to advertise a trip to Israel, in this case, JDate's trip (don't call it a mission) to the Holy Land in May (presumably, information will eventually appear on this page on the JDate website). Although it's not clear how much holiness will actually be involved, since, as the ad says, "all the fun starts in Tel Aviv." It may be less about holiness and more about horniness. (Oh, I got one more: less Zionism, more "zayin"ism. Oh, you Hebrew-speaking people know what I'm talking about...) Packages begin at $2600, which is only about 74 months worth of JDate membership, for anyone who counts their money in those kinds of units... Plus, for all of you JDaters who don't have your own blogs and your own sites dedicated to how much you love online dating or being single in the modern Jewish world, JDate has launched or is launching JMag, its own online dating magazine. And they're looking for writers, in case you're interested in some purportedly unpaid, but heavily exposed work. No word on whether the articles you write will be hyperlinked to your JDate profiles. (But they probably should be, unless you're ashamed of either your profile or what you've written...which you may be.) Hopefully, the Israel trip will be a great opportunity for Jews who don't fit the requirements for birthright or who would rather pay for their chance to visit the homeland. And hopefully, the articles in JMag will be better spell-checked than the profiles on JDate. But who knows? Time will tell. [MAD PROPS TO TALTMAN FOR THE HAT TIP...]

Sushi and Soulmates

Out at dinner with three friends, we sat over edamame and talked. It all felt very "Sex and the City," and I wondered which of us was Samantha. (If it was me, we were all in trouble.) Issues came up. And one of them left me more than a little baffled: the concept of soulmates. This midrash states that what God has been doing since the process of creating the world was making matches...which is great, but why do some people seem to wait endlessly for their matches? Is it that they themselves, or their soulmates, aren't ready in some way to "receive" their counterparts? Or is it a question of merit? Is there only one soulmate for each person, which makes it next to impossible to believe that the two life paths will overlap enough and at the right time in order to achieve the actual meeting that leads to a lifetime commitment? Or are there several potential soulmates for each person, which can lead to confusion if you commit to one soulmate and at some future time meet another one? Is the word soulmate just code word for "person with whom you are sufficiently compatible and to whom you are ready to declare a commitment"? How does the 50 percent divorce rate inform one's understanding of the concept of soulmate? Can you fall out of soulmateship? The more questions I ask, the more questions I have... What do you think?

Older Men Overlooked?

I just got an email from a reader of mine, reproduced here for your comments and feedback:

You and other thirtysomething women are overlooking a large pool of great Jewish guys--often quite handsome and very wealthy--in addition to other good qualities. Guys who were handsome enough that women were falling all over them and, so, they were not interested in marriage until recently. But they're not afraid of commitment now. And they want wives and kids. I'm talking about men fifteen, twenty, years older than you. Too old? Even taking into account the fitness and life expectancies of these athletic guys? Your choice. But they're out there. I used to be a single guy in my fifties. I looked like I was in my forties and women in their thirties were eager to date me. But once they discovered my age I was history. On jdate, my listed age made me "toast" from the get-go. More than once I was told, "women in their thirties don't want to date guys over fifty." Well, one woman in her thirties did. That's my wife. Also now a mom of two. With a guy who was single too long and really appreciates family life in a way that many younger guys do not. Those women in their thirties who don't consider guys over fifty? I know many of them are still looking. "A word to the wise is sufficient."

Speaking as one single woman, I never pictured myself with someone that much older. I always remember that scene in When Harry Met Sally when Harry talks about his relationship with the much younger Emily: "I asked her where she was when Kennedy was shot, and she said 'Ted Kennedy was shot?'" The point is that there's sometimes a cultural gap between people of different ages; and in the case of a 15-20 year age difference, it's different generations, different experiences, which don't always mean incompatibility, but which can pose a significant challenge for communication and interpersonal relating. So, when women in their thirties decide that they arbitrarily cut off the dating range at a certain age, are we being age-ist or closed-minded?

