Archive for the ‘Single Life’ Category

Something tragic happens to you and the entire Jewish community knows about it, so how do you date after personal disaster? Tom Selleck’s character on “Friends” perfected the sympathetic head tilt “how are you?” when he was poking fun at how people were handling him with kid gloves following his divorce. The gossip mill is busy, and you’re the topic: divorce, death, illness, rejection, whatever. But you’re still single and you still want to meet your Beshert, so how do you rise above it?

You don’t owe anyone details, but don’t shy away from the fact of the matter either. Be prepared to address it and do so calmly, gently, and succinctly. If you don’t want to be a victim, then don’t feed into it. Let your dates know that there’s so much more to you than whatever the tragedy was you experienced.  The Jewish community is great about coming together and supporting their befallen – and you should allow them to help you until you heal – but when you’re ready to move on, let people know. Don’t make people feel uncomfortable for showing concern, accept it and change the subject.

Drama does not define you. But make sure you are truly healed from whatever it is before even attempt to date seriously.

Sometimes I am so unmotivated to write anything that I decide to think of a nonsensical title, and then write the post based on the title alone. Here, ‘alone’ refers to the fact that I am going to write this by myself, without a girl, or anybody, by my side.

Literally, this title refers to the fact that when I got to the gym today, my stomach hurt so badly that, once on the elliptical machine, I could actually feel my stomach breaking up into little pieces. I had to get off so I could run to the bathroom to vomit, but not before making sure that everybody in the gym noticed me running.

Figuratively, I guess this title could be used for a post about my longtime overdue reunion with my ex-girlfriend once we’re both dead and fall short of heaven because of both my religion and the fact that she is a terrible person. This, of course, sounds good initially because of the long period that I wanted her back that lasted from puberty to about now. But this is hell, and nothing here is what it seems. In hell, I will be forced to re-live that one time, while dating her, that I found a then-recent photo of her with her arm around another man. Then, she will desperately try to explain to me that that was her cousin, but not before I realize that she doesn’t have a cousin because her parents are both only children. I better live forever.

You meet a guy, fall in love with him, break-up and then agree to become “special friends” hoping that he recognize the error of his ways and fall back in love with you and ask you to be his girlfriend again. Listen, they can make movie after movie about special friends falling in love, but that usually doesn’t happen. You can save yourself the heartache — and the self-respect — by realizing that nothing good can come of it. If you are really, truly over him and don’t want to be alone, then, well, even still proceed with caution because you may not realize the emotions that you still have for that person. In addition, the time you spend with your special friend may be keeping you from opportunities to meet your Beshert. It’s hard to see the predicament from the outside, but try to understand the position you’re putting yourself in and see how it probably won’t turn out for the best.

What is wrong with going to a bar alone because it makes you happy? Aside from the many things that probably are actually wrong with that, I like doing it.

Whenever I convince a date to go to that horrible bar that I love, I always get there a few hours early. This is not just because I’m obsessively early for everything due to a decade-long superstition about acquiring a fatal hardening-of-the-skin disorder that I once saw in a made-for-TV movie starring Dana Delaney. It’s also because I love going to bars alone.

It’s so great. There’s no pressure to talk to anybody, yet I am welcome to if I want. The bartender knows exactly what I want because she asks me every time, even if my last order was just five minutes ago. Despite the short-term memory of the nice woman whose only job is to have a long-term memory, this is the only place I am truly happy. It’s usually Friday, and I now know why so many people in education are alcoholics. Alcohol can make you feel things that temporarily erase the other bad things you felt earlier in the week.

The one, and very big, drawback to arriving to a date at a bar hours early is that by the time your date arrives, you are already blisteringly drunk. I already talked about this in “Dating Drunk”, but I don’t think I can emphasize enough how big of a deal this is. This could potentially kill a date, or yourself, if you go overboard with the drinking. You will remember the date, but it won’t matter because you will have to go back to your soul-crushing job on Monday.

I think my predilection for not using phones and refusing to answer emails out of indolence has caused anybody who at one point was thinking of befriending me to rethink their choices in lifelong platonic companionships.

Any non-sexual relationship that I have made with any woman since I was a teenager has been crushed by either my laziness or by the fact that I eventually become attracted to any woman that I spend an inordinate amount of time with and with whom I am not related. Of course, this excludes doctors, McDonald’s® employees, and most dental hygienists.

Anyway, I think I am beginning to sense the repercussions of not ever answering my phone or replying to email. I am starting to feel more isolated. However, on the rare occasions that I do answer an email, bad things happen. For example, I answered my cousin’s email last week, and two days later, I overslept past my alarm by ten minutes. This is not just coincidence, nor is it my beaten, obsessive mind trying to find relationships in unrelated, everyday occurrences. Now, I feel that I am on the brink of really losing people.

I have to make a call.

As a frequent writer for the syndicated comic panel, Bizarro, I once depicted a character telling another character, “Hi, I’m…” before the other character replied, “Skip intro.”

