Archive for the ‘JBloggers’ Category

“Having a thousand different ladies is pretty cool, I’ve learned in my life. I’ve (also) found out that having one woman a thousand different times is more satisfying.” – Wilt Chamberlain

For those of you who are not sports fans, Wilt Chamberlain was a Hall of Fame basketball player famous for scoring 100 points in a game on March 2, 1962. He was also famous for his claim that he had sex with over 20,000 women over the course of his adult life.

While none of you are seven foot Hall of Fame centers who star in movies as Conan the Barbarian, have a giant penthouse in Honolulu, or will sleep with what amounted to 1.37 women per day, many of you have engaged in trysts similar to Chamberlain… usually called “casual sex” or “hooking up” or other variations on “sex without emotional attachment”.

Casual sex could come in many forms- from one night stands, to that two date lawyer who became the 2 A.M. make-out, to that friend who goes from your bi-weekly coffee date to a “hey, I’ve got some wine and sushi, wanna come over” text at 7 P.M. on a Wednesday night. It is a millennial dream in some respects: a simple text, a night of intimacy, friendship intact, with no title whatsoever. Convenience.

For some in our generation who are excellent multi-taskers, casual sex can translate into dalliances with multiple men/women, so long as they share the same goals as you. As the marriage age gets older, and society becomes more free in terms of dating and sexual constraints, more and more people, especially young adults, see this option as a feasible alternative until they do decide to marry.

With this in mind, does casual sex tend to change the way you date? Do you learn more about someone through casual sex, than you would by just going on a series of dates? As a 20 or 30- something would you prefer to find the person you want to spend your life with now, or would you rather swear by the adage of “taking multiple cars on a test drive, before buying one?”

Everyone makes New Year’s resolutions, especially those who enjoy dating. At the beginning of each year, those single hopeless romantics create lists of 40-400 bullet points of what they are looking from in that dream Jewish guy or girl, from the color of their eyes, to how they want to meet them, to their favorite sports teams. On that note, if any of you message me, and happen to be Washington Redskins fans, do not expect a response back, even if you do look like Natalie Portman.

With that in mind, here is Adam’s list of the 5 or so women I resolve to date in 2013.

1. Dianna Agron- I don’t watch Glee, but apparently she is in this show, according to my baby brother. I am not a vegetarian either, which Agron is, however I can look past that and see that she is a dancer, which will make our first date a two-stepping date, because honestly, two-stepping is like salsa for drunk people.
2. Amanda Bynes- Reports say she is “reevaluating” how to spend her social time. I am too, as I am considering pulling the plug on watching Dallas sports due to the pain it causes me. So Amanda, for our first date, let’s get a Venti Americano from Starbucks and watch She’s the Man.
3. Emmy Rossum- I am a sucker for girls with brown hair and brown eyes (wait, you mean every Jewish girl?), and Rossum has it, as well as a cameo in my favorite Dragonball Z movie. She also happens to be a distant cousin of Vera Wang, and a singer of Christmas songs, so Emmy, what do you say we browse Bloomingdale’s to the tune of the new Cee Lo Green Christmas Album?
4. Melanie Laurent- My mother says I could use some world culture experience, so what better way to do that than by dating a French girl, who was in Inglorious Bastards. With that in mind, our first date would be at the gun range, firing .38 specials at paper targets with the pictures of America’s Ten Most Wanted Criminals, with the second half being at a low-key coffee shop.
5. Jamie-Lynn Siegler aka Meadow Soprano- Cause I’d be a total step up from Turtle (Entourage character).

Happy New Year everyone.

It’s 9:30 AM New Year’s Day. You started drinking champagne and vodka martinis around six the night before, proceeded to shimmy your way into random New Year’s Eve parties, put your number in several people’s phones, and woke up next to some guy/girl named Jack/Jill (names adjusted based on your preference).

You both wake up, and in between shouting expletives due to your massive hangover, and your mother calling you asking you if you’ll be at the family brunch, one of you inevitably rolls over and says, “wild night, huh?”

As you both sit there in the nude, you begin piecing your night, and find out not only did you bond over the top-shelf open bar and the chocolate fondue fountain, but also a drunkenly shared appreciation of Downtown Abbey and celebrity gossip. While in the hotel, you notice next to the obligatory King James Bible is a People magazine from a month ago. You start reading it, recounting the best celebrity romances from 2012.

An hour passes. You are both still naked. You’ve hung up on your mother twice. Your head is still throbbing, but this random who you met in a state of alcoholic bliss appeals to your senses. You like being naked, with a mildly attractive-looking guy/girl and ESPN’s Rose Bowl preview in the background. You realize you have to go to work tomorrow. Your mother is calling again.

With the clock striking 1 P.M., you come to the understanding that there’s only a couple of hours remaining on your weeklong work hiatus, and while this guy/girl is charming, you did make reservations for the mimosa and chicken and waffle brunch at the American bistro downtown. You want to burn some more calories before this unlimited brunch, so you do things not appropriate to describe in a public blog, exchange numbers, and go on your merry way.