New Blog on the Block...

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the "Ask E-Cyrano" blog, authored by Evan Marc Katz. He's posting about online dating: everything from profile contents to poor pictures. You know you have opinions, so be sure to visit and comment, and tell him you're a FOE. That's "Friend of Esther." (Oh, wait. You're right, that could get confusing. Maybe just say you heard about it from JDaters Anonymous.)

David Wants Hilary to Have His Baby...

That's right. Hilary, who's had a particularly tough day, comes home to find this postcard in her mailbox. It's from David, a self-proclaimed "mensan" who wants to have a Jewish baby, and he is willing to insult every Jewish woman in the 310 area code Greater Los Angeles area in order to do it, by making them self-conscious about the fact that their biological clocks are ticking. Plus, he apparently makes a killer klezmer cocktail, which, I don't think I'm interested in unless there's vodka in it.

Mars & Venus Go To Shul: Jewish Dating Blogcarnival's First Date

Welcome to the "first date" of Mars & Venus Go To Shul, the first Jewish dating blogcarnival that I'm aware of...next carnival should run the first week of February, so submit entries here. Want to "chaperone" a "date" for M&VGTS? Email me and let me know... You Don’t Look Like Your Profile (Online Dating) P-Life, wearing his second blogging hat over at Orthodox Jewish Single Bloggers, talks about the defrumification of Frumster (full disclosure, he mentions my article from the Jewish Week) and proposes a “Frumster Lite” site for the “differently observant” (which was actually my term). Joe, a twentysomething SJM, is jumping back into the dating pool and has invited the world at large to join him as he creates a Jewish dating blogring. And Hilary at Superjux gives you a rundown of this week’s Jdate contenders. (Not that they're really contenders. But you'll see what I mean.) Separate Seating (religious issues) Nice Jewish Guy (who’s divorced and looking for love on Frumster) presents his take on the hotness of Tznius as he tries to figure out why he’s been leaning towards dating profiles of women who wear skirts and not pants; and then worries about whether his open-mindedness to both skirts and pants sends a confusing message to the women reading his profile. Draydel reflects on the experience of being single at Stern College and what it has to do with the shidduch (matchmaking) crisis. What’s important in shidduchim (matchmaking)? How many kids you’d like to have? Whether you’ll cover your hair when you’re married? Or is it middos? Isn’t a person more than a sum of items on a list or resume? Sweet Rose deliberates. Annabel Lee wonders similarly—who is she, anyway? Is she her resume? That is a picture of a person she don’t know? (Verb agreement sacrificed here for a Chorus Line lyric.) Mars and Venus (interactions with the opposite sex) JDater Joe vents about a Kiddush-time interaction with a girl he had once been interested in., while Drew meanders through a discussion about what it’s like to live in the Heights among “so many young good-looking ladies.” JeruGuru goes through halakhic heartbreak, unwittingly opening himself to the criticism of others. Apocrypha (miscellaneous) In a long-lost post, Lyss talks about the Bad Jewish Girl in a post titled "Kosher Sex My Way." And All My Ex-Boyfriends (which for me, would be an extremely short blog) writes about this friend she has who might want to be more. Or, he might be gay. And, in a blatant case of editorial privilege, I'm including a link to my latest article in the Jewish Week's Directions guide, which deals with the ever-so-topical "What to Expect When Your Friends Are Expecting." If you've enjoyed this premiere edition of M&VGTS, I encourage you to volunteer to host the next edition, the first week of February. Email me and let me know you're interested. And don't forget to submit your entries for the next edition: submissions due by January 30. With good dating experiences and blog traffic for all...