During that first encounter with a prospective Ms. or Mr. Right, it’s as if we take a page from our own personal websites and relay our “About Us”. Imagine how much more we’d learn about each other if each of us revealed not only our personalized FAQ list. But personality-revealing IAA list.. Infrequently Answered Answers.

FAQ: What do you like to do for fun? IAA: Avoid spending time with overly successful people. FAQ: What was your longest relationship? IAA: Since the time you sat down till… (checking watch) … right now! FAQ: What kind of music do you like? IAA: Elevator. FAQ: Seen any good movies lately? IAA: No, because the actors in it are too successful.

Well, it’s getting late. I better – “Skip outro.”

In this era of ADD and multi-tasking, the art of focusing on something other than our own everyday mishegas is becoming a lost art. Aside from the hand-held devices that compete with actual hand holding, what if we tried letting go of those, as well as other barriers to bonding on that next JDate? This could be crazy, but hear me out. It’s called… hearing me out.

What if we paid absolutely no attention to our own needs, desires, egos, inner voices telling us what else we should be doing, and zeroed in exclusively on the conversation and well-being of the other person? Empathizing, relating, appreciating, learning. Not a one-way street dead end, but a synchronistic two-way street. They become fully invested in you, and you them. From the get-go!

The more invested you are in each other, even if it’s just a mental exercise, the more likely you’ll really start to become invested in each other.  Nice to meet you! Nice to meet you! You have nice eyes. (Or pick something about them that’s nice. Their nails. Their shoelaces. Something!) Thanks! You have nice eyebrows… Thanks! (My eyebrows? What’s wrong with my eyes? Inner voice, get lost. Back to them!)

Okay, we’re still in the beta stage here. Probably a few bugs to work out. But imagine, just imagine, if first dates made you feel good. With apologies to John Lennon, it’s easy if you try.

There will probably come a point, during your online JDate dating adventure, when you grow somewhat tired. It’s past 2 am. You’ve been at your computer for eight hours straight. You’ve been chatting with girls, reading the hilarious and sometimes touching JBlog, and doing other ancillary JDate-related activities like reading JMag or playing the JGames or using the JCalculator.

The television has been on for hours, but you hadn’t realized that it’s still on until you finally notice that the conversation you’ve been having via instant message with a nice, Jewish girl in Milwaukee is a word-for-word replica of the Insanity Workout informercial that’s been playing since Comedy Central stopped its nighttime programming at midnight. “So you’re saying that all I have to do is run in place uphill as fast as I can for five hours a day, and I will lose five pounds in just one year?” I ask her. “Who are you?” she replies.

Okay so the point that I’m trying to make here is that it’s late and you’re tired. Though chatting online with nice women is fun, sometimes you need to go out. Since it’s the middle of the night, ‘going out’ could simply mean using the restroom or getting more soda. Really, though, I think that women can sense the fact that you’ve been on the computer for a third of a day, and that you do this on a regular basis. Women are born with an innate sense of, well, sense. That’s why, though JDate is great, you should go out sometimes. Or buy a book about dating. Or both.

I have spent my life trying to find a practical answer to this riddle, and finally came across a viable answer. And the answer is that there is no answer as this is a self-nullifying prophecy. Put simply, if you are trying to check out a good-looking woman without yourself looking creepy by looking at her, you are already inherently creepy for having that thought in the first place. Any man who is not at all creepy would never look at a stranger more than once. Therefore, any man who looks at a woman is creepy. We are so screwed. Well, I guess technically we’re not at all screwed.

Do you think that if you walk past a woman and don’t look back at her that she will think you’re this super great guy? Do you think that that guy across the street who saw you checking her out from behind is actually god in disguise? Are you legally blind? If you answered ‘no’ to any of the previous questions, god bless you. You’re the reason that douchebags still exist and the only hope for humanity’s future, as the nicer, more shy guys have much less of a chance of procreating.

There is a very thin line between self-confidence and arrogance. How do men who are perfect balance the two? How do you notice a girl, let her know that you’re noticing her, and simultaneously let her know that you’re not some creepy guy who notices girls even though that’s exactly what you just did? I guess I will never know.

Goodbye twenty-eleven (finally!), hello 2012. Some of us have made our resolutions, some of us have recycled last year’s, and all of us (hopefully, or that’d just be weird) on this site are still single and looking to find and keep this year’s love.

So what is it that you are doing differently this year to get a different result? Are you still looking in the same places (online or otherwise) and clicking the same profiles of men and women that look the same? Do you find yourself sharing the same stories or details on a first date and then not getting to a second? (Do you see a pattern here!)

When it comes to the dating service I offer, most new clients are shocked at the types of questions I asked to base my matching criteria on. Initially, they just want me to find them the “same person” they’ve recently ended things with or “their type”, but that always changes when I ask – hasn’t that type of person not worked out for you? Try something new.

The same advice to you, my JDaters, try something new.

Have a question? E-mail Mel here.