It’s January 3^rd. You are sitting at work, with your email, Facebook, work website, and JDate tabs all open. Then you get the text…

“What are you doing tonight?”

You pray it was Mr./Miss Random, and you open up to respond, but you look at the name of the sender and it happens to be… your mother.

Oops.

So you’ve met this girl or guy. You like him or her, but you don’t know if they like you. You know where they work, live, play, and hope for a Hollywoodesque chance meeting at the local coffee shop where you can compare your latte orders and hopefully pick up a number. You want them to like you, but you also don’t want a restraining order against you a month after you meet them.

Given this situation, how do you properly “stalk” someone in a way that enables you to form some kind of relationship?

First, be nice. It’s a simple quality that goes a long way. It’s a “hi, how are you doing?” when you see them again. If you’re a guy, it’s even opening the door to a building if you walk in at the same time. However, being nice just doesn’t include the person you are after, it’s respecting the people around them when in a group setting. Show respect to their friends, and even random strangers who happen to be in the conversation. That way, the next time you run into your crush in a group setting, her friends will remember that initial niceness you showed them, and you’ll rank a little higher in their book.

After the initial niceness, it’s having the ability to make conversation. As outgoing and gregarious as I am, I have a slight tendency to act extraordinarily awkward around girls I like, rendering my conversational skills to zero. Once again a simple ,”Oh, I’m excited for this event “, or “hey, how was work today?” or “I really thought Shaniqua was going to get the rose on the season finale of the Bachelor” conveys a lot without making the person feel uncomfortable.

People go on dates with those they feel comfortable around and find intriguing. Yes, persistence is a nice trait to have, and telling your crush’s friends you like him/her may make them smile for a bit, but actions speak louder than words. I could be the greatest romantic in the world, but if I’m not a nice person, who’s going to actually want to date me, or even better, hope for a chance meeting in the local coffee shop?

Every Christmas, Jewish young adults are faced with the same routine: some sort of Matzo Ball Christmas Eve, watching the Macy’s Christmas Day Parade (usually hungover), volunteering or watching the NBA, then going to eat Chinese food and watching a movie.

With that in mind, the question I have is this: Why can’t Chinese food and a movie be a possible first date? I know in my previous post, I stated an ideal first date would be coffee, but the Christmas date presents an interesting option.

In my opinion, the Chinese food “dinner” date is different than a regular “dinner date,”  as Chinese restaurants are usually the only ones open on Christmas Day. It is rather low pressure, since you were already going to go to a Chinese food restaurant anyway. In addition, a successful Chinese food date, with enough time, could lead to the New Year’s Date that you have been seeking, whether a simple pre-New Year’s drink, or that person you are desperately looking to have a sloppy make-out session with at midnight. Not only that, but chances are high your friends will probably be at the same Chinese food location that night, so what better way for this “prospect” to meet them and attempt to make a good first impression on them, as well as you?

Now, let’s take the opposite angle: What if your date doesn’t work out? What if you have no connection whatsoever in between bites of endamame and sushi, and now dread going to the movie?

Well, think of it this way: If you’re going to see Lincoln, you can sit watching an awesome three hour movie in silence, while feeling good that you ate moderately healthy at a reasonable price, and are now that much closer to finding the person who you CAN stand a whole Chinese food and movie date with.

I have been fortunate in both Dallas and Austin to be friends with two long-term couples. Both have been together a long time (3+ years) with the Austin couple set to have their first child in March. They are two seemingly low-maintenance couples who find constant joy in being around each other no matter the circumstance. Below is a list of observations that I’ve seen from both couples, things that can be easily translatable to your own love life.

1. Dallas couple: After every time they hung out in the getting-to-know-you stage of their relationship, the male always texted “I had a great time! Can’t wait to see you soon!” It was something simple, yet something that resonated with his girlfriend even to this day. This might give away a dating secret of mine, but its something that I’ve copied to an extent, as it’s a simple, yet far-reaching gesture.
2. Austin couple- I happen to be in a leadership group with them, and what I notice is touch. Not PDA, not ridiculous hand-holding, but a simple touch on the back when getting up, or a tap on the leg when in a conversation. It’s not overt, but a mechanism that still indicates affection without being too teenage-like.
3. Dallas/Austin couple- Both couples are able to tease each other, even in the public sphere. Once again, there’s a huge a difference between making fun of someone maliciously and teasing, but the two couples understand and are ok with their faults enough to make light of them in front of others.
4. Dallas/Austin couple- While both couples absolutely adore each other, they also give each other space. The girl in Dallas is one of my best friends, but there’s just something about the idea of “guy time”, as she encourages her boyfriend to go watch the game with his guy friends, talking about guy things, as she goes shopping and watches reality TV with her friends. Yes, my Dallas buddy incessantly texts her while he is watching the game, but there’s still that idea of “doing your own thing”, allowing both people in the relationship to have some sort of independence.

Follow these simple guidelines and you will probably have the same productive relationship that these two couples have enjoyed.