JDA Presents: The Year in Blog Posts

At today's meeting of the JDaters Anonymous executive staff, one of the regional managers suggested that we do a Year-in-Review post. Everyone thought that a year-end wrap up was a good idea; then there was some discussion of whether this post should contain strictly twelve posts, one from and representing each month, or whether it should represent the favorite moments--the gutbusting and the heartwrenching--from posts over the last year. The latter plan won the majority vote. But we still gave it to the interns to research, so if you don't like the posts they selected, feel free to suggest your own favorites in the comments section. In any case, here's to another year of community support for all singles everywhere, and the married friends who love them... Best Post That Didn't Garner a Single Comment You Say Neato, Check Your Libido (January) Best Post Advocating Alcohol as Social Lubricant Why Don't We Get Drunk and... (February) Best Post Title Overtly Stolen From Hilary How You Got Here (March) Best Discussion of How Intended Compliments Can Land in Others' Ears as Insults You're Great, But I Don't Want to Date You (March) Best Post Based on a Visit to a Frumteens Website NEVER NEVER NEVER Trust a Boy (May) Best Recovery Plan for Disappointment Due to Unrequited Affection Single Girl's Survival Guide (May) Best Post Wondering About the Meaning of Bloglife Blogdentity Crisis (June) Best Non-Linear Post That Is Most Likely to Go Over People's Heads Refraction (August) Most Direct Inquiry into the Issue of "What Does He Mean By That?" Given Up on Dating (September) Best Exploration of the Possibilities for Why He's Not Calling The Vanishing (October) Best JDA-Originated Blog Idea and Accompanying FAQ Sheet Announcement of the New Mars & Venus Go To Shul Blogcarnival (December) New Year's Resolution Least Likely to Stick in 2006 Epistolary Esther (December) Cheers, everyone!

Epistolary Esther

This may seem self-indulgent, but I just realized that I am an amazing letter-writer. I say things I might never be bold enough to say in person (although I find myself growing bolder as I get older, which could be argued as both a positive and a negative), and I phrase things carefully, deliberately placing words in a way that would take others weeks. I do it in minutes. It comes naturally to me. The epiphany of epistolary prowess itself aside, I have also come to realize that I've been wasting some wonderful letters on the wrong people. You could write or perform in the best play in the universe--a brilliant amalgam of pathos and inventive genres--and if there's no one in the theater, it's just the tree that fell in the forest and was never perceived to have made an actual sound. So in a month marked by expressions of regret and half-intended resolutions not to repeat mistakes, I find myself crafting a challenge for the next twelve months: not to waste epistles on the unreceptive, or well-fashioned words on ears that resist their cadences. Letters will still be written, within the confines of my journals or eternally ensconced within drafts folders, because in most cases, the writing of such missives is an emotional purge for a wounded heart; sending them into the world yields unsatisfying responses, if any at all. A resolution so declared will likely be transgressed within a few weeks. But if I manage to resist that long, perhaps that's hope that I'll be able to kick the habit, for good.

"Frumster's Extreme Makeover?"

Didja hear? Frumster's going beyond the frum in its name:

“Unaffiliated.” “Secular.” “Synagogue=Never.” With many JDate members describing themselves with this level of observance, daters who wanted to create a Jewish future with their bashert were for a long time simply out of online dating luck. So when Frumster barreled its way onto the scene four years ago, it aimed to fill in the observance gap for frustrated online daters and create a pool of religious singles — essentially, putting the “Jewish” back in Jewish online dating.

[...] this month, Frumster announced a milestone: In four years, 500 members had met and married; by the Dec. 15 gala event celebrating the 250 couples, the number of matched members had grown to 520. Over 55 percent of those relationships had been initiated by women (or were so remembered in the “exit interviews” that Frumster conducts when members match). Sixty percent of the matches were between people older than 31. In addition to these encouraging statistics, the milestone has spurred a media push: while continuing to serve its Orthodox population, Frumster is responding to the call of the non-frum, extending memberships to all “marriage-minded” Jewish singles, and tweaking the membership process accordingly.

The rest of my new Jewish Week singles column is available here.

