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In my neck of the woods, male bashing has become a competitive
sport. You don’t have to take my word for it. Just turn on your
computer and access the e-mail.
Nestled between my subscriptions to Frugal Living and inspirational uplifts
from Aish HaTorah, there are several ‘forwards’ on the differences
between men and women, and how to get your mates attention during Super
Bowl. Lately, I’m seeing challenging responses, from the community
of males. Most of the testosterone-laden retorts run along the lines of:
“Yeah, we belch, we snore, we’re not always thinking about
you, get used to it.”
Gulp.
For the record: there are a lot of very, very nice men out there. I know.
I meet them often on blind dates, shabbos-luncheons and at Singles Lectures.
Participants can, hopefully, retain the dignity of appearing interested
in something other than meeting the opposite sex when, in fact, they are
only interested in the opposite sex.
Israel is a very small country and, quite often, the same perfect matches
will appear at the same functions again and again and on four different
Dating Websites again and again. Many singles use different names for
purposes of mate hunting in cyberspace but please know that ‘Murray’
on Frumster who loves windsurfing and vegetarian cholent probably is the
same SWJM as ‘Sailboy’ on JDate who loves windsurfing and
vegetarian cholent.
Women who are single tend to befriend women who are single. Men who are
single tend to travel solo or in silent pairs with another stony-faced
companion. They don’t seem to need the safety-packs which women
seem to find comforting.
Many men complain that when meeting a previously married woman for the
first time, she will spend much of the date discussing her first marriage
and what a creep he was. At the same time she may toss in a few amusing
tidbits about her dysfunctional pre-teenage children.
Women aren’t so quick to cross a breathing male off of their ‘potential’
list after only one bad date. My friend Dahlia spent an entire day with
a man who needed to renew his U.S. Passport at the consulate in Tel Aviv.
Meeting in Jerusalem at nine-thirty a.m. they traveled by bus. He asked
her no questions. Hungry and thirsty, she hesitated to buy herself a drink
lest she offend him. So she waited.
And waited.
He finally bought her a cup of coffee in a Styrofoam cup at the Tel Aviv
bus station, explaining that he forgot to bring enough money with him
for a sandwich or a cookie. Dahlia remained quiet - - perhaps more to
do with plummeting blood sugar levels than anything else. But the glutton-for-punishment
actually went out with him again! On the second date he had been looking
for her his entire life. (Quiet? Light-eater? Non-spender?) But he still
needed a bit of assurance:
“I want total trust. An honest marriage. Therefore, I insist on
using the toilet with the door open. Never closed. If you trust me you’ll
have no reason to close a bathroom door.”
She didn’t go on a third date.
It’s not only nutty guys. My friend Art went out with a perfectly
appropriate woman - - attractive, professional, no-longer-living-at-home
offspring - - who asked him if he’d be willing to foot the bill
for her children’s psychotherapy if they didn’t like him.
This question was posed on the second and, subsequently, last date.
Many men well into middle age are only looking for twenty-year old nymphets.
Despite the fact that Father Time is working overtime providing these
same men with alarming paunch and surplus nose hair. So while I can understand
the hesitancy of some women to withhold accurate age information, it must
be understood that lying often leads to trouble. Because unless you swear-to-secrecy
anyone who ever met you or to whom you gave birth, the sudden appearance
of a twenty-two year old son is usually a dead giveaway that you are conservatively
over 40. If you have the forged-credentials to prove that you were a nine-year-old
bride in Afghanistan you may get away with it. I don’t have those
documents.
Not too long ago I dated a man who was fourteen years my junior. No, that
isn’t a ‘typo.’ Fourteen years! Despite his inherent
charm and disarming maturity, I was the one who couldn’t handle
it. I kept thinking of the future but the crystal ball was cloudy with
a picture of me sucking in my stomach until the veins in my neck formed
a permanent road map.
I’ve seen bumper stickers that express almost every emotion and
political perversion under the sun but I have yet to see one that states
the concerns of most singles in my neck of the woods. If some brave entrepreneur
wishes to manufacture said-decal, it will most likely read:
“NEED COMPANIONSHIP? DIAL 1-800-GET REAL!”
For feedback, contact editor@sdjewishjournal.com.