Every time I see a baby, I can’t help but think how much disappointment and pain this person is going to feel. She (let’s call her she for simplicity) has not experienced any of her life, and she is so happy. She just crawls around and laughs and eats and smiles and poops. She has yet to experience junior high school, rejection, illness, loss, depression, and, depending on the choices that she makes in life, poverty, hunger, and drug dependency.

I can’t just see a baby for her cute innocence. Her whole life flashes before my eyes, and I want to try to protect her, because I know how hard life can be. I want to keep douchebag men away from her in twenty years, and I want to tell her the dangers of texting and driving.

I don’t remember being a baby, and I know that that was the happiest moment of my life. I think it’s a cruel trick that we can’t remember that early period in our lives. When I’m upset, I try to think back on a happy memory. Just once, I want to remember rolling around in my own food and vomit and pooping my diapers and just screaming and drooling for hours. Granted, I do remember that, but I want to have those memories that didn’t occur four years ago. I want to remember the first time I did those things. Back when I didn’t do things like that due to a stress and anxiety-induced nervous breakdown. Back when I didn’t have the cognitive capacity to know that if I did all of these things, I would lose everyone I ever knew and loved.

Maybe I’m an exception, and my life so far has been more mentally straining than the average twenty-nine-year-old. That is, American twenty-nine-year-old. I’m sure that the majority of people my age around the world have had it much worse.

Babies are cute, and I should just focus on the cuteness. They will be in control of their own lives.

Spreading some holiday cheer by modifying some classic songs we hear constantly over the radio this time of year.

“JDate, the Site for Singles”- To the tune of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer

So you’ve signed up for JDate,

What is a first date?

This is a question that has left online dating experts puzzled, the reason for 7 seasons of “Sex and the City” and the question I asked my mom when she discussed dating on the dinner table for the first time.

It was a conversation I recently had with a friend of mine. She is a beautiful, brunette Jewish girl who has been in her fair share of relationships and had her fair share of first dates. Her idea of a first date, she said, was a nice dinner and a bar after.

“Isn’t that setting expectations a little high?” I asked. “Wouldn’t a coffee date suffice, then you can move on to something better once you’ve gotten the initial jitters out of the way?”

She felt that if you’ve been talking, whether online or in-person, a dinner date was best. Her reasoning was that if she wasn’t comfortable with that person in an “intimate” setting, where pressure runs high, what kind of comfort level would you have with that person in a relationship?

I responded: I guess it’s easier for a sloppy make-out session after a nice bottle of wine as we wait for valet parking, than after a chai latte from Starbucks. To add, if I’m totally repulsed by the girl, I can always leave my coffee, as I make a beeline to the bar one street over. Plus, why add that unnecessary tension for a first meeting brought upon by a nice dinner, and what do you do for an encore?

She said another dinner date and a movie maybe… but then doesn’t it get repetitive? “Oh, another dinner date with Adam… how routine.” Routine is for married couples with kids, not two people trying to get to know each other. Shouldn’t you vary your dates at first?

I’ll leave this up to you. Let me know what your idea of the perfect first date is on Twitter @adamrosenfield or by email at adam.rosenfield.ar@gmail.com

Have any of you ever read those “Best Places to Find Love” lists? If you’re like me, and you constantly peruse Yahoo!, Google, and BET.com for those lists, you’ll find many of the same places listed: Yoga class, some random cooking expo at Whole Foods, a dog park, a Jewish singles event after 5-6 drinks, and during the Yizkor service at Yom Kippur.

However, these lists pale in comparison to the one place/holiday where everyone is out: Black Friday.

Think about it: Everyone starts shopping (provided their football team isn’t playing) from midnight on Thanksgiving to 11 pm the next day. You can find fiscally responsible men and women, shopping for the best “deals,” or those who just want the exhilaration of competing with 500 other people jammed into Macy’s, JCPenny, Bloomingdales (for my East Coast readers) or Hollister (for my wannabe West Coast readers) for the least expensive pair of socks they can finagle.

Isn’t money one of the biggest issues in a relationship? Doesn’t, “Hey baby, I don’t want to buy that vacuum now, I want to wait till Black Friday when it happens to be 45% off with the purchase of a large sofa” solve that problem?

The conversation starter is easy: “Hey, so what sales are you going to today?” Nothing creepy, just an easy question that can turn in to, “Hey, I’m shopping for superhero graphic tees too, want to come to Wal-Mart with me and grab a cup of coffee?” You can even start off with, “Oh, Good Burger is $3.99? I used to watch Kenan and Kei in my younger days.”

Not sure of the type of man/woman you are looking for on Black Friday? Go to a big box retail store and look in the electronics or general clothing section. Looking for a nice, city-dwelling yogi of a woman? Go to Lululemon. Want to find a man who has great finger dexterity and a competitive nature when it comes to shooting zombies? Go to Game Stop.

If face-to-face conversation scares you when finding love, don’t worry, there’s always Cyber Monday.