Mars & Venus Go to Shul: The New Jewish Singles Blog Carnival

JDaters Anonymous is pleased to announce a call for entries to our new Carnival:

Mars & Venus Go to Shul, the Carnival for, by, and about Jewish singles. Submissions now being accepted in four categories:

Mars & Venus: Men and women try to understand each other You Don't Look Like Your Picture: Everything online dating (no real profile names or numbers, please...) Separate Seating: The religious life of the single Jew Apocrypha: Everything else outside the canon

DEADLINE for the premiere, January 2 issue is December 30.

Have more questions? The M&VGTS FAQ Sheet has your answers...

The M&VGTS FAQ

Q: What's a Carnival?

A: Are you serious? You're a blogger and you don't know what a Carnival is? Basically it's a recap/rundown of posts from different blogs on a certain subject or theme. Need more? Go here and read this.

Q: Esther, why start a Carnival now?

A: Life's a Carnival already. And being single sometimes seems like a Ferris Wheel, with highs and lows, but ultimately no progress. Having stumbled on the metaphor, I viewed it as a sign. Plus, with a new year coming and with My Urban Kvetch getting lots of play, I thought JDaters Anonymous hosting a Carnival would be the perfect way to start 2006.

Q: I'm not religious. I once pureed a Big Mac with a glass of milk and dipped my shrimp in it. I go to shul on High Holidays or not at all. Actually, I'm not even sure what shul is....Can I submit?

A: Absolutely. If you're Jewish, and your Jewish life in any way impacts the way you live single or date, you're welcome to submit a post to this Carnival. Of course, we will have to circumcise you. (Even if you're a woman. We have our ways. Mostly through metaphor.)

Q: I'm not single, but I have ideas and thoughts to share on the nature of single life, dating, and the impact of religion thereon. Can I submit?

A: Thereon? Are you from another century? Who talks like that? But seriously...since when have I ever denied a fellow Jew a platform? Submit your post for review and if it's entirely inappropriate, you'll hear from me.

Q: Do you really need four categories?

A: Come on: four cups of wine is more fun than one cup of wine, so four categories is--heck, you do the math. Because we all know I'm not going to.

Q: Did you know that the word Islam means "submission", so when you're calling for submissions, you're really calling for "Islams"?

A: Um, no. In fact, maybe anyone calling for "Islams" is actually calling for "submissions to a blogcarnival," didja ever think of that?

Q: Hey wait a minute...if this is the first time you're announcing this Carnival, how can there already be a list of Frequently Asked Questions?

A: Very good, you're very clever. Now go back to your own blog, select a post and submit it to me via email at esther.kustanowitz at gmail or via the handy dandy submission form at the BlogCarnival site...deadline is December 30, so we can ring in the new year with a brand new Carnival...

JDaters Anonymous Open Forum: Comfort Zone

Today's topic: A friend recently asked me why women were "so afraid to leave their comfort zones." Living in a major city and attending a graduate school, he would meet women who were unwilling to take the chance of moving somewhere else, an opportunity that he himself hoped to embrace in the not-too-distant future. These women were natives of the city or its suburbs, with family under an hour away. These women had established themselves professionally and within their community. But when they asked him where he was looking at internships, and he rattled off a list of city names that would require air travel to get to, they became emotionally closed off and wouldn't return his phone calls. Do people (and let's make it gender neutral here, at least in the question) limit themselves by not extending their search for a mate beyond their immediate vicinity? Can people be faulted for wanting to stay within the lives they have created for themselves? Can they reasonably expect that the perfect person is going to appear and assimilate into their life, if they're not willing to be the one who assimilates into someone else's life? Or is it more reasonable to limit your search to the pool of people most like you, most likely to stay with you in your comfort zone? Is taking a leap of faith--or taking a chance on love, no matter where it takes you--a journey that everyone can and should take?

JDate and the Single Robot

Ben Baruch, the creator of the ShaBot ShaBlog (as well as of the robot-based comic strip ShaBot 6000) recently found himself rejoining JDate after a long absence. (We've all been there, 'bot.) He noticed, as we all have, the site's shiny new packaging; in addition to the HotListing option (which he notes, must be broken), he notes: "There is also a quirky Instant Message system that apparently allows you to send a one-way message to another member while you sit and stare at the screen for a long time, but get no response. It's good fun." But Ben's having some trouble with communication. Not from his end. The boy can write, and tries to connect with women whose profiles he finds appealing: "I try to show genuine interest by composing highly personalized messages instead of resorting to a generic stock letter. My sorrowfully ineffective method has been to start with a humorous reference to their profile, to show I was actually paying attention." That's what we want, right, ladies? A guy who's read our profile and is smart/witty enough to craft an intelligent/humorous response? So what's the problem? Is it that he lives in Brooklyn? Are his jokes too clever? Too sarcastic? Do JDate ladies hear the word "cartoonist" and think "unemployed, living in mom's basement"? Or are none of the women he's written to actually paying members? Or maybe it's that all of his essays seem to be in the approval queue at Customer Care... I give up. Ladies, if you've gotten an email from this man, do us all a favor and respond. Thank you.

Def Chat Room Poetry Slam

And now, introducing a new JDaters Anonymous feature: poetry based on comments made in the JDate chat room... Tonight's post...(actual comments in italics) I Always End Up at Weddings in Vancouver Where ever I go, I always end up at weddings in Vancouver Where ice forms on fingertips and cools the chambers of my heart On the other hand I expect weddings in Vancouver to be scenic But tomorrow, I have another date with another guy who wants to go out for hot cocoa A guy needs to be a man go out for vodka martinis or anything alcoholic in nature at night But in daytime, I think: hiya...howdy...anyone from NYC? And wonder... does anyone have a good recipe for felafel balls? yeah...the arabs. LOL.

Set in Type

Recently, I had more than one conversation about "types," as in "s/he's not my type." In this context, it's not about "I only like hedge fund managers" (although sometimes it is). When you say "type", it's all about physical type. "I like blond guys," or "I like thin girls," or "I'm not attracted to Sephardi men," or "I'm into petite women." Thinking about my past relationships, I am unable extrapolate a single type. I'm sure that my single sisters do have "types" of guys they'd prefer to date, like an Amazon wishlist of items they've ranked in order of which they'd like to receive first. But it's only men who I've heard say, "well, she's not really my type, so I don't think I'll call/write/email/contact/go out with her." Before you men get your Brokeback Mountain Underoos in a bunch, let me say that there were one or two JDate profiles/blog entries by men that pissed me off inspired this post, and I acknowledge (as I did above, hello...) that women do it too. But I began wondering if maybe men (and ok, women too) need to be a little more flexible about physical type. Especially when considering a first conversation or a first meeting. What do you guys think? Can we be attracted to people of varying physical types or are people really "set in type"?

Chat Room Poetry

And now, introducing a new JDaters Anonymous feature: poetry based on comments made in the JDate chat room... Tonight's post...(actual comments in italics) I Always End Up at Weddings in Vancouver Where ever I go, I always end up at weddings in Vancouver Where ice forms on fingertips and cools the chambers of my heart On the other hand I expect weddings in Vancouver to be scenic But tomorrow, I have another date with another guy who wants to go out for hot cocoa A guy needs to be a man go out for vodka martinis or anything alcoholic in nature at night But in daytime, I think: hiya...howdy...anyone from NYC? And wonder...does anyone have a good recipe for felafel balls? yeah...the arabs.

Get a New Plan, Stan

To: The guy who sang "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover" in the JDate chat room at midnight From: JDaters Anonymous Re: Your day job Don't quit it. But a gold medal for bravery, truly. Word to the wise...a cappella is not your genre. Try karaoke, you'll like it... /jda

"Hooking Up" Wants You...

Remember "Hooking Up," the ABC NEWS documentary series about online dating in the big city (NY, that is)? Well, last night, I met two of the women who are casting Season 2. They were supercool themselves, and I volunteered to help them find some great potential candidates...it's not even close to the show "Blind Date," which is kitschy and mean-spirited (even if it is gut-wrenchingly hilarious at times)--it's a much less invasive sort of camera, and you get a sense for what the people really are experiencing. Here's the blurb about what they're looking for, and if you email them, let them know I'm the one Hooking you Up...

Are you ready for the dating experience of a lifetime??? ABC News is casting for the next season of " HOOKING UP," last summer's hit documentary series about online romance, dating, sex and relationships set in and around New York City. We are looking for outgoing and articulate women and men, straight or gay, ages 20-40, living in or near (and primarily dating in) Manhattan, who are currently internet dating… or extremely eager to try it. Let our cameras follow your online dating adventures!!! For an application or more information, please email hookingupseason2@gmail.com as soon as possible, like now! (We've got seriously tight deadlines… and you've got some serious dating to do.)

Have fun, and maybe I'll see YOU on television...

"Forever Friends" (The Jewish Week)

An excerpt from my new JW column, titled "Forever Friends":

[...] It’s not that platonic, opposite-sex relationships don’t exist. But they’re complicated. Some “Forever Friends” stick around, hoping patiently that their platonic pal will someday see the romantic light, but this may turn out to be a painful mistake. “It’s like dating a man who is already taken, hoping he’ll leave her for you — it’s not the healthiest of beginnings,” says Julia, 28. Others find comfort in the rewards of solidly platonic friendships. “Once you grow closer to someone as a friend, the love you have grows more into a sibling type of love,” says Rachel, 24, “Soon you become so attached as friends that the attraction is almost completely forgotten. You end up knowing them so well it’s impossible to ‘like’ them any longer.” Sometimes that works. But when yearning deepens, friendship becomes impossibly painful. Unless other romances intervene or the love-stricken party accepts the impossibility of progress, feelings can continue, leading to soulful declarations met by disappointing reaffirmations with parenthetical, unvocalized caveat counterparts: “I think you’re great (but not great enough for me),” “You’re going to make someone (else) very happy,” “I don’t deserve you (I deserve someone better),” and “You know we’re better as friends (so I don’t have to tell you that I don’t think you’re all that attractive).”

Read more online, here.

Random Dating Thought of the Day

An estimated 75 percent of the profiles I click on on JDate are Geminis. What does this mean? That Gems are more likely to use online dating, or that I'm more attracted to Geminis, even through only a photo and a few lines of text?

Booze, Buses and Bodacious Booty

A reader sent me a link to this article, which tells the tale of a couple who, praise Hashem, met at the ripe old age of 22 through a Federation event, thereby, thank G-d, avoiding the angst and agita of remaining single into their early twenties. Yes, that's right. Finally, a story we can all relate to.

Amanda Glincher, 22, says that even among other Jews, she has often stood out as very Jewish. Growing up she attended South Peninsula Hebrew Day School and the Orthodox synagogue Am Echad. Her family kept kosher, and often attended shul. “All the guys I dated on this coast were Reform,” said Amanda. “They would eat cheeseburgers…. in their home... on their own dishes!” Jacob Orrin, 22, grew up on the East Coast and attended college at Rutgers University, finishing his degree at San Jose State. “On the East Coast, you’re stumbling over Jewish people,” Jacob said. “Here, there’s really few opportunities to meet people.” Especially, observant Jewish girls!

Ooops! Ouch! What was that? [Esther looks at her feet.] Sorry folks, just stumbled over another Jewish person. Back to the story.

Both Jake and Amanda were busy dating one after another Reform, incompatible Jewish singles. Jake had gone to a few cocktail parties hosted by the Silicon Valley Young Adult Division of the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley but hadn’t met anyone yet.

What? A few whole cocktail parties? And still no one?? The horror! But fear not. Liquid courage is on its way.

Although she had been invited by friends to other events, Amanda had been avoiding SVYAD events on purpose for several months, “I didn’t want to hang out with all the young and desperate singles,” she joked. But one evening, Amanda agreed to accompany a friend on SVYAD’s “Booze Bus” up to the Latke Ball in San Francisco. It just so happened that Jake would also be on the bus that evening.

“I walked to the back of the bus where the alcohol was and I said to Jake, ‘you’re too tall to be Jewish,’ and he said, ‘you’re too blond to be Jewish,’” recalls Amanda. The next day Jake called Amanda for a date. But the first night out together was far from love at first sight. “I decided he was creepy and we didn’t like each other,” Amanda said. But several months later, one of the special needs children that Amanda works with through the Chabad sponsored program Friendship Circle, told her about his amazing Hebrew teacher. Turns out, the little boy was talking about Jake. Right around this time Amanda’s parents were planning her little brother’s bar mitzvah and were looking for a kosher caterer. Amanda remembered that Jake was working in catering and she used the opportunity to call him.

That brazen little hussy...calling a boy. When I was a girl, we didn't call boys, or talk to boys, or sit in a parked car with a boy...

Three weeks later the couple was already talking marriage. Their wedding is in September. Why so quick?

“I’ve been on a thousand dates,” said Jake, “and when you know it’s right, it’s right.”

He's been on a thousand dates. Yeah, Jake. Me too. No, y'know what? I've been on, like, a jillion dates. So there. (OK, so maybe it's closer to twenty. But if Jake can exaggerate, so can I.)

Seriously, hope these crazy kids can make it work; built on a foundation of boozing and bussing and with the involvement of Chabad and Federation? Two Jewish organizations? Uh-huh...should be great!

"Online Dating": Another Reader Responds

A reader, in response to my column on internet dating, writes:

I just heard from a Jewish dentist who is either .....(after seeing my photo)...either hot to trot, smitten, married or all of the above. He gave me his cell phone # and wants me to call him ASAP. Another joker was smitten on the phone then disappeared for a week....never called back, but kept IMing me and finally asked me out for a drink. When I said I dont' drink and would prefer to meet for a casual lunch....he got huffy in a hurry then IMed me again and said he'd buy me a soda (since I don't drink). Another beauty bought me a lovely dinner then said he'd call......he didn't. He then IMed me several weeks later and asked me how I felt about safe fantasies and bondage!

And yes, I also referred her to JDatesGoneWrong...

"Not That There's Anything Wrong With That..."

SJM seeking SJM...JDate's now totally gay. And I think that's super, thanks for asking. So if you're gay, and Jewish, and looking for a Nice Jewish Boy, now's your chance to experience the enchantment of online dating, JDate-style:

The popular Jewish online dating site expanded its search capabilities this month to allow gay men and lesbians to seek matches. The Web site, which is popular among Jews of all ages, now asks people for their gender and the gender they’re searching, allowing men to search for men and women to search for women.

[Hey, where have I heard about this before? Wasn't there a site specifically for gay Jews? I believe it was called QJew, and founder Justin offered me an exclusive for my column...maybe I should revisit that. Hey Justin, if you're reading this, tell me why QJew is better than JDate for finding a same-sex bashert...]

Seth Kamen of Bethesda, Md., watched his best friend meet her fiancee through JDate, and said he hopes to meet a Jewish guy through the service as well. “Judaism is a large part of my life,” said Kamen, 28. “I want somebody who can share that with me.” Beyond celebrating holidays, Kamen said he’s looking for someone with whom to raise Jewish children. Indeed, with more gay men considering adoption and child rearing, the issue of finding a mate of the same religion has taken on added significance. “Anything that can bring together two Jewish parents, whatever sex they are, is an important thing to do,” Kamen said.

I hope Seth finds his bashert. But in case he doesn't, and instead becomes as frustrated as we searchers of the hetero-Judaic persuasion, JDaters Anonymous is here to catch him in a community of the likeminded. Because whether you're a breeder or a big old queen, frustration with online dating unites us all.

All Cliches Must Die

Attention Online Daters of America: Cliches are the worst of the worst. They are sins whose names we dare not speak. They are our own worst enemies, our fair-weather friends who seem to comfort until they stab us in the back, the traitors. They are the evil that lives after us. They are the bane of our existence, as they strip us of personality and individuality until we are insipid and undistinctive, people who love to laugh, who work hard and play hard, and whose family is very important to us. We must rid ourselves of these evildoers, because if they give us enough rope, we will surely hang ourselves. I know what you're thinking: "Esther, I'm no professional writer...how do I know if I'm using a cliche?" Don't worry, boys and girls. Clichefinder is here. Type in a word and it will generate a list of cliches using that word. If it shows up on the site, it shouldn't show up in your profile. Of course, nothing's set in stone when it comes to using Clichefinder. But well-begun is half done. And if you find yourself spinning your wheels, stuck between a rock and a hard place for language, and you suspect you might have inadvertently used a cliche, feel free to ask me. I'll give you a piece of my mind (if I can spare it).

Now That Sounds Healthy...

Diane Keaton prefers onscreen romance to off. Why? No nasty breakups. You always know what you're going to get. People stick to their lines, and do what they're supposed to, she says. She also may or may not be dating Keanu Reeves, depending on which tabloid you consult. In a related story, I will be launching my career as an actor in order to court onscreen romance. Because it can't be any harder than actual dating, could it? Thanks, Diane...you're an inspiration!

Internet Dating: A Reader's Response

Just wanted to share this email I received from a reader of my Jewish Week column. A DISGUSTED INTERNET SECOND SINGLE DATER (a divorced single mom to a teenage son who started internet dating within the last year) writes:

I recently got my nerve to take the plunge and start to date via an internet service, a Frum site. And boy my experiences, and opinions can fill pages of the Jewish Week! First off by email and telephone conversations- I have been lied to over and over. About if the guys have kids/ I am divorced single mom who wants only a guy who has been married with kids. So I have had guys lie to me that they did not have kids, but they did. I had guys lie about why they are divorced, ask me out after a few months of being either divorced, or widowered. I had been emailed by guys who were in their 20s... I am Baruch Hashem 40 and I don’t date guys younger than 2 years younger than me. I have been emailed by guys who are 65+. I am Modern Orthodox- I have been emailed by Chasidim.

I have no confidence of finding my BASHERT FROM THIS TYPE OF DATING. I DID try this in the winter and spring of 2005/ and I had a few dates- but no one worthy of being a Bashert. I came close twice but the long distance relationship/ and relocation issues would not work for me. I feel that it is easy to make quick rejections of shidduch prospects when things don't fit right. I have been the dumper as well as the dumpee and the guilt on this is tremendous!

After I asked if I could reprint her comments here, she agreed and added the following about her experience.

I am so glad that I am not alone in feeling this way- I originally thought it had to do with my baggage of my divorce, and my recent broken engagement- that all these wounds prevented me from finding my Bashert through that internet dating! That is what I have been told by the few lucky ones who found their spouses on these sites. But I have an acquaintance who found her husband on one site and she had a lot of baggage from her divorce- worse than me/ and had more kids, and years married at the time of her sudden divorce- so I thought if she had Mazel why not me? But the internet dating is not cracked up to what it advertises. I have weeded out the garbage excuse my directness on this- and I do it via the emails and telephone- I don't even chance the date at all lately--if something does not feel right, I side on caution and avoid the date like a plague!

And now, the audience interaction portion of our program... Some might say she's right to be cautious. Others may call her overly picky. What do